In Pictures: Netherlands 2021
Zandvoort, Maximum Verstappening!
The Formula One circus returned to the mythical Zandvoort circuit after 36 years.
Practices on Friday saw many red flags, the first one was on FP1 because of Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin stopping at the pit-lane exit with a power unit failure. Vettel saw smoke coming out of his car and promptly went for an extinguisher to put it out by himself. The second one was when Lewis Hamilton stopped by the side of the track with another power unit failure. A third red flag came out when Nikita Mazepin got his Haas beached in the gravel trap at turn 12.
Saturday started with the news that Robert Kubica was going to replace Kimi Raikkonen for the rest of the weekend as the Finn tested positive for Covid-19.
During FP3, another red flag came on as Carlos Sainz lost his Ferrari crashing into the wall at turn 3. He was ok but his SF21 was badly damaged.
Then onto Qualifying. Q1 started with most drivers on the softest red tires but saw Sebastian Vettel in the Aston Martin and Sergio Perez in the other Red Bull not going into Q2 due to excessively slow traffic on track, costing them valuable time. Then, George Russell got off at turn 13, damaging his FW43B, and bringing yet another red flag. The session was re-started with just a few minutes left but Nicholas Latifi went off crashing heavily into the barriers at turn 8. Another red flag came out. Q3 saw fantastic laps but none better than Max Verstappen’s last lap, a record 1:08.885, followed by Hamilton and Bottas, then Pierre Gasly in the AlphaTauri, Leclerc and Sainz in the Ferraris, and a surprising Antonio Giovinazzi seventh.
Beautiful day for a car race at Zandvoort. The grid form rather quickly, and the orange smoke was visible everywhere, the party atmosphere was electric.
The race started as expected, with a fast-moving Verstappen leaving the pack creating a sizable gap in the first lap. Perez, who started from the pit lane after taking a penalty for changing the power unit, started passing people at a blistering speed but while trying to overtake Mazepin he flat-spotted his front tires, destroying them. He pitted for mediums and started claiming through the field. He eventually finished eighth and was voted Driver of the Day by the F1 fans. Upfront, Red Bull responded to everything Mercedes tried and kept the lead until the end. Hamilton finished second but was able to grab the bonus point for the fastest lap on the last lap of the race. Bottas finished a distant third.
Epic win… From Niki Lauda in 1985 to Max Verstappen in 2021.
““It’s incredible to win here today on another home track and it feels great to take the lead in the Driver’s Championship again. Of course the expectations were very high coming into the weekend and it’s never easy to fulfill that but the whole crowd has been incredible and I am so happy to win here. It was quite a tough race, Lewis was really putting the pressure on and both Mercedes’ had really good pace but we managed to have that three second buffer when we needed it and I think that was very important. 72 laps around this track is cool, especially in front of all these fans, they were incredible throughout the whole race, I’ve never experienced anything like this before in my life. I will of course celebrate at home this evening, but Monza is just around the corner and the championship fight is tight, so I want to make sure we perform at our best.””
““What a day, what a crowd! Max did a great job, congratulations to him. I gave it everything, they were just too quick for us. They had that upper edge, and it’s very hard to follow here. The last lap was one of the best parts of the race for me - single lap, low fuel. This is now one of my favorite tracks.””
““For me, pretty uneventful. We tried a one-stop, but in the end stopped for safety basically. As a team, we got a lot of points.””
