For the swathe of orange-clad fans swarming across the dunes of Zandvoort, nothing less than a home victory at the Dutch Grand Prix for their man Max Verstappen will suffice. They know he is on a roll, marching to his second title, and they want to party, but for the Dutchman his performance will be of greatest import in just how emphatically he might wrap up the championship.
Meanwhile the wrangling between Alpine and McLaren finally came to a close. Formula One’s contract recognition board (CRB) ruled on the future of Oscar Piastri, confirming in McLaren’s favour that the Australian’s contract with the team was valid. After signing a multi-year deal, the 21-year-old will make his F1 debut for the team next season.
Piastri had been a reserve driver for Alpine and come up as part of their development programme, but when Fernando Alonso left they said Piastri would be driving for them next season, which he vehemently denied. The CRB has now concluded that the only valid contract was with McLaren signed on 4 July this year, one day after the British GP. At McLaren he will replace Daniel Ricciardo, whose exit was announced just over a week ago, although they had signed Piastri seven weeks previously. Ricciardo remains without a drive for 2023.
Behind the wheel where the real battle rages, Verstappen has enjoyed an inexorable sequence of wins this season but there is no guarantee he will deliver on this glorious circuit, nestling on the edge of the North Sea, not least after he suffered a gearbox problem in first practice after just seven laps. Intriguingly, Mercedes have once more found their form as the mercurial performance of their car continues to bewilder the team and their drivers, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, alike.
Last weekend at Spa, Verstappen was in a league of his own, scything through the field from 14th to take victory. Zandvoort is a very different challenge to the long straights of the Ardennes, a short, tight, narrow track that undulates alongside the beach. If Verstappen can pull off a similar win here it would declare the Red Bull as all but untouchable in the forthcoming races.
McLaren’s Lando Norris, who came up through karting with the Dutchman, emphasised how formidable he and Red Bull had become across the season. “It does seem like the advantage has shifted definitely toward Red Bull but we will see this weekend. If Max takes an easy one this weekend they will be ahead for a while, because you have seen the two opposites of tracks.”
Verstappen only needs to be ahead for a very short while. He enjoys a 93-point lead over his teammate Sergio Pérez and 98 on Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Eight rounds remain, with 216 points available. Strong results here and at the next round in Monza would make the title potentially Verstappen’s to clinch in Singapore or Japan, with five or four races remaining.
Norris believes Verstappen may even go on to threaten some of Hamilton’s records, such as his 103 F1 wins. Yet the British driver is far from finished. After a woeful showing at Spa, where Mercedes were off the pace and Hamilton crashed out on the first lap, the team were once more left shaking their heads at their car’s fluctuating performance.
Hamilton insisted he was still enjoying his task, albeit one where every race it was hard to know what to expect. “I still love the challenge of fighting this car, because you get in it and it is a fight,” he said. “Every time we get in the car we arrive optimistic, sometimes too optimistic.”
At Zandvoort, doubtless their expectations were being tightly constrained, yet they hit the track running with Russell and Hamilton quickest in first practice; reason for optimism again as the Mercedes rollercoaster hurtles through the seaside sunshine. In second practice Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was on top with Verstappen managing only eighth, while Hamilton was third, just seven-hundredths behind Leclerc.
