Race debrief

FINISHING STRAIGHT

1 Verstappen survives Alonso attention after late stoppage

Regardless of any additional pressure Max Verstappen might have been feeling as a packed home crowd – including members of the Dutch royal family – cheered him on at Zandvoort, he was sitting on an eight-race winning streak and still enjoying the best car on the grid. Moreover, he had annexed pole position without much to fear from any of his competitors bar McLaren’s Lando Norris.

But the weather in northern Europe has been fickle this summer, thanks to the machinations of the jetstream, and Zandvoort’s position on the North Sea coast renders it vulnerable to whatever is blowing in from the west. In this case it was two key deluges of rain at the beginning and end of the race.

As the first influx of rain hit while the grid was lining up, the chief question was how intense it might be and how long it might last. Thus Red Bull split its options, bringing in Sergio Pérez – who had started a mere seventh in any case – for intermediates at the end of the first lap. It wasn’t the Red Bull crew’s fastest stop ever but Pérez still emerged ahead of other early stoppers including Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. By the end of the second lap it was clear inters were the way to go so in came Verstappen – along with Fernando Alonso, who had executed what he described, with typical modesty, as “the pass of the month” on George Russell and Alex Albon on the banked Turn 3 on lap one, then swept past Norris just before stopping.

“Lining up and seeing the rain coming down, it was tough to make the right calls,” said Verstappen. “I thought together with the team, the rain is coming, but maybe not enough to switch to an inter and maybe survive for a few laps. So we decided together to stay out for one more lap. That was the wrong call. But it made the race definitely more fun because I had to pass a few cars.

“Luckily, within a few laps, I closed down like 10 seconds of the gap. So that was very important for the rest of my race…”

Pérez’s early stop enabled him to close down Norris and Russell, who didn’t pit until the end of lap three, while Verstappen was typically forceful in dispatching Pierre Gasly and the non-stopper Zhou Guanyu. It would prove to be a short stint in the lead for Pérez since the track began to dry as the lap count reached double digits and those who had persisted on slicks started to light up the timing scree