(Zandvoort) Clear winner of the last Formula 1 Grand Prix in neighboring Belgium last Sunday, Dutchman Max Verstappen, leader of the F1 world championship, is aiming for a fourth victory in a row this weekend, this time at home, in the Nederlands.
Posted at 6:29
Faced with an “Orange army” won over to its cause, “Mad Max” is already expecting a “rather crazy” weekend on its land. “It will be great to have my family by my side to support me, I will just enjoy the weekend with all the fans”, he is already impatient.
On the coastal circuit of Zandvoort, whose name marked the history of motorsport with thirty GPs between 1952 and 1985 – before returning to the calendar in 2021 – the local event also hopes to win as on the legendary track of Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium), where he achieved feats to win last weekend.
On Sunday, in front of his crowd, the Dutchman – born in Belgium to a Belgian mother – had crushed the competition: launched from an unusual 14e place after a penalty for an engine change, he firmly managed to put his Red Bull back at the top of the standings.
With this victory – his third in a row and his ninth of the season – Verstappen has taken a serious option on the victory in the championship: the competition is already relegated to almost 100 units of the leader, at the dawn of the 15e race of the season (out of 22).
Leclerc and Ferrari dropped
The Red Bull driver is 93 points ahead of his teammate Sergio Pérez. Or more than three jokers in advance, knowing that a race is worth a maximum of 26 points (including one point for the best lap on the track).
The Mexican took advantage of his second place snatch in Belgium to take over the position of runner-up in the championship from Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), a leading time at the start of the season, now third and relegated to 98 units from the Dutchman.
For Verstappen, the question is no longer if, but when he will be titled. If he wins in Zandvoort, then in Monza next weekend and in Singapore at the beginning of October and his pursuers in the championship, at the same time, do not snatch any points, the reigning world champion could then be crowned in the Singaporean city-state.
Faced with this extreme scenario, the Dutchman prefers to temporize before the arrival of the paddock at home. In Zandvoort, “there is a lot more downforce (than on the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, editor’s note), so it will be more difficult for us to be dominant, I expect the Ferraris to be strong the low “.
But the Scuderia has few illusions about the general classification: “The championship undoubtedly seems extremely difficult now, with the pace they (the Red Bulls, editor’s note) have displayed”, admitted Leclerc, even judging the “worrying” performance gap in Belgium.
The Ferrari driver has reason to have cold sweats, because the prancing horse team, second in the constructors’ standings, continues to give ground to its rival: 118 points separate the two teams today. A hole.
” Work hard “
The end of the season therefore looks a priori like a walk in the park for Red Bull and its 24-year-old prodigy, on track to end the series of eight consecutive constructor titles for Mercedes, currently third.
In Zandvoort, the German manufacturer, in difficulty this season, will especially want to turn the page of a catastrophic Belgian GP for Lewis Hamilton, forced to retire after a collision with the Spaniard Fernando Alonso – a vertical shock measured at 45 G for the British…
After this difficult weekend for Mercedes, still in search of a first victory this season, boss Toto Wolff assures that the team has “worked hard to understand [ses] difficulties at Spa”, and try to climb the slope in the Netherlands, where Hamilton had finished 2e last year at the wheel of his Silver Arrow.
The Dutch route could also be an opportunity for another team, the French Alpine, to confirm its progress after its “best weekend of the season”, according to Normand Esteban Ocon, back from the 16e at the 7e place on the Spa circuit.