Piastri wins eventful Dutch Grand Prix as Hadjar seals maiden podium
Oscar Piastri has won the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort after leading it from start to finish. Nothing of the action behind him could disturb the Australian. Verstappen pleased his home crowd with second place while Isac Hadjar celebrated his first podium of his F1 career.
The start of the Dutch Grand Prix saw Piastri take full advantage of his pole position to take the lead. Verstappen, opting for soft tyres at the start compared to mediums for the McLarens had a good getaway and got ahead of Norris and even challenged Piastri, but then nearly spun on the dirty side of the track out of Turn 2, so he had to focus on staying ahead of Norris from that point on.
Hadjar maintained 4th, followed by Leclerc, Russell, Hamilton, Lawson, Sainz and Albon, the latter moving up 5 positions. Tsunoda in 11th gained one as well while Alonso dropped from 10th to 13th in the first lap.
By lap 4 the top was separated by approximately 2s between each. Leclerc however was eager to make it past Hadjar but remained unsuccessful in a couple of optimistic attempts at Turn 1. As of then Verstappen found his tyres to fade away, quickly bringing Norris in his slipstream and enabling the McLaren to pass round the outside of Turn 1 on lap 9.
Lance Stroll meanwhile continued his eventful weekend with a collision near the hairpin with Bortoleto. Stroll came away unscathed while Bortoleto incurred damage on the front wing endplate. The incident was noted but no investigation was initiated. Stroll was also the first driver to pit, exchanging his softs from the start to hard tyres.
In the midfield Tsunoda also felt the softs fading away slowly, forming a train with Antonelli and Alonso behind him. With Antonelli unable to make it past, Alonso was later pitted on lap 19 to switch to hards early, getting out of the train but rejoining at the very back of the field.
After a few blistering laps in which Norris edged to within 3 seconds of Piastri the race leader reported some drops of rain on his visor around lap 15. There wasn't much impact on the actual racing and even with some increased rain, stops for Tsunoda, Colapinto and Hulkenberg on lap 20 did not see a switch to intermediate tyres. Crucially for Alonso, all three rejoined the track behind him.
Three laps later, Leclerc was pitted right after Hamilton pondered pitting to use the undercut. Moments later however, Hamilton was in the wall, probably caught out by the slipperiness of the painted tarmac on the outside of the Hugenholz Bocht. The issue immediately triggered a safety car and pitstops for everyone who hadn't pitted yet.
The race got going again on lap 27 with the McLaren duo on hard tyres and Verstappen on medium. The trio held position as well as Hadjar and Russell who tried but failed to make it past the Racing Bulls at Turn 1.
The big losers of the restart were Sainz and Lawson. Sainz tried to pass around the outside at Turn 1 but then had Lawson squeeze him to the outside on the exit, creating a puncture for both and requiring a nose cone change for Sainz as well. The simultaneously returned to the pits with Lawson exiting first, but Sainz soon corrected that situation with a proper pass in Turn 1 of lap 30. That was however more than a minute behind Hulkenberg in 17th. Still, things got even worse for Sainz as he was deemed at fault by the stewards and handed a 10 second penalty for causing the collision.
Moments later a virtual safety car period was activated by race control to clear debris on the main straight.
Once the race was on again, Leclerc suddenly sprung alive and made it past Russell through Turn 13, basically by going through the gravel, reporting on the radio that Russell hadn't given him the space that was necessary to stay on track, despite him being abreast with the Mercedes through Turn 12.
Alonso meanwhile wasn't happy with his race situation. When asked by his engineer about his tyres, the Spaniard said "I don't know, you put me always in traffic so I have no idea". He was indeed again stuck behind Tsunoda since the safety car, who himself was chasing Bearman. Alonso also suggest an early extra stop to at least try something. After another two laps of failing to get past Tsunoda, Alonso was pitted, albeit in a poor 3.3 seconds to come back in 17th, 14 seconds behind Hulkenberg and ahead only of Sainz and Lawson.
In front Norris upped his pace and reduced his deficit to Piastri to little more than a second. That was actually thanks to a fastest lap by Norris which was soon improved upon by Fernando Alonso. Alonso found himself rejoining the pack on lap 49 with the Bortoleto and Hulkenberg closely together ahead of him.
Alonso was all over the place and at times seemed to quick he'd crash into the back of Hulkenberg, but the DRS train made Turn 1 a tough place for a pass. Still it worked at Turn 12 with Bortoleto up next one lap later.
At Mercedes they probably noticed Alonso's pace and opted to pit Antonelli to do the final 20 laps on a fresh set of softs. Ferrari did the same with Leclerc one lap later. The Ferrari exited out of the pits just ahead of the Mercedes and at Turn 3 they came together. Antonelli had opted for the low line but as he sped up, desperate to make it past Leclerc he touched the Ferrari's right rear, triggering a spin and the DNF for Leclerc. Antonelli could continue and pitted for new softs but was later given a 10 second penalty for causing the collision. Leclerc meanwhile suggested they shouldn't have stopped.
Under the resulting safety car period, most cars pitted yet again. Gasly and Alonso did not, promoting them into 8th and 9th respectively. Clearly, pitting again would leave both without any chance for points versus a very slim one given their older tyres.
The race got going again on lap 58, that's 15 remaining.
Soon another train formed as Gasly was unable to follow the pace of the cars ahead. Those behind however easily appeared to be able to go faster, the first one of which was again Alonso. What happened instead was Bearman, on fresh medium tyres, getting ahead of Alonso.
One lap later, Bearman made it past Gasly for 8th place while Stroll overtook Alonso for 10th. Stroll followed that up with an overtake of Gasly as well. Alonso did the same another lap later and moved back into the points while Gasly dropped into 11th.
When just 7 laps remained, Norris first reported a strange feeling in the cockpit before smoke came out of the car. Norris immediately parked the car and forced another safety car. The retirement promoted Hadjar to a podium position and Gasly back into the final points scoring position. That was also bad news for Antonelli as his 5 second penalty for speeding in the pitlane could prove very costly when applied at the end of the race.
With 3 laps remaining the SC left the track, and right at that time more drops of rain fell. Piastri maintained the lead despite Verstappen being very close at the restart. Positions remained unchanged apart from Lawson who managed to pass Hulkenberg for 14th position.
On the penultimate lap Gasly came together with Tsunoda, dropping Gasly to 14th and eventually last as Tsunoda inherited 10th.
So that sealed Piastri's win at the Dutch Grand Prix with Verstappen second and Hadjar third, bringing ecstasy to the Racing Bulls team and the Frenchman himself.
