Red Bull’s Max Verstappen wins 2021 Dutch Grand Prix ahead of his championship rival Lewis Hamilton in P2 and Valtteri Bottas in P3.
The Dutchman retakes lead in championship battle over Hamilton by three points after his seventh win in 13 races.
Verstappen, cheered all the way by 65,000 enthusiastic home fans, led all the way from pole position, comfortably keeping a following Hamilton at bay.
Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas was third, ahead of Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Mercedes tried what they could to challenge Verstappen, putting Hamilton on a two-stop strategy, then trying to use Bottas to hold him up, but Red Bull always appeared to be in control.
There appeared to be some disagreements between Hamilton and the team on the strategy deployed, but their conversations were a function of the fact that Verstappen just had that bit of extra pace to be able to answer everything Mercedes threw at him.
But Lewis and Mercedes were happy with P2 and one point for fastest lap set in the final lap of the race.
Bottas led home the AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly, who drove a brilliant race to take P4, ahead of the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in P5.
Fernando Alonso was sixth for Alpine, having passed the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz on the last lap. Sainz was ahead of the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez, who recovered well from his pit lane start and an early flat spot in the race to take P8, with the second Alpine and of Esteban Ocon and the McLaren of Lando Norris – who’d been allowed past his 11th placed team mate Daniel Ricciardo earlier in the race – rounding out the top 10.
Lance Stroll finished in 12th, ahead of Aston Martin team mate Sebastian Vettel, then the Alfa Romeo pairing of Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen replacement Robert Kubica in P14 and P15, with Nicholas Latifi taking 16th – as George Russell was classified 17th, ahead of Mick Schumacher in P18, with Yuki Tsunoda and Nikita Mazepin retiring from the race.
Max is really pleased to win his home grand prix in-front of full house. He said high expectation is not an easy one during his post-race interview, “The expectations here were so high and that’s not always easy. But it’s an amazing feeling and the crowd here were incredible as you can see. We can be really pleased with the whole team performance today.”
