It was very tense and it required driving perfection, but Max Verstappen’s triumph in the 2021 Dutch Grand Prix was strategically straightforward. His repeat victory in the 2022 race at Zandvoort was very much not. The home hero left with an extended points lead over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, but it was actually the resurgent Mercedes squad that put Red Bull most at risk of a shock defeat.
That all followed Verstappen’s team needing to put in serious overnight set-up work back at its factory to recover from his lost FP1 running on Friday. Red Bull’s efforts – and Leclerc losing the rear of his Ferrari when it mattered most in Q3 going through the long Turn 10 hairpin for the final time – meant Verstappen again headed the Zandvoort grid.
He lined up on pole alongside Leclerc, both starting on the soft tyres most teams had concentrated on understanding during FP2, which was disrupted by the Formula 1 organisation losing its data link to its Biggin Hill base and the teams therefore being unable to immediately piece together their rivals’ long-run lap times. But they were later able to re-engineer the pace picture when the timing data was eventually released, and that work and the qualifying result pointed towards another Red Bull versus Ferrari victory fight. Indeed, Verstappen and Leclerc angled their machines towards each other’s projection path for leaving the line, with the Ferrari making the slightly better launch when the lights went out. But Verstappen acted decisively, chopping across to the inside on the run to Tarzan and sealing the lead for the opening phase.
Behind, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were having rather more dramatic starts, the two W13s shod with medium Pirellis for the first stint. Hamilton dived inside Carlos Sainz’s third place for the first
