“I can’t believe you guys f***ing screwed me, I can’t tell you how pissed I am.”
Lewis Hamilton’s outburst in the closing stages of the Dutch Grand Prix stemmed from a relatively familiar scenario.
The Mercedes driver led, behind the safety car on older, harder tyres than Max Verstappen, who was second in line but having just taken on softs. The outcome was just as predictable as it had been that shameful night in Abu Dhabi, but in this case Hamilton’s comments were a sign of how realistic his chances of victory had been.
Hamilton and team-mate George Russell had been hampered by the yellow flag caused by Sergio Perez’s spin in Q3 that prevented them completing their final laps when in the mix for pole position, and the Mercedes pair lined up fourth and sixth respectively.
It left Verstappen with two Ferraris for company at the front of the field, and the championship leader duly chopped to the inside off the line to prevent Charles Leclerc from mounting an attack. For the first few laps, Leclerc kept Verstappen honest, but then the Red Bull started to stretch its legs.
Verstappen converts pole into the lead
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Aside from Kevin Magnussen tagging the wall at Turn 2 and continuing, the opening stages were without major incident. It transpired it was Fernando Alonso’s early pit stop for hard tyres that would have a major impact on the race as the Alpine driver was more competitive than expected. It was particularly important information for Mercedes as it had chosen to start on medium tyres compared to softs for the rest of the top six, and therefore had a one-stop strategy available to it.
The chances of making that work increased when Carlos Sainz – who had been defending from Hamilton as his softs started to degrade – came in for his first pit stop and found his Ferrari team only had three tyres waiting for him. A late call was to blame, but it was yet another blunder.
Leclerc’s stop was smoother but by then he was already over five seconds adrift of Verstappen, who came in on lap 18 for mediums, committing to a two-stop. That left Hamilton to lead from Russell and the pair enjoyed nearly ten laps in front before making their stops for hards, a tyre that Verstappen had already told Red Bull he wanted to avoid.
As Alonso’s pace had already shown, it proved a good move for Mercedes, with Hamilton and Russell trading fastest laps. The seven-time world champion was soon within the magic 18-second window that meant Verstappen would have to pass him on track after his second stop, even if a fight with Perez and getting held up by Sebastian Vettel – who was penalised five seconds for ignoring blue flags – cost him time.
Tsunoda stoppage, followed by Bottas retirement, triggered series of strategic manoeuvres
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“The car was feeling better than it has felt all year long,” Hamilton said. “And obviously with the difficult race last week… “Yesterday, [in qualifying] I was up until the last corner where the yellow flag was I was 0.7sec on everyone.
“So we had pace. The car was different to how it has been all year long. And when I got up to second, I had that hard tyre on and I was catching them and I was thinking ‘Wow, we might be fighting for a win here. And potentially a 1-2’.”
Leclerc had made his second stop on lap 45 and was pre-empting a safety car, after Yuki Tsunoda stopped on track claiming a wheel was loose after his own pit stop. AlphaTauri disputed that and Tsunoda continued back to the pits to have his seat belts tightened, but after being released he was immediately told to pull over with a differential problem, causing a virtual safety car.
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As Verstappen’s lead was still over 12 seconds, the VSC was bittersweet news for him. He could make a free pit stop and retain the lead, but on a tyre he was hoping to avoid. In response, Mercedes went for mediums to create an offset.
“It was just difficult,” Verstappen said. “I think I gave my opinions about what I wanted with tyres. I said, ‘don’t use the hard tyre’, but we had to, because of the VSC. It came out a bit unfortunate. And then we went out and we were clearly lacking a little bit of pace on that hard compared to the Mercedes cars on the medium.
“I think the gap was still big enough to manage it to the end, but they would have definitely gotten a lot closer than I think the 11-and-a-half seconds it was at the time.”
The gap had started coming down but Hamilton noted “That VSC has stuffed us”, before his former team-mate Valtteri Bottas offered a lifeline. The Finn stopped with a power unit problem on the pit straight and the safety car was required, although it was only deployed after Sainz had overtaken Esteban Ocon under yellow flags.
Verstappen gets past Hamilton the the restart
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Sainz escaped punishment due to how late the yellows emerged, and he was suddenly back in the fight for the podium as the safety car was required to pass through the pit lane. Verstappen had already stopped for another set of softs, but the interruption allowed many drivers to make an extra stop. Sainz made his but in keeping with his day, an unsafe release in front of Alonso led to a five-second time penalty.
While the Mercedes pair were running 1-2, Russell was worried about tyre temperatures on the restart and told his team he wanted to return to softs, dropping behind Verstappen but on the same tyre.
“As a team it was an incredibly difficult decision because had we both pitted, we would have conceded the position to Max,” Russell said. “Had we both stayed out, we probably both would have lost out to Max as well so the best chance we as a team had of victory was splitting the cars, one to stay ahead of Max, one to stay behind and see what happened.
“If you could have just got those tyres restarted, it could have been different but it was always going to be very, very challenging for [Hamilton].”
And it proved to be. The race restarted with 12 laps remaining and Hamilton was powerless to defend as Verstappen breezed past before Turn 1. A few laps later, Russell was through too – albeit after a miscommunication saw both move at the same time on the pit straight and nearly collide – and Leclerc followed suit to demote Hamilton to fourth, prompting his radio messages.
“The safety cars and all that came through…” Hamilton said. “The frickin’ emotions went everywhere because I knew that at that point, I’d lost it before the restart. When everyone was on the soft tyre behind me I knew that there was no way I was gonna hold them behind me.
“I don’t want to apologise for my passion because that’s just how I am made and I don’t always get it right. I am sorry for my team for what I said because it was just in the heat of the moment but I want to look at the glass half full. We have got so many positives to take from this weekend. Yes, I got fourth in the end but the car felt great.
Russell also deposed Hamilton
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“If the car feels like this in the other races we’re going to be fighting for a win, and that’s amazing. The pitstops were great. This is the fastest pitstops the team had done all year. Honestly I was so gee’d up from that I thought ‘Right these guys were on. I am on it, the strategy was great’, but anyway we just keep looking forwards and hope for a better race next.”
On the soft tyre, Verstappen had the race covered and led home Russell by four seconds, with Leclerc completing the podium. Perez inherited fifth when Sainz’s penalty dropped him to eighth behind Alonso and Lando Norris, with Ocon and Lance Stroll completing the points.
It was a case of what might have been for Mercedes as it caught the top two teams out with its pace, but Red Bull and Verstappen make for such a well-oiled machine right now that they still managed to handle everything that was thrown at them and come out on top.
