After a long 4-week summer break, the Formula 1 World Championship returned for Round 15 of the 2024 Season.
Drivers were greeted to the Netherlands with a wet and windy start at the start of FP1, reflected in the lack of rush for cars to leave the pit lane. Nico Hulkenberg fell victim to the conditions around the Zandvoort Circuit after locking up and sending his Haas machinery into the gravel trap before returning to the circuit. He again made a quick trip into the gravel after running off the track, with the VF-24 seeming to be experiencing issues as the track evolved.
Max Verstappen was another driver to suffer as a result of the changing conditions, with the Dutchman spinning after taking to the track as the first to run the intermediate tyres, briefly causing yellow flag conditions.
FP2 presented more chaos as drivers were greeted by brighter and drier conditions, although they were finding themselves battling the elements further with gusts of wind blowing sand onto the track to add an extra challenge at an already tight and twisty venue.
Russell had what the team described as a “strange” lock up at Turn 8 resulting in a quick trip through the gravel trap, whilst the Red Bull duo of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen both had their own respective issues with a lock-up at Turn 1 and a snap of oversteer at Turn 7 respectively.
Niko Hulkenberg’s bad luck in practice continued throughout the day with the Haas driver losing the rear of the car after braking at Turn 1, going through the gravel before meeting the wall consequently damaging the right-hand side of the car and bringing out the first red flags of the weekend.
Logan Sargeant had his own moment in FP3 after running over the kerb and placing a wheel on the grass whilst exiting Turn 3 sent his Williams sliding across the wet track before colliding with the barriers to bring out the red flags – the rear of the car seemingly completely destroyed and alight with flames, sending plumes of smoke into the air.
Sargeant confirmed he was unharmed after exiting the car and hopping the barrier, with marshals making quick work to extinguish the flames and start to remove the American driver’s car from the track before beginning the clean-up process for the debris and fixing the damage to the barriers, whilst the Williams mechanics began to prepare themselves for a multitude of repairs in an attempt to get Sargeant back out on track in time for qualifying.
Qualifying:
Lando Norris triumphed to pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix, with the Briton putting a time to see himself over three tenths of a second clear to fellow front-row starter and home favourite Max Verstappen.
Norris set the pace for the rest of the grid in the initial runs in Q3 securing provisional pole during the early stages of the session. Verstappen briefly topped his time to take P1, before Norris bettered his previous effort to take the pole position for Sunday’s race with a lap time of 1m 09.673s, demoting Verstappen to second place only 0.356s back.
Oscar Piastri made it two McLaren’s in the top three ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell in fourth place. Sergio Perez had his best qualifying result in recent weekends, placing the second Red Bull in fifth place.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took the chequered flag in sixth place, ahead of the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso in seventh and Alex Albon in eighth. Lance Stroll and Pierre Gasly took ninth and tenth for Aston Martin and Alpine respectively.
Q2 had some surprising names exiting the session with the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz struggling through the session and eventually ending up in 11th. Lewis Hamilton also had a shock during Q2, only being able to manage 12th best for Mercedes – he would later be investigated after the session for potentially impeding Perez during Q1.
Joining Sainz and Hamilton in the elimination zone were RB’s Yuki Tsunoda who finished 13th and the Haas duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen in 14th and 15th place respectively.
The second RB of Daniel Ricciardo found himself eliminated for Q1 in P16 after a disappointing Saturday for the Australian. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon – who will be departing from the team at the end of the season only managed P17 ahead of the Kick Sauber pair of Valterri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu who finished in P18 and P19.
Logan Sargeant’s accident in FP3 and the damage sustained to the car proved to be too much for the Williams crew, and despite their best efforts, the American driver was unable to participate in the Qualifying session leaving him at the back of the grid for the race on Sunday.
Post-Qualifying:
Lewis Hamilton was handed a three-place grid penalty for the Dutch Grand Prix after stewards deemed he had impeded the Red Bull of Sergio Perez during Q1. He would be demoted from his original starting position of P12 to P15 for the start of the race on Sunday.
According to the FIA Decision Document:
“The Stewards determine that, whilst there has been appropriate warning by the team and albeit the driver tried to move out of the way, he could have slowed down more in order not to impede the other car and therefore consider the impeding to be unnecessary in the sense of the regulations. Therefore, a grid drop is applied in line with previous decisions.”
Williams’ Alex Albon also had troubles post-qualifying as he was ultimately disqualified from the results of the Saturday session at Zandvoort due to a breach of the technical regulations.
After initially qualifying eighth for the Dutch Grand Priix, the Thai driver would start Sunday’s race from the back of the grid after an issue was discovered with the floor of the heavily updated FW46.
The stewards’ decision document stated:
“The floor body of Car 23 was found to lie outside the regulatory volume mentioned in Article 3.5.1 a) of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations. The team did not dispute the calibration of the FIA measuring system and the measurement of the car, but stated that their own measurements have produced different results.”
“The Stewards determine that the result of the measurement conducted with the FIA system in Parc Ferme is the relevant one and the due process prescribed by the regulations has been followed. Therefore, the standard penalty for such an infringement is applied.”
Race:
McLaren’s Lando Norris emerged victorious at the chequered flag of the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort, blitzing past home-favourite Max Verstappen to finish almost 23 seconds ahead to take his second career win.
Norris’ win means he is the first McLaren driver to win a Grand Prix from pole position since Lewis Hamilton at the 2012 Italian Grand Prix, and also the first McLaren win at Zandvoort since Niki Lauda’s win in 1985.
The Briton lined up on the pole position mark for Sunday’s race, however his hopes of converting this to the race win was briefly hampered when Verstappen jumped him off the line and took the lead of the race going into the first corner, before making a gap to see him clear of DRS range of Norris.
A moment of drama at the back of the grid occurred when Magnussen – who started the race from the pit-lane due to changes to his power unit – locked up at Turn 1 and went through the gravel trap before rejoining the track.
With the laps ticking away, Norris increased his pace managing to get back within DRS range of Verstappen.
Albon was the first driver to peel into the pits on Lap 13, changing from mediums to hards, which caused a domino effect of the rear of the grid pitting including Hulkenberg and Tsunoda.
Verstappen started struggling mid-way through his tyre stint, complaining to the team that his “car doesn’t want to turn”, allowing Norris to take half a second out of the leader on Lap 16. Two laps later, the McLaren driver made a pass on the reigning World Champion after utilising the DRS down the start/finish straight.
Norris continued to extend his advantage even after the pit stops, before eventually taking the chequered flag over 20 seconds ahead of Verstappen to take his second career win and cut the championship lead to within 70 points.
Charles Leclerc took third place with an impressive drive after starting in sixth place to take the last step on the podium after a challenging weekend for Ferrari, with the second McLaren of Oscar Piastri taking fourth place after extending his opening tyre stint and losing track position when he pitted as a result.
Carlos Sainz made it two Ferrari’s in the top five extending his record of finishing in the top six for the sixth consecutive race and always finishing within the top five at Zandvoort, ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez (his first top-six finish since Miami) and the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton who finished seventh and eighth place respectively.
Pierre Gasly took ninth-place for Alpine ahead of Fernando Alonso who grabbed the final point for Aston Martin after a late pass on Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg in the closing stages of the race.
All top-10 drivers were all previous race winner for the second race weekend in a row, which before now, had previously never happened during the 74-year history of the World Championship.
Lance Stroll initially took 12th place in the second Aston Martin at the line, however was dropped down to 13th post-race behind RB’s Daniel Ricciardo, after he was found guilty of speeding in the pit lane and was handed a five-second time penalty by the stewards.
Alex Albon salvaged a result for Williams after starting the race at the back of the grid following his disqualification from qualifying over the illegal floor upgrade, taking 14th place due to his two-stop strategy.
Esteban Ocon took 15th place ahead of Logan Sargeant, with the second Williams’ driver taking 16th place after overnight repairs from his mechanics due to his FP3 crash which ruled him out of qualifying. Yuki Tsunoda took the chequered flag in 17th place after pitting twice in the race.
Kevin Magnussen took the accolade for the longest opening stint of the race whilst trying to recover places lost due to his pit lane start, however he could only managed 18th, ahead of the Kick Sauber pair of Valterri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu who finished in 19th and 20th place respectively, after both drivers also pitted twice during the race.
Despite drama during the Free Practice sessions, the Dutch Grand Prix was the fourth race this season (after Bahrain, Spain and Austria) with no classified retirements, breaking the record for the most in any season in F1 history.
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