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It was a disappointing end to the FIA Formula 1 World Championship Dutch Grand Prix weekend for Haas F1 Team as Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen finished in thirteenth and fifteenth.

Magnussen’s battle for points virtually ended on the first lap after he went wide at turn 2, causing him to tap the wall that led to him losing multiple positions. On the other side of the garage, Schumacher had a good chance of scoring points after qualifying eighth but a slow pit stop ruined his race.

Team principal, Guenther Steiner was disappointed with the race but knew it wasn’t going to be easy after losing places with Zandvoort being such a hard place to make up multiple positions.

“It wasn’t the race we wanted to have today. Kevin lost a lot of positions on lap 2 when he went off. Mick was fighting in the points-paying positions but on his pit stop we had an issue with the front jack which didn’t come down, so we need to look into what it was. Catching up from there is difficult – we lost too many positions, overtaking is very difficult here and, in the end, we made it up to thirteenth and fifteenth.“

“Having been eighteenth and nineteenth at some stage, we didn’t give up, but it was difficult to catch-up because you have to apply different strategies and we couldn’t get back into the points.” 

Formula One Chief Executive Officer Stefano Domenicali said that the Pirelli tyres had a “perfect” showing at the Dutch Grand Prix, having displayed their dependability and ability to foster on-track action. 

With the race neutralised twice in Zandvoort– once for a virtual safety car, and another full safety car later on– tyre strategy added another layer of complexity and unpredictability to Sunday’s race. 

“Today once more the tyres showed themselves to be perfect, by allowing for different strategies, increasing the number of on-track battles as well as overtaking moves, and helping us to deliver a successful and spectacular product that people love, while still guaranteeing the safety that is essential for a sport such as F1. 

“This is a global success that we’d like to celebrate at Monza in style, hoping also that there’s space for a bit of red there too after all this orange!”

With Zandvoort in the rear view, attention shifts to this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, an exciting event for Italian-based Pirelli that will mark 150 years since the institution’s founding. 

Pirelli Motorsport Director Mario Isola reflected on an exciting Dutch Grand Prix, a race where tyres played a significant role with safety cars tossing up teams’ strategies across the grid. The result was a race of alternative strategies and quick decisions with all three compounds put to use. 

Race winner Max Verstappen started on the soft compound tyre, the most common selection across the grid, then switched to mediums on lap eighteen. When a virtual safety car was brought out due to Yuki Tsunoda being stopped on the track, he switched to hards. 

A full safety car was brought out to recover Valtteri Bottas’ car after he suffered an engine failure on the pit straight, giving Verstappen the opportunity to move onto softs again on lap fifty-six. With two stops under neutralised conditions, he was able to ward off any competition from Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, who opted for an alternative strategy that looked to be quite strong until the final safety car. 

“We saw an exciting and emotional race, ultimately influenced by two variables that can happen at a tricky circuit like Zandvoort: different strategies thanks to the contained degradation of the soft and the strong performance of the hard compound. 

“There was also a virtual safety car and then a safety car, which kept the action unpredictable all the way to the flag, with plenty of overtaking thanks to the latest regulations as well.”

Pierre Gasly says that Scuderia AlphaTauri is lacking performance compared to the other cars around them after finishing the fifteenth round of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship at the Dutch Grand Prix weekend in eleventh position on Sunday.

The Frenchman expressed his disappointment as he fell just short of being inside the top ten and scoring points at Zandvoort. For most of the first stint, Gasly ran in traffic on the medium compound tyres after losing a few places to BWT Alpine F1 driver Esteban Ocon and Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 driver, Lance Stroll.

Gasly believes that there are still positives to take from the weekend as the team were aware it was going to be a tough weekend after encountering some confusion during Free Practice sessions which lost the team track time. Gasly still seemed positive as he only missed out on points by one place, and is focusing on his performance in Italy this week.

“Finishing eleventh is never a great feeling, we tried our best to make it into the points, but I don’t think we quite had the pace to make it possible today.

“Ultimately, we’re lacking a little bit of performance compared to the other cars around us, we lost some time in the first stint and struggled on the Mediums in traffic. 

Haas F1 team finished yesterday’s FIA Formula 1 World Championship’s Dutch GP with Mick Schumacher in thirteenth and Kevin Magnussen in fifteenth, which was a disappointing result for everyone involved with the team.

Haas’ Magnussen started from eighteenth place on the grid on the medium tyre, the Dane had a flying start as he initially made gains and completed the opening lap in 15th position. However, his race was ruined after a wide moment through turn 2 where he went through the gravel and touched the wall. He was able to carry on but his chances of points became ever bleaker as the race reached its closing stages.

“When you hit the wall in the race it’s not good, but it was my mistake. I tried too hard, lost the rear, went off and hit the wall, came back and I was able to continue. – explained Magnussen

“I tried my best to come back but I spent a long time trying to just get back up to the field but managed to make up a few positions and finish fifteenth. It was a bit of a wasted weekend, so I hope we do better next time.”

Mick Schumacher – “We’re now looking ahead at scoring points in the new few races to come.”

Schumacher started in a good position after qualifying eighth on the grid. However, the race was a disappointing one for the German after a slow stop made him tumble down the order for him to eventually finish thirteenth ahead of his teammate.

Zhou Guanyu believes that Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen is “clearly lacking something” in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship midfield battle after Zhou extended his point-less streak to six races at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Starting in fourteenth place, Zhou was able to maintain his starting position throughout the early stages of the race. An aggressive strategy choice from the Alfa Romeo team saw Zhou undertake his first two stints of the race on the soft compound tyre and by lap thirty-two the Chinese driver was running in twelfth place.

Zhou would eventually have to switch to the medium compound tyres and would return from the pits in fifteenth place. Zhou stated that shortly after his second pit stop, any possible progress was halted by having to slow down for a number of blue flags.

Alfa Romeo attempted to take advantage of the late safety car by pitting the twenty-three-year-old for a used set of soft tyres for the finale of the race but Zhou was unable to generate any performance out of the used set and would come home for a sixteenth-place finish.

The Swiss-based team have now failed to achieve a points finish since the Canadian Grand Prix in June and ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, Zhou is looking for improvements to the C42 package, with Zhou hopeful the team can re-enter the battle in the midfield.

Erik Jones might not have made the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, but that wasn’t going to stop him from playing spoiler from the very first race. Jones took the lead on the final restart with twenty laps remaining and held off a desperate charge by playoff contender Denny Hamlin to win the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway for the second time in his career.

The win is the first for Petty GMS Motorsports under the current identity. The legendary #43 last won with Aric Almirola at the rain-shortened 2014 Coke Zero 400 while its first full-distance victory since the late John Andretti at the 1999 Goody’s Body Pain 500, and the number’s last Darlington victory came with owner Richard Petty in 1967.

“Richard hasn’t been to Victory Lane at Darlington probably since he last won here,” said Jones. “It’s just awesome. Just so proud of these guys, Petty GMS and Focus Factor Crew. We’ve been so close all year, and I didn’t think today was going to be the day. It was going to be a tough one to win, I knew, but no better fitting place. I love this track, I love this race. On that trophy twice, man, I was pumped to be on it once, but to have it on there twice, pretty cool.”

Jones found himself fighting for the lead when Joe Gibbs Racing‘s Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr., who led a combined 203 laps with the former also winning Stage #2, suddenly dropped out within ten laps of each other with engine failures while leading. Hamlin, another JGR car, and Tyler Reddick attempted to chase down Jones but could not make up enough ground as Jones pulled away to win.

Fittingly, Jones began his career with JGR and won the 2019 Southern 500 with them.

PREMA entered the weekend in Zandvoort, eighty-six points clear of second place Trident in the FIA Formula 3 championship.

However, their weekend would be derailed in qualifying, as a red flag caused an early end to qualifying. Jak Crawford would be the only driver to complete his final lap before the session was curtailed, as he placed third.

This spelt disaster for his teammates Arthur Leclerc and Oliver Bearman though, as Leclerc’s fastest hot lap was only good enough for twentieth on the grid and Bearman would be forced to start both of the weekends races from fourteenth.

In Saturday’s sprint race, Jak Crawford would make up one place to finish ninth, after starting tenth due to the reverse grid format. Leclerc made up an extremely impressive eight places, but this was only good enough for twelfth, meaning the Monegasque failed to pick up a point. Bearman also made it to the brink of the points, making up three places to finish eleventh, after experiencing a very difficult start to his race.

Sunday’s feature race saw an improvement on the disappointment of the sprint race, as PREMA bagged two points finishes. Oliver Bearman managed to fight his way up to tenth to grab the last point scoring position, and gain a point that could prove to be vital in PREMA’s defence of the Formula 3 constructors title, or so he thought, the Brit was awarded a drive-through penalty for not maintaining the proper gap behind the safety car at turns twelve to fourteen, demoting him to twenty-fifth in the final classification.

Dave Robson was pleased with the way the Williams Racing team executed their Dutch Grand Prix, at least on Alexander Albon’s side of the garage, although it was not enough to find their way into the points.

Albon was able to finish twelfth at the Circuit Zandvoort, ahead of both Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN and both Haas F1 Team drivers, as well as McLaren F1 Team’s Daniel Ricciardo and Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team’s Sebastian Vettel.

Robson, the Head of Vehicle Performance at Williams, admitted it was disappointing to lose out to Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly in the final result after the Frenchman got a ‘free pit stop’ behind the safety car, but twelfth was still a good result at a track where the team were not expecting to be competitive.

“I think we can be pretty pleased with the way that we executed the race today,” said Robson.  “There were a huge range of valid strategies, with all three compounds offering potentially useful trades in the overcast conditions.

“The Safety Car periods mixed things up a little and gave teams the opportunity to change from their base strategies. We were quite comfortable on the Medium tyre and looked to be finding a good rhythm on the Hard before the Safety Car gave us the opportunity to switch Alex to the Soft.

BWT Alpine F1 Team‘s Otmar Szafnauer is pleased with the team’s performance at Sunday afternoon’s Dutch Grand Prix and believes the team can deliver another good weekend at Monza, Italy next weekend.

Saturday was a disappointing day for the French outfit when both Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso failed to make it out of Qualifying Two – putting their cars twelfth and thirteenth respectively. The race was a lot stronger for Alpine, with the double World Champion finishing sixth, and Ocon finishing ninth, narrowly missing out on eighth.

As a result, Alpine took home ten points and outscored their Constructors’ Championship competitors – McLaren F1 Team – by four points. Alpine now find themselves twenty-four points clear of the papaya-coloured team and are well positioned to take fourth place in the Constructors’ standings.

“We’re very pleased to extend our advantage in fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship by scoring ten points in Zandvoort today. It was always going to be a tough task to progress both of our cars from twelfth and thirteenth on the grid into the points, but we’ve achieved just that after a very strong race across the board,” said the Alpine Team Principal.

“Our strategy was decisive, using our knowledge from Friday Practice about the Hard tyre, which allowed both cars to be in a position to score good points. Fernando drove another great race, holding off Lando [Norris] at the end, with Esteban too doing a fantastic job to finish in ninth place and bring home valuable points.

Alexander Albon may have missed out on points in Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix, but the Williams Racing driver admitted to being happy that the top ten was not far away around a track the team were not expecting to be that competitive on.

Albon ended twelfth on Sunday afternoon and was only eight seconds off the top ten, although this gap was shortened by the late race safety car at Circuit Zandvoort.

Nevertheless, Albon was happy with his performance around a high-downforce circuit that Williams have traditionally struggled at, and he said it was a ‘good job’ to get so close to the top ten.

“I think coming into today, we didn’t have high expectations, so think we’ve proven we’re not too far away from the points,” said Albon.

“We didn’t expect much from the high downforce circuit, so it’s positive and I think going forward we won’t be so scared of these types of circuits and can focus on fighting for points. I was happy with the car, despite just lacking a bit of lap time.

Scott McLaughlin stepped up when he needed to most as a dominant victory in the Grand Prix of Portland embedded him into the NTT IndyCar Series championship conversation with just one race to go.

McLaughlin’s masterclass is the finest performance of his career to date, leading all but six of the 110 laps from the pole. By comparison led 49% of the race in his maiden win at St. Petersburg earlier this year and 56% in his second triumph at Mid-Ohio. The 104 of 110 laps led (94.5%) is also the second most in the Grand Prix of Portland’s history by a slim margin, with the record being 95.2% (100 of 105) by A.J. Allmendinger—who coincidentally won the inaugural NASCAR Xfinity Series race there in June—in the 2006 edition under Champ Car sanction.

The six non-McLaughlin laps led were split between four drivers: Penske team-mate Will Power (two), Graham Rahal (two), Callum Ilott, and Christian Lundgaard.

With his win and reigning Portland winner Álex Palou‘s twelfth, McLaughlin leapfrogs him for fifth in points. Power leads the points with 523 while McLaughlin is an outsider with 482, but the win mathematically keeps his championship hopes alive entering next week’s finale at Laguna Seca.

“The team, the Thirsty 3s, got the job done in the pits,” said McLaughlin. “We did exactly what we needed to do this weekend, and that was win and get max points and keep ourselves in the fight.

Scuderia AlphaTauri have condemned the backlash and hurtful conspiracy theories surrounding Yuki Tsunoda’s retirement from the Dutch Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon.

Social media was full of theories on why Tsunoda stopped on track at the Circuit Zandvoort, bringing out a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) whilst his AT-03 was recovered.

The VSC allowed Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen to pit for fresh tyres and keep himself ahead of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team duo Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.

Hannah Schmitz, the Head of Strategy at Red Bull, was the victim of a lot of the abuse thrown the team’s way following the retirement, with many hinting it was a deliberate act to keep Verstappen at the head of the field in front of his adoring home fans.

The Issues

Tsunoda initially stopped on track when his team informed him that one of his wheels was not attached properly to his car.  The Japanese racer was about to get out of the car when he was then told the wheels were all correctly fitted.

Mike Krack praised Lance Stroll for the way he drove throughout Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix, but he rued the late race safety car that prevented him from finishing higher than tenth.

Stroll was involved in the battle for the minor points throughout the race at Circuit Zandvoort, but the timing of the safety car, caused when Valtteri Bottas stopped on track, left him only tenth when a place as high as seventh could have been achievable.

Sebastian Vettel could only finish fourteenth in the second AMR22, but the German was always going to find the going tough on Sunday after starting down on the back row of the grid in nineteenth.

Krack, the Team Principal at the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team, says it was pleasing to leave Zandvoort with a point after a competitive-looking afternoon amongst the Dutch sand dunes, and they can go into the Italian Grand Prix next weekend with some confidence.

“Lance drove very well to score a hard-earned point this afternoon, managing his tyres throughout a tricky Soft-Medium-Hard-Soft three-stop race,” said Krack. “The timing of the Safety Car did not help Lance’s race, but a point is a point.

Lance Stroll believes he could have finished as high as seventh in Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix if circumstances out of his control had gone more his way.

The Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team driver felt he had the pace to challenge both the BWT Alpine F1 Team and McLaren F1 Team drivers at the Circuit Zandvoort, but the late race safety car, caused by Valtteri Bottas stopping on track, wrecked his chances of a better result.

Stroll ended the day in tenth – the fifth time in 2022 he has achieved this position – but it he felt he was more competitive in the Netherlands than his finishing position seems.

“Overall, it has been a positive weekend in terms of performance, but we were a little bit unlucky today with how things played out and how that affected our strategy,” said Stroll.  

“The timing of the Safety Car gave the Alpines and [Lando] Norris the advantage: without that we could have been fighting for seventh. Our pace was strong all weekend, I felt really confident in the car, and we were more competitive.