Race Results 2021 Dutch F1 Grand Prix

Event: Dutch Grand Prix
Track: Zandvoort circuit

Start of the 2021 Dutch F1 GP

Weather: dry 22.1°C
Tarmac: dry 35.6°C
Humidity : 49.4%
Wind : 0.6 m/s NE
Pressure: 1021.2 bar

Max Verstappen won his first Dutch F1 GP today it was his 7th race win of the season. The Red Bull Racing driver started from P1 and drove 64 laps in the lead to score his first home GP win. It was the 72nd race win for Red Bull Racing.

All cars got away clean at the start and went into the tight first corner called Tarzan corner. The following corners we saw both Alpines touch. Red Bull driver Sergio Perez and Williams driver Nicholas Latifi both had to start from the pit lane, because the teams had to modify their cars under Parc Fermé. Fernando Alonso won 2 positions in the first lap and Verstappen pulled away from the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton who was on P2 and managed to create a gap of 2 sec. after lap 1.

AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly who qualified 4th with both Ferrari drivers behind did an amazing job and kept 4th place. In lap 7 Verstappen had increased his gap to Hamilton to 3s.

Haas driver Mick Schumacher had a fierce battle again with his teammate and pitted in lap 7. The consequence was that Verstappen already lapped the German driver in lap 8. McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo also gained a place at the start, while Alfa Romeo driver Antonio Giovinazzi, lost two places on lap one..

Perez who started from the pits had to pit on lap 9, because his car had some huge vibration of a flatspot on his right front tyre.The flat spot was the result of a lock up, when the Mexican driver tried to overtake Mazepin at ' Tarzan'.

In Lap 11 Sebastian Vettel also pitted. His pitstop took 2.3s, the German driver switched from soft to hard tyres. Latifi who also started from the pits did manage to pass Mazepin on the outside of Tarzan corner in lap 14. Verstappen at that point was 3.5 sec. in front of Hamilton

Hamilton was the first of the front runners to do a pitstop to try and undercut his rival Verstappen in lap 21. The pitstop wasn't very quick and took 3.6s. Hamilton switched to a set of new medium tyres. The Red Bull team reacted immediately and pitted their race leader Verstappen one lap later. Although their pitstop was almost 1 sec. quicker and took 2.7s, Verstappen leaned was cut to only 2 sec. when he returned to the track.

In lap 24 Perez had passed AlphaTauri drive for P14. Valtteri Bottas was on a 1 stop strategy and hadn't pitted yet and was leading the race with Verstappen 7 sec. behind him on a fresh set of mediums and was closing fast. PIerre Gasly who was still on P4 and driving in no man's land pitted in lap 25 from soft to hard for a one stop.

After the first pit stops Hamilton was trying everything he could to close the gap towards Verstappen. With a little help of Bottas who held up the Dutchman, the gap had reduced to only 1.3 seconds on lap 27. Four laps later Verstappen was able to overtake the Finnish driver on the main straight.The 70,000 strong, orange army roared their delight loudly and Bottas quickly went out of the way of his teammate Hamilton to let him pass. At that moment the gap between Hamilton and Verstappen was only 0,7s, but Verstappen was able to quickly increase the gap back to 1.6s in lap 32.

Sergio Perez the (11) Red Bull Racing RB16B Honda overtakes Robert Kubica driving the (88) Alfa Romeo Racing C41 Ferrari during the F1 Grand Prix of The Netherlands at Circuit Zandvoort

Bottas did his pitstop at the end of lap 32 to switch from soft to hard tyres and drive out the race in a pitstop that only took 2.2 sec. for the Mercedes team. Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel spun in turn 3 trying to pass Tsunoda and caused the real first yellow flag moment of the race. The spin caused Bottas a few seconds because he had to brake hard, to not crash Vettel's car. At this point Verstappen had increased his lead to Hamilton to 2.2 sec.

Mercedes decided to pit Hamilton again in lap 40 for a set of used mediums to try and undercut Verstappen again, but the Red Bull again reacted quickly and pitted the Dutchman for a new set of hard tyres. This time Hamilton's pitstop took only 2.5s, but Red Bull again was faster and pitted their driver in only 2.1s. Although Hamilton clocked the quickest lap time, the gap had increased now to 3.5s.

Russian driver Nikita Mazepin was the first driver who had to retire the Haas. He drove back to the Haas team garage in lap 44 with a technical problem.

Perez did his second pitstop in lap 49 of the race and switched to soft tyres. The Mexican driver who, due to pitstops of his rivals already was driving up to P7 before his stop, came back on the track as 12th behind Williams driver George Russell.

In lap 50 Yuki Tsunoda was the second driver to retire from the Dutch F1 Grand Prix with a technical problem.

In lap 53 Hamilton was pushing again to put pressure on Verstappen for the lead. At this time the Dutch driver had a lot of traffic to lap and Hamilton was able to get closer to the Red Bull driver. The closest he got was 1.3 sec., but the Mercedes team seemed to have pitted the champ to early and he had to back off in lap 61 to make it to the end with the medium set of tyres.

Race winner Max Verstappen driving the (33) Red Bull Racing RB16B Honda passes his team celebrating on the pitwall during the F1 Grand Prix of The Netherlands at Circuit Zandvoort

Perez who was charging through the field was on the back of Norris in lap 68, but the British driver wasn't making life easy for the Mexican and both drivers touched several times, but Perez was able to make his pass around the outside of Tarzan corner stick.

Bottas was pitted again, the Finnish driver didn't understand why he was pitted so late in the race and was told by his team it was a "precaution" pitstop, so he took his chance and went for the fastest lap point and scored purple sectors right away. But because the Mercedes team wanted Hamilton to get score the extra point, the team quickly told Bottas on the radio to abort fastest lap in sector 3. Hamilton also got a set of softs at the end of lap 70 and had one chance to score fastest lap in the last lap and did what he had to do.

Verstappen won this historical race in front of his home crowd that was going wild when he crossed the finish line.

Classification 2021 Dutch GP

P	No	Driver	Team	Time	Laps	Grid	Pts
1	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	01:30:05.395	72	1	25
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	01:30:26.327	72	2	19
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	01:31:01.855	72	3	15
4	10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	01:30:17.183	71	4	12
5	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	01:30:22.175	71	5	10
6	14	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	01:30:50.864	71	9	8
7	55	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	01:30:52.896	71	6	6
8	11	Sergio Pérez	Red Bull	01:30:53.479	71	19	4
9	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	01:30:54.465	71	8	2
10	4	Lando Norris	McLaren	01:30:57.725	71	13	1
11	3	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	01:31:10.322	71	10	0
12	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	01:30:22.717	70	12	0
13	5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	01:30:24.941	70	15	0
14	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	01:30:33.172	70	7	0
15	88	Robert Kubica	Alfa Romeo	01:31:05.853	70	16	0
16	6	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	01:31:07.745	70	20	0
17	63	George Russell	Williams	01:29:55.249	69	11	0
18	47	Mick Schumacher	Haas	01:31:08.196	69	17	0
DNF	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	01:02:36.678	48	14	0
DNF	9	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	00:54:07.352	41	18	0

Fastest lap: 1:11.097 min by Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes no.44) in lap 72 @215.654 km/h

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