The Mercedes tactics that Verstappen had to overcome to win at home

Verstappen did not have the first Dutch Grand Prix held for 36 years won by the end of lap one. But his untouchable performance during those opening 2.65 miles at Zandvoort proved to Mercedes that only a roll of the strategic dice would offer a chance of vanquishing the imperious Red Bull star.

After briefly bogging down at the initial getaway, 10-time polesitter Verstappen short shifted to third and hogged the middle line into Turn 1, Tarzan. His front-row rival Lewis Hamilton opted for a wide angle and that gave the leader breathing space of 1.2s into the second sector. Come the end of lap one of 72, he was 1.734 seconds to the good aboard what had been demonstrably the fastest car all weekend.

“[Max] was a rocket off the start,” said Hamilton. “He was gone. There was literally nothing we could do to answer that.

“They’ve made a big step forward this year with their engine. We saw last year, they weren’t the greatest with their starts. They have improved, their whole power unit is massively better on all aspects. Naturally, the driveability and the starts… they’re the quickest starters this year.”

From FP2 on, the Mercedes W12 had shown itself to be no match for the RB16B on Verstappen’s home soil. Hamilton was benched by an oil feed irregularity early on Friday afternoon, leaving the long runs of Valtteri Bottas to reveal the true competitive order.

Despite running with less fuel, in comparable engine modes he was three tenths a lap adrift of Verstappen’s race simulations. As confirmed by Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin, most of that loss was felt at Turns 2 and 3, as the Finn took his time to find a preferred line through the banked bowl. Verstappen, who hadn’t managed a simulator session in the rush from Spa, barrelled in immediately with the high line to great effect.

Verstappen had a 1.7s advantage at the end of the first lap after a supreme launch

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

If in terms of sheer speed the Mercedes duo could not match Verstappen, then it would have to make do with a pitstop gamble to ensure the pressure was applied. Hamilton shipped another four tenths to the leader on lap two of the race before the gap grew to 3.3 by the ninth tour. When the seven-time champion complained that with “these tyres, we’re going to struggle to keep this pace”, it gave the first indication that Hamilton would soon split from Pirelli’s prediction that a one-stop strategy was the sweet spot.

Calling time on the early procession, he dived into the pitbox at the end of lap 20 for a switch from softs to mediums but was delayed by a slow front-right change. Red Bull covered off the threat, with Verstappen smoothly swapping over to the yellow-sidewall mediums a lap later to emerge in second place with a 1.9s margin over Hamilton.

That left Bottas out front, the Finn having been a touch fortunate to initially hold onto third after a slow getaway. He had maintained position when Charles Leclerc couldn’t squeeze his Ferrari through the gap created by a fast-starting Pierre Gasly in fourth before the AlphaTauri driver locked up at Turn 1. But taking his turn in the lead, Bottas was up to 2.2s a lap slower than Verstappen and a 10s cushion was quickly eviscerated.

"We didn't expect [Red Bull] to go on the hard tyre because it was an unknown. We didn't drive the hard tyre on the Friday, and we thought we might be pushing them early with the softs" Toto Wolff

In response, Bottas was given the instruction to defend “for the race win” after the previous dispiriting radio message that “at this pace, Valtteri, we’re not going to interact with the leaders”.

Verstappen continued to close the gap despite trailing in the dirty air and, when the Mercedes driver ran wide at Turn 11 on ageing tyres, the Red Bull could pounce with DRS down the main straight to retake the overall lead on lap 30. Having been unable to seriously make life difficult for Verstappen to possibly put the power in Mercedes’ hands, Bottas immediately moved aside at Turn 2 to gift Hamilton second place with a 1.5s deficit to Verstappen.

But it would be the second round of stops where Mercedes conceded that it got its strategy wrong. Hamilton was again the first in, settling down on a used set of mediums from lap 39 before Verstappen was put on the unfavoured hard compound next time around.

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff said: “We had, I think, a sniff of an undercut there. [But] we didn't expect [Red Bull] to go on the hard tyre because it was an unknown. We didn't drive the hard tyre on the Friday, and we thought we might be pushing them early with the softs.”

Hamilton felt he was pitted too early for his second stop and caught traffic that undermined his undercut attempt

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Over the next 10 laps, fastest lap-holder Hamilton couldn’t bring the gap consistently below 3s bar a few incidences of Verstappen passing lapped traffic – although Hamilton (in a muddling of Old Testament big-hitters Moses and Noah) reckoned he would call Verstappen “Noah from now on. Every time he got traffic, they just moved out of the way.” Hamilton would later find a rhythm as the fuel load lightened to close to 1.8s. But stuck in the wake on a narrow track, he didn’t have enough of a swing to mount a serious charge for the victory.

“They just did a better job all round,” was Hamilton’s assessment. “They definitely were faster today. There wasn’t really a lot that I could do to answer the lap times that he was putting in from stint one. It was very, very hard to keep up. I was flat out just trying to stay as close as possible.

“I think today, we probably needed everything to be perfect to even have the slightest chance of getting past him. The pitstops needed to be on point, the strategy needed to be on point and traffic also, but none of those three were ideal.

“I definitely think that wasn’t our best strategy, but it was really hard out there. At the end of the day, they were just too quick. I just think we stopped too early in that second part and there could have been a part when we got through traffic. Then I came out behind traffic so I couldn’t actually implement, and I don’t know how they didn’t see that.”

With Verstappen running supreme out front and Mercedes looking ever more assured of a double podium ahead of Gasly and Leclerc, the battle for fastest lap became an unlikely source of drama and an unnecessary headache for the Black Arrows.

Five laps from home, Bottas was called in for a “precautionary” fit of scrubbed softs on grounds of “safety” to resolve vibrations. This completed a three-stop attack. Then on healthier rubber, he lit up the timing screens with the fastest first and second sectors of the race despite leaving the pitbox with the thinly veiled instruction that “we’re not going for fastest [lap]”.

Strategy director James Vowles then had to jump on the radio to say: “please abort the fastest lap attempt before the end of the lap”, which prompted a sizeable lift through the final banked Turn 14. Bottas’ somewhat wry reply was, “I know, I’m just playing around” as he still set the quickest time.

Bottas was ordered to abort fastest lap attempt

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

In the context of the days counting down until George Russell is seemingly inevitably announced in the second seat alongside Hamilton for 2022, Wolff tried to downplay matters: “That was a bit cheeky, but understandable. Valtteri is always on the receiving end because this championship is so tight.

“It could have ended up in a loss of a point for Lewis, and it would have also been not right, because he had fastest lap until then. But you have to understand also at that point, there’s a certain degree of frustration of Valtteri, and at the end, everything is good. We’re going to talk about it, but in a most amicable and professional way.”

The stop for Bottas had created clear space for Hamilton to also make a last-minute visit to the pits, coming in on lap 70 for used softs. On the final tour, he snared the bonus point with a 1m11.097s flier – 1.452s quicker than Bottas’ abandoned effort and 2.178s faster than Verstappen’s best.

While Hamilton was able to walk away with a three-point deficit to restored championship leader Verstappen rather than four, he reckoned he would have been happy to play a team game.

"What was crucial today was first of all the start, and then throughout the race, just managing that gap that they couldn't undercut us" Max Verstappen

“If Valtteri had got it, it would have been fine,” said Hamilton. “At the end of the day, we needed to get the fastest lap, as many points as we can as a team. So if Valtteri gets it or I get it, it doesn’t really make a huge difference. I didn’t even know that Valtteri stopped. I was completely unaware of that. It was my choice to stop. I needed that extra point. So I did. It was fine.”

The final twist in the tactical tale meant Verstappen could pick his way through the orange smoke of the countless flares on the final lap and romp to his first famous home triumph by 20.932s. He’s back at the top of tree following the scores shipped by the tyre failure in Baku, the controversial crash with Hamilton at Silverstone and the Bottas-induced first-corner shunt at the Hungaroring.

After donning an orange cape for the podium, Verstappen kept his celebrations somewhat muted for the circumstances. He briefly engaged with the remaining spectators from the capped two-thirds capacity crowd as he made his way onto the main straight for a team photo. But, the global health crisis withstanding, there was no Hamilton-esque crowd surfing or anything of the sort, which would have been entirely justified given his historic achievement.

Winner Verstappen shows off the Dutch flag on the podium, flanked by Hamilton and Bottas

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

“I know that I have to focus on the driving," Verstappen said. “That has been quite straightforward but of course naturally there are more distractions, especially when you are on the grid and drive out, there is more of a crowd. I think we are professional enough to just focus on our job once we are in the car.

“Of course, I'm very satisfied already with pole, but then also to win the race… What was crucial today was first of all the start, and then throughout the race, just managing that gap that they couldn't undercut us.”

Hamilton acknowledged that Mercedes “needs to nail the details” for the next race at Monza. Although the dominant straights have prevented the Italian venue from being a friend to Red Bull in recent years, the team has been strong almost everywhere this season. Save for the unexpectedly rapid FP2 showing in Hungary before the first corner melee, Mercedes hasn’t found genuine race-winning pace since Spain. But that’s not stopped Verstappen from pushing his squad as he aims to deliver on his best shot at the title to date and come out on top in this battle for the ages.

“I felt in the break that we really needed to speed things up because otherwise [Mercedes] are going to run away with it,” he said. “I think we did pick it up a bit, but I feel we still need a little bit more. But it’s heading in the right direction. There are a lot of different kind of tracks coming up, so it will definitely swing both ways.”

Two kinds of Dutch GP were predicted. One in which the short lap, the tight confines bordered by gravel traps and a lack of obvious overtaking zones that forced do-or-die lunges bred safety cars or additional red flags to the five already deployed during practice and qualifying. The second scenario forecasted, a result of those same three factors, was a follow-the-leader affair. It was the latter that came to pass but, thanks to the strategy hijinks that played out up front, it was no dull contest.

Verstappen fired his warning shot on the very first lap and, to a degree, almost single-handedly forced Mercedes’ hand from there. On a day that the incredible fans created the spectacle, it was a tactical grudge match that bore the headlines. Verstappen overcame the threat, regained the lead of the standings, and walked away with the pride of a nation.

Verstappen celebrates on his way to Parc Ferme as the fans let off flares

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images