Max Verstappen got a new victory in the race of the 2022 Dutch GP in Zandvoort and left practically sealed his second F1 title.
The drivers arrived at the second consecutive weekend of competition with the Dutch Grand Prix, the home of Max Verstappen, in which thousands of orange-clad fans lined the grandstands of Circuit Zandvoort.
On Saturday, the Dutchman gave joy to all those who came to the track by achieving pole position, although he had to defend it against the threat of the two Ferraris, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Incidents, overtaking, and disparate strategies were the ingredients that made up the new triumph of the Dutchman at home, causing the party in the stands to celebrate the 30th victory of the Red Bull driver in his racing career. In addition, Verstappen almost sealed his second world title after seeing how George Russell slipped between the two Ferraris with a good plan to stop him in the pitlane.
Charles Leclerc was the third in discord and added a bittersweet podium that leaves him practically without options in the championship. Behind, and already outside the positions of honor, Lewis Hamilton finished, who came to be in the lead until the last restart after a safety car caused by Valtteri Bottas.
In fifth place finished, Sergio Perez, who was involved in many fights with Sainz, was penalized with 5 seconds for an unsafe release that made him drop from fifth to eighth place. His place was inherited by Fernando Alonso, who overcame Lando Norris, Esteban Ocon, and Lance Stroll, who closed the points zone.
The test began without many surprises, with the first ones maintaining their starting positions, so Max Verstappen kept the lead, followed by Ferrari, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, and Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes, who touched with Madrid slightly in the first corner. However, hostilities began from behind, as Guanyu Zhou's Alfa Romeo and Kevin Magnussen's Haas engaged in a wheel-to-wheel battle that ended with the Dane brushing the wall after losing control of his car.
After that, the race leveled off, largely because the drivers were conserving tires with their pit stops in mind, although Fernando Alonso grew tired of waiting and overtook Pierre Gasly 's AlphaTauri on lap ten to move up to 12th. Position thanks to DRS. The Asturian repeated the maneuver two laps later with the other car from Faenza before going through the pitlane to mount a game of hard.
As the laps went by, Sainz's soft rubber collapsed, and Hamilton's medium began to allow him a higher pace per lap. For the same reason, in the Prancing Horse, he thought of making a pit stop, which they did shortly after to protect themselves from those who came from behind. However, the Italians failed when changing the tires and made a stop of more than 12 seconds to mount the means to the Spaniard.
That caused many places to fall, and even Sergio Pérez overtook him with the same strategy, while the leaders, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, remained at the top for more laps. In Mercedes, they were presented as covered since their British duo kept up a great pace with the medium compound, which would allow them to consummate an overcut on the Mexican and the Spanish from Ferrari.
After the first round of stops, the reigning world champion and world leader kept the first place, although the silver arrows mounted the hard ones to try a stop and get what would be the first victory of the course for Brackley. To do this, they had to stop Verstappen, but on the first attempt, he passed his rivals with an excellent maneuver at turn 1.
Behind, the early stop of Fernando Alonso allowed him to climb to the eighth position to be only behind Lando Norris in the fight to be the best of the rest.
After passing the halfway point of the test, Verstappen seemed the clear candidate for victory, thus repeating his performance from last season. However, for this, he had to keep Charles Leclerc at bay, who was told on the radio that they were sure they could beat the Mercedes despite going with a different strategy from the hard ones.
His teammate, who lost the position with Checo, fell to the fifth position when the Mexican pitted, but the one from Guadalajara managed to come back with new tires, although on lap 47, he changed the entire race.
When he suffered problems with what appeared to be the belts, be that as it may, the Japanese caused a virtual safety car that caused all the drivers to go through the pitlane to mount a set of new tires.
Lewis Hamilton thanked his team for the good stop, while Alonso suffered a bad stop from Alpine that sent him to ninth place, although with soft that could allow him to overtake in the resumption of the test. A few laps later, the green flag reappeared, and everyone returned to competition speed, although the man from Oviedo was the fastest, thus approaching Lando Norris.
The Alpine driver tried to overtake the Briton outside Turn 1, but the McLaren driver avoided it by closing the door quite a bit, thus leaving the Spaniard in the same position. No one expected that Valtteri Bottas's Alfa Romeo would stop on the finish straight due to reliability problems, which caused the safety car to come out.
The Safety Car caused many to go through the pitlane to mount new tires, as did Carlos Sainz, who could receive a penalty for an alleged overtaking under a yellow flag. The Madrid native's bad luck after his first slow stop was repeated, as he starred in an unsafe release when he went ahead of Alonso's car.
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