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2022 Dutch Grand Prix Weekend Recap

September 5, 2022

The Dutch Grand Prix gave us just what we needed: a calm but interesting race. We had some animal encounters, A LOT of orange, some unexpected cars in Q3, and I didn’t feel like murdering someone at Ferrari when the race ended, so overall I would say it was a good weekend. Here is everything that happened at the 2022 Dutch Grand Prix:

FP1: September 2, 2022

  • Mercedes were at the top of the timing sheets with George Russell in P1 and Lewis Hamilton two-tenths of a second behind in P2. Carlos Sainz put his Ferrari in P3 and the McLarens rounded out the top five. Lando Norris was P4, within half a second of Russell, and Daniel Ricciardo was P5. Charles Leclerc was P6.

  • Alex Albon finished the session in P10, continuing Williams’ great pace from Spa. However, his teammate Nicholas Latifi was P20. One Williams was in the top ten and one was dead last.

  • Mick Schumacher gave Haas hope for their upgrades when he went P11

  • Max Verstappen was P19 after a transmission issue forced him to stop on the side of the track early in the session. Red Bull can afford to have a bad weekend, but hopefully they can fix the issue for Verstappen’s home race. 


FP2: September 2, 2022

  • This time, Ferrari were at the top of the time charts with Leclerc picking up the pace in P1 and Sainz in P2. Mercedes stayed close behind though and Hamilton was P3 with Russell in P5. 

  • Norris stayed in P4 but Ricciardo was in P10 after an oil leak in his radiator stopped his session early. The Alpines were in P7 and P9. Alpine’s performance has been better and more consistent than McLaren’s lately, but both teams are still quite close in the championship, so I wouldn’t count McLaren out. 

  • Lance Stroll is right back in P6 this weekend. The Aston Martin can be so high up on the grid during Practice but then always drops back below the points in Qualifying or the Race. Like I said last weekend, this is probably an indication that the car is getting better and faster, but still doesn’t have good race pace. 

  • Verstappen was in P8 and Sergio Perez was in P12. The lack of pace in the Red Bull is concerning. 

  • Albon unfortunately went P17 in FP2. The other Williams of Latifi was nearly one second slower in P20.

  • It was not a great session for AlphaTauri. Pierre Gasly missed out on much of FP2 with a technical issue and Yuki Tsunoda brought out a Red Flag when he beached his car in a gravel trap.

Yuki Tsunoda beached his car in FP2

FP3: September 3, 2022

  • Leclerc was P1 once again, leading Russell and Verstappen. Sainz went P4, ahead of Hamilton and Perez. It looks like the Ferrari vs. Mercedes vs. Red Bull magic is back!

  • Norris dropped from a consistent P4 to P10. Ricciardo was P17.

  • Albon improved from FP2 and went P13, but it still isn’t as good as his P10 in FP1.


Qualifying: September 3, 2022

Q1: 

  • Verstappen went P1 with his first flying lap and Leclerc went P2. The two went for the one lap wonder strategy. When the time ran out, Verstappen was still in P1 but Leclerc had dropped down to P4. Hamilton had taken P2 and Tsunoda had somehow gotten P3. 

  • Stroll was P7, still showing his great pace from Practice. 

  • Albon and Schumacher both made it to Q2!

  • Eliminated: Bottas (P16), Magnussen (P17), Ricciardo (P18), Vettel (P19), Latifi (P20)

    • Valtteri Bottas was the Driver at Risk in P15, so when his teammate Zhou Guanyu went faster, Bottas got pushed down to P16. 

    • Kevin Magnussen aborted his final flying lap after he violated track limits. 

    • Ricciardo said that dirt was thrown up by another car and cost him time.

    • Sebastian Vettel picked up damage in gravel of Turn 13 and had to abandon his final flying lap

Q2:

  • Before anyone could even get a lap in, the session was Red Flagged because a fan threw a flare onto the track. 

The flare was thrown on the track and caused delays

  • When the session restarted, Verstappen went P1 on used soft tires. He continued his new favorite strategy of the one lap wonder.

  • The checkered flag was waved and Sainz took P1, Russell was P2, and Verstappen was pushed down to P3. Leclerc was P4 and Hamilton rounded out the top five.

  • Norris was P6 after Perez was forced to abandon his final flying lap and finished in P7.

  • Stroll, Schumacher, and Tsunoda continued their great performance and made it to Q3!

  • Eliminated: Gasly (P11), Ocon (P12), Alonso (P13), Zhou (P14), Albon (P15)

    • Pierre Gasly was eliminated when his teammate Yuki Tsunoda went faster and pushed him into the elimination zone.

    • Alonso said Perez was holding him up on his final flying lap and prevented him from improving his lap time.

Q3: 

  • Leclerc took provisional pole with Verstappen P2 and Hamilton P3. Leclerc went out again as the checkered flag was about to be waved and improved his lead. Verstappen also went out for a second time and was fastest overall, taking pole position from Leclerc by two hundredths of a second and sending his home crowd into a frenzy. 

  • Perez spun while everyone was on their last laps and brought out a yellow flag in Sector 3, guaranteeing himself P5 and ending qualifying for everyone else. If he hadn’t spun, Sainz might have taken pole position instead of getting P3.

  • Stroll was in P10 with no time after a technical issue led him to end his qualifying early. It’s sad because he was having a great qualifying session and I wanted to see what he could do.

  • Verstappen did Q3 on new soft tires, but he saved one set of softs for race day after using the same tires in Q1 and Q2. This fact is crucial to strategy for the race because Verstappen now has an advantage on top of starting P1. 

Race: September 4, 2022

  • As the five lights went out, Verstappen and Leclerc both got away well but Leclerc stayed in P2 as Verstappen drove away, extending his lead. Hamilton and Sainz made slight contact on the way into Turn 1 when Hamilton tried to pass Sainz. Luckily, no one picked up major damage and the two were able to continue on. The top four stayed like this for a while, Leclerc driving like a madman as he tried to catch Verstappen while Hamilton chased down Sainz. 

  • Sainz’s race started taking a turn for the worse around Lap 15. After wearing out his tires as he tried to get away from Hamilton, he was called in for a pit stop. The stop became disastrous when one of the mechanics didn’t have the rear-left tire ready and it ended up lasting 12.7 seconds. Sergio Perez, who dropped back at the race start, pitted just after Sainz in response to Ferrari. However, in Ferrari’s panic from their missing tire, they left a wheel gun on the floor and Perez ran over it after his pit stop. Perez got lucky when his car emerged fairly unscathed, but that could have been bad. 

The rear-left tire was brought out after the other three tires were fitted to the car

  • On Lap 18, Leclerc pitted for medium tires without any issues. Red Bull responded on the following lap and pitted Verstappen. He came out in P3, ahead of Leclerc with Hamilton leading the race. As the rest of the grid all made pit stops, the two Mercedes still led the pack and it became clear that they were going for a one stop strategy. 

  • On Lap 28, Verstappen overtook Russell for P2 around the outside of Turn 1. Two laps later, Hamilton pitted for hard compound tires and Verstappen was back in the lead. Russell then pitted on Lap 32 for hards. The top six was now Verstappen leading Leclerc, Perez, Hamilton, Russell, and Sainz.

  • After a couple of failed attempts, Hamilton managed to overtake Perez for P3 just as Sebastian Vettel was coming out of the pit lane. Vettel came out just in front of Hamilton and Perez and didn’t yield to blue flags to let them lap him, nearly costing Hamilton his position ahead of Perez. He later received a five-second penalty for ignoring blue flags. It seems to me like Seb was bored in his race at the back of the pack and decided to cause problems in the front of the race. 

  • Just as the race was getting boring, yellow flags were waved on Lap 44. Yuki Tsunoda had stopped on the side of the track and said his tires weren’t fitted properly. It looked like a Virtual Safety Car would have to be called, but within a few seconds, Tsunoda managed on his way and the team told him everything was ok with his car. 

  • Thinking that the AlphaTauri was ok and the chance of a Safety Car was gone, Leclerc pitted for hard tires. However, Lap 47 saw Tsunoda enter the pits for a new set of soft tires and some repairs that were supposed to fix the problems he was feeling. One thirty second pit stop later, Yuki was pulling over on Lap 48 to say that the differential was broken. A Virtual Safety Car was deployed and everyone but Charles Leclerc now got free pit stops with minimal consequences. Verstappen pitted for hards and Mercedes double stacked their cars for mediums. The race resumed on Lap 50 and Verstappen led by over twelve seconds. 

Yuki Tsunoda checking out his car after retiring from the race

  • Valtteri Bottas’ Alfa Romeo suffered an issue in his fuel system that led to a loss of power and forced him to pull over on the start-finish straight. This brought out a Safety Car and changed the course of the race. Max Verstappen pitted for soft tires and came out in P3, with both Mercedes ahead of him. For most of the Safety Car, they ran like this and it looked like Hamilton might get his first win of the season. Just a few laps before the Safety Car pulled in, Russell decided he wanted soft tires and pitted to come out in P3 and bump Verstappen up to P2. Hamilton was still in P1 but Russell wasn’t there to create a buffer between Verstappen and Hamilton anymore.

Valtteri Bottas stopped on the start-finish straight after his car lost power

  • The Safety Car restart had Verstappen almost immediately retaking his lead as Hamilton struggled on his used tires. By Lap 64, Russell overtook his teammate for P2 and Leclerc took P3 from Hamilton soon after. The win had just slipped from Hamilton’s hands. 

  • Max Verstappen went on to win the race with George Russell in tow and Charles Leclerc finally back on the podium in P3. While Ferrari was unhappy that they started in second and finished in third, it is a good sign that Leclerc was back on the podium after so long. 

  • During the Safety Car, Sainz had pitted and had an unsafe release where he nearly ran into Fernando Alonso’s Alpine. The stewards reviewed the incident and gave Sainz a five-second time penalty, dropping him from P5 to P8. This promoted Perez to fifth, Alonso to sixth, and Norris to seventh. Poor Carlos Sainz was riddled with bad luck yesterday. 

  • Lance Stroll managed to hold on to P10 while defending against Pierre Gasly and got the final point of the race.

  • Unfortunately, Alex Albon and Mick Schumacher couldn’t get points after starting in the top ten. Schumacher’s teammate Kevin Magnussen hit the barriers early in the race and was bumped down to last. He was only able to recover to P15. It wasn’t a good day for Williams or Haas. 

  • Zhou Guanyu got a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane, so he finished P16. It also wasn’t a great day for Alfa Romeo, with their one DNF and one penalty. 

Honorable Mentions:

  • All through the weekend, there was an issue of pigeons on the grass by the track. These were fearless pigeons who didn’t care if an F1 car was zooming by, they still hung out in the grass and picked at loose seeds. During Qualifying, there was even a moment where a track marshall was tasked with chasing the birds away.

A track marshall chasing a pigeon off the track

While the Dutch Grand Prix was a bit slow at times, it was really interesting toward the end and we were able to see the different ways strategies can affect a race. I enjoyed this one; it wasn’t too painful to watch, there were some cool overtaking moves, a few Safety Cars, and a decent race result! I would say this qualifies as one of the nicer, more mellow races of the season. Charles Leclerc is now tied on points with Sergio Perez, both at 201, and Mercedes is just thirty points behind Ferrari in the Constructors Championship. It seems that second place might end up going to Mercedes if Ferrari doesn’t start getting more consistent results. 


That’s all for now! I will be back in a few days to get us all ready for Ferrari’s second home race of the season, Monza.


- Divya

Where I got these

from:

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