Max Verstappen winner at home ahead of George Russell and Charles Leclerc

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Alone or world or almost, with 105,000 people behind him. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) won his fourth consecutive victory in the Netherlands, the second in a row at home since the return of Formula 1 to Zandvoort. The reigning world champion will not have let anything destabilize him, neither the pressure of the event and its context, nor the intervention of the safety car fifteen laps from the finish.

Behind, a clairvoyant George Russell (Mercedes) made a good second ahead of Charles Leclerc, probably not unhappy to get a podium for an unthinkable time after the new trial and error of his Ferrari team. The French Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly rank 9th and 11th respectively.

In front, Max Verstappen will not have seen many people in front of him all this Sunday. Starting from pole position, the Dutchman only let go of the controls of the race during the pit stops and following the arrival of the safety car on the 57th of the 72 laps of the Grand Prix. Red Bull then recalled its champion to put on new tires and find himself behind Lewis Hamilton, ephemeral leader, in an almost perfect remake of the outcome of the 2021 season. The Briton was on a less competitive rubber, and already worn by several loops . Verstappen made short work of it as soon as the race resumed.

So much for the little thrill of the day. Because apart from this brief skirmish – and Hamilton’s explosion of rage against his team for not having fitted new tires – the victory of “Supermax” has never been in real doubt. The triumph, in front of a delirious public, is total, and one can already wonder how a second title of world champion can escape him. The suspense may now be to know who will end up as dolphin.

His teammate Sergio Pérez, second in the championship before this Sunday, confirmed that his revival last weekend in Belgium is only a smokescreen in the heart of a bad patch. The Mexican’s fifth place allows Charles Leclerc, third of the day, to return to the height of the second Red Bull driver, but 109 points behind the defending champion. The Monegasque could hardly have hoped for better with a less dashing Ferrari than at the start of the weekend, a week before his meeting at Monza.

The ordeal was much worse for his box neighbor Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard saw his race scuttled by his team on his first pit stop, with a missing wheel and precious flying seconds. Late in the race, Sainz picked up a five-second penalty, again following a pit incident, and a dangerous restart that resulted in a damage-free collision with Fernando Alonso’s Alpine. The chalice to the dregs for Ferrari, which will not have shone either by its strategic choices before the safety car, leaving its drivers with degraded medium tires when the rest of the field saw the hard tires performing.

A history of tires is also what enabled George Russell, at the initiative of his decisive tire change, to obtain his best career result with second place. And Mercedes, which we thought was dying at the start of the season, can legitimately aim for the top of the table at the end of the season: Russell is only 13 points behind the Leclerc-Pérez duo in the drivers’ standings, and the Silver Arrows are only 30 points behind Ferrari at the manufacturers. Behind the leading group, Alpine scores big points (Alonso 6th, Ocon 9th), while Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri) concluded a frustrating weekend at the door of the Top 10.


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