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The Formula 1 2022 Dutch Grand Prix wasn’t particularly glamorous in the early stages of the race. Ferrari provided early entertainment by completely messing up Carlos Sainz’s maintenance strategy, giving two Mercedes a free pass. Red Bull and Ferrari started the race with softer tyres, while the Mercedes duo decided to start the race with slower but longer-lasting Pirelli medium tyres.
Lewis Hamilton led the race, Ferrari and Verstappen pitted and Russell in P2. After 18 laps, Hamilton stopped in search of the hardest tire compounds, apparently planning to run on them until the end of the race. Two laps later, Russell stopped because of the same tires as his teammates.
Carlos Sainz was delayed by about 12 seconds due to Ferrari error, Mercedes trailing Leclerc and Verstappen, both in Monaco Dutch drivers had to stop later.
Ferrari pitted LeClerc on lap 45, allowing the hard tyres to finish. He is behind the Mercedes duo but with fresher tires.
Two laps later, Tsunoda’s failing Alpha Tauri led to a virtual safety car, giving Max Verstappen a chance to pit for fresh rubber and maintain the lead. A quick thought from Mercedes saw them park two cars on the same lap and realized they could better protect themselves from being parked in the back as well.
It now looks like Verstappen has won and Hamilton and Russell have P2, but the F1 gods will be throwing the wrench again, with Lewis Hamilton looking to win his first race of the season.
Valterri Bottas Ferrari, powering Alfa Romeo, came to a stop at the end of the main straight, leading to a full safety car.
Race Control issued a full warning to the safety car, but the position of the Bottas car meant the safety car led the F1 team through the pit lane. This gave the rider a chance to put on new tires and only lost about 3 seconds.
Verstappen pitted from the lead to get rid of the hard tyres and put on a new set of soft and fast red Pirelli tyres. He trailed Lewis Hamilton, who decided to keep the track position but with older tires.
George Russell asked the team to pit for the same tyres as Verstappen, but Hamilton’s radio was silent.
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Russell trailed Verstappen, who was leading right behind Hamilton.
Of course, Verstappen passed Hamilton on the restart before the pit straight ended. Russell followed, followed by Leclerc, overtaking the British driver.
Hamilton finished P4 on the podium and must regret the same mistake made by the Abu Dhabi team that cost him the world title.
Toto Wolff claimed after the race that they had left Hamilton out for the winning track position. But with more than 10 laps to go, and with Lewis’ rivals on fresh rubber, the team clearly hasn’t learned its lesson from the 2021 season finale.
In Abu Dhabi, Hamilton had only 1 lap to survive Verstappen’s attack on new tyres, but failed to do so. It’s unbelievable how the team and Lewis believed he could hold on to win.
A social media commentator questioned whether Mercedes had recruited a race strategist from Ferrari, and Wolff’s excuse was delusional.
In 2022, the fact that cars can follow closely changes everything. Track position is less important, Mercedes is using an old strategy playbook.
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Red Bull clearly intends to sacrifice track position and two races as they keep an extra set of soft tyres for qualifying. At the first stop, they installed medium tires on Verstappen’s car, but had no hope of getting it done.
The teams from Milton Keynes this season are regularly changing their race strategy on each track from 2021, stopping more frequently and running longer races on faster tyres.
Mercedes needs to embrace this plan and realise that track position is no longer the kingpin strategy they have won eight titles from 2014.
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