August 28, 2023
From start to finish, this weekend was full of action. Here is your 2023 Dutch Grand Prix weekend recap:
Free Practice: August 25-26, 2023
At a technical track like Zandvoort, Free Practice is extremely valuable. With rain predicted throughout the weekend, teams took full advantage of Friday’s hot and humid conditions. Red Bull’s dominance continued as Max Verstappen came out on top in FP1 with the heavily upgraded cars of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton in P2 and P3 respectively.
In FP2, AlphaTauri’s weekend completely changed when Daniel Ricciardo broke his hand in a crash at Turn 3. With Ricciardo’s weekend ended, the Italian team called Red Bull junior driver Liam Lawson up to make his F1 debut. As someone who has closely followed Lawson’s career for a few years, I was thrilled to see him finally get this chance. Once the session resumed, Lando Norris managed to go fastest ahead of Verstappen in P2 and Alex Albon in P3, confirming my prediction that this track would suit Williams. FP2 was quite cool because it had six different teams in the top six: McLaren, Red Bull, Williams, Mercedes, AlphaTauri, and Alpine. This just goes to show how close the field is getting in terms of raw pace.
Saturday gave us the classic Dutch rain while Verstappen going quickest once again, George Russell in P2, and Sergio Perez in P3. In Liam Lawson’s first session of the weekend, he only went P18 but that is to be expected as he gets used to the car. FP3 also confirmed that Ferrari is not very strong at this circuit. The highest the Scuderia finished in all three sessions was P9, and both drivers took quite a few trips through the gravel. This might be a weekend to forget for Ferrari.
Qualifying: August 26, 2023
Q1:
The whole grid started on intermediate tires due to wet conditions.
Alex Albon showed us just how beautiful Williams’ straight line speed is by going P1.
Eliminated: Zhou (P16), Ocon (P17), Magnussen (P18), Bottas (P19), Lawson (P20)
Magnussen went off at Turn 1 and picked up major damage. The team had to change his power unit and gearbox to repair the damage, forcing the Dane to start Sunday’s race in the pitlane.
Lawson struggled quite a bit in his firs F1 Qualifying session because he had no prior experience with intermediate tires.
Q2:
All drivers were still on inters.
Albon kept up his incredible form by going third fastest behind Verstappen and Norris.
Eliminated: Stroll (P11), Gasly (P12), Hamilton (P13), Tsunoda (P14), Hulkenberg (P15)
Hamilton’s final lap was too early and since the track conditions were constantly improving, most drivers were able to go faster on the drier track.
Tsunoda was given a 3-place grid penalty after the session for impeding Hamilton so he will start in P17 instead.
Q3:
Albon, Russell, Sainz, and Sargeant were the only drivers to start Q3 on soft compound tires. It may have been the wrong decision for Logan Sargeant though because he lost control at Turn 2 and went into the barriers, ending his first Q3 appearance before it could even begin. The session was Red Flagged for about ten minutes while the marshalls recovered the car.
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Marshalls clearing Sargeant's car |
Right when the session restarted, it was Red Flagged again because Charles Leclerc went off at Turn 9 and hit the barrier.
The session finally restarted with enough time for one final pole position shootout.
Verstappen took pole in front of his home crowd with Norris in P2, Russell in P3, and Albon in P4.
Race: August 27, 2023
With the dark clouds looming above them and sporadic drizzles, eighteen of the twenty drivers started on soft compound tires. Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg were the only two to start on mediums.
Verstappen kept his lead on Norris at the start while Fernando Alonso overtook Russell and Albon into Turn 3. By the end of Lap 1, the drizzles turned into a downpour and Perez, Leclerc, Gasly, Zhou, Tsunoda, Lawson, and Magnussen pitted for intermediates immediately. Ferrari, in classic Ferrari fashion, weren’t ready for Lerclerc when he pitted and the poor Monagasque had yet another unnecessarily long stop. Verstappen and Alonso pitted for inters one lap later while Russell, Norris, Albon, Piastri, Stroll, Bottas, Hulkenberg, Hamilton, and Sargeant stayed out. Those on slicks began to lose out as the drivers who pitted for inters on Lap 1 started to catch up. By Lap 3, Perez had taken the lead and was over 12 seconds ahead of Zhou, Gasly, and Verstappen.
Around Lap 11, the rain started to let up and the track began to dry. Seeing that Piastri, who had kept his slick tires during the rain, was now setting the fastest lap on his soft compound tires, drivers began to swap their inters for slicks. It was during this flurry of pit stops that Verstappen successfully undercut Perez to reclaim the lead.
Just as the race began to settle down, Sargeant was caught out by a damp patch at Turn 8 and crashed. This brought out a Virtual Safety Car that quickly turned into a full Safety Car. Two major shunts in one weekend isn’t a good look for the American in his fight to keep his seat for next season.
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Sargeant crashed on Lap 19 of the race |
At this point in the race, Norris was in P11 and ahead of Leclerc, Hamilton, and Piastri while Russell was down in P18. All of these expected front runners lost out because they either pitted for inters too late or drove for Ferrari. In an effort to salvage his race, Russell pitted for hards during the Safety Car to try going long.
When the race restarted on Lap 21, Verstappen maintained his lead from Perez, Alonso, Gasly, and Sainz while Albon got the jump on Magnussen for P7. In the next few laps, Hamilton caught Leclerc, Magnussen, and Zhou to get into the points positions. Magnussen, who had an amazing recovery drive from the pitlane to the points, started dropping and quickly found himself in P13. Haas may have had a good strategy to start, but they don’t really have the race pace to be competing for points at the moment.
On Lap 41, after swapping positions with Lawson for a while, Leclerc finally went to the pits and retired from the race due to floor damage he sustained on the opening lap. Poor Leclerc’s weekend was just a series of unfortunate events.
A few laps later, Albon finally made his first pit stop of the race, proving once again that he is the Tire Whisperer. Albon’s stop started the next round of pit stops with Perez, Verstappen, and Alonso pitting in the following laps. Tsunoda, in P7, stayed out and AlphaTauri quickly realized this was a mistake. Yuki became a sitting duck as one by one, drivers overtook him with their fresher tires.
The weather forecast had shown rain predicted for the beginning and end of the race. On Lap 61 of 72, it arrived in full force and most drivers immediately pitted for intermediates. Verstappen, Alonso, Albon, and Ocon pitted in the following laps and Ocon was the only driver on the grid using full wet tires.
Soon it became abundantly clear that conditions were very tricky. Perez went deep at Turn 1, did a 180, and scraped the barrier, allowing Alonso to go through to P2. A number of drivers had similar incidents at Turn 1 and managed to recover their cars, but Zhou aqua-planed and went straight into the barriers at full force. The session was eventually Red Flagged because of how dangerous the conditions were.
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Zhou's car in the barriers at Turn 1 |
After 40 minutes, the conditions had improved and the race resumed with 6 laps remaining, 2 of which were to be done behind a safety car. On the rolling start, Verstappen kept his lead on Alonso and Perez and went on to take his ninth consecutive race win, matching Sebastian Vettel’s record. Alonso took second and, due to a five second penalty Perez was given for speeding in the pit lane, Gasly took third!
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2023 Dutch GP podium |
Sainz ultimately beat Hamilton for P5 and Norris, Albon, Ocon, and Piastri rounded out the points positions. Stroll came 11th, ahead of Hulkenberg and Lawson, who finished his F1 debut ahead of his teammate despite a 10 second penalty earlier in the race. After the race, Magnussen was handed a 5 second penalty for a Safety Car infringement and went down to P16, last of the finishing cars. George Russell was unfortunately the fourth car to retire after picking up terminal damage in a collision with Norris on the restart.
The whole weekend was absolute chaos with Williams at the top again, Daniel Ricciardo breaking his hand, Liam Lawson making his F1 debut and experiencing just about every condition possible, Sargeant crashing left and right, and Ferrari being incompetent. It looks like the second half of this season might be eventful after all.
I will be back later this week for the Italian Grand Prix!
- Divya
Where I got these
from: