Lewis Hamilton admitted that he was driven to “the edge of breaking point with my emotions” after seeing what he believed was a possible win in the Dutch Grand Prix snatched from his grasp.
Max Verstappen took yet another consummate victory - his 10th in 15 races so far this year — as he marches serenely to a second title that is now inevitable. But the story of the race was that Mercedes came closer than ever before this year to taking that elusive win.
When a strategy decision during a late safety-car period left Hamilton in the lead, but vulnerable to Verstappen — much as he had been last year in the title decider in Abu Dhabi — it all became too much for the seven-time champion.
He swore at his team over the radio, railing at what in the heat of the moment felt like an opportunity thrown away.
That one of the two safety-car periods that prevented Hamilton and team-mate George Russell heading into the final 10 laps of the race running one-two came under suspicious circumstances involving Red Bull’s sister team only made those emotions stronger. Out of the car, the adrenaline no longer flooding through him, Hamilton apologised.
“I don’t even remember what I said,” Hamilton said. “I just lost it for a second. But I think they know that there is just so much passion. “I want to look at it as a glass half-full. We came here struggling from the last race. We were fighting against the Red Bulls. We were quicker than most at many points.
“So many great things to take from it. The car was finally working. If this can be the same in the future races, we’re going to be continuing to breathe down their necks and we’re going to get that win.”
A week ago, at high-speed Spa, the Mercedes was out of its “sweet spot”. In Zandvoort, a circuit demanding higher downforce, and with a different mix of corners, it was very much back in it.
Hamilton was in with a shout of pole, before Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez spun at the end of qualifying and prevented both Mercedes drivers completing their final laps.
As Hamilton pointed out: “I was pole until the last corner, I was 0.07s up on Max. They are quicker on the straights so even if I’d got through the corner quicker than them, most likely he would have just pipped me at the line. But still that’s a huge positive to take and then our race pace seems to be better or as good as everyone’s.”
At their pre-race strategy briefing, Mercedes agreed that they would take risks if it gave them a chance to win. They approached the afternoon in that frame of mind, and made every decision based on it. They committed to a one-stop race, while pretty much everyone else went for two.
As the various strategies played out, and the race entered its final third, Verstappen was leading from Hamilton and Russell, but the Dutchman had to stop again and the Mercedes drivers did not.
Had the race carried on with no caution periods, Verstappen would have pitted and dropped to third. On soft tyres with the Mercedes on used hards, he would have had to catch and pass both Mercedes to win.
“When I swapped to the medium [after my first stop], they were still doing good lap times [on their long first stint],” Verstappen said.
“Then, when they swapped to the hard, I was interested to see their pace. I thought: ‘That’s quite quick.’ I was trying to push up a bit. It was very surprising they made it work. I knew it might get close at the end with the way strategies played out.”
Would Verstappen have done it? Mercedes’ strategy predictions said he would have come out eight seconds behind. It would have been close, the computers said, but they reckon Verstappen would still have won — but not easily.
The first blow to Mercedes was the bizarre sequence of events surrounding the virtual safety car, involving Yuki Tsunoda’s Alpha Tauri.
After pitting for tyres, Tsunoda stopped on track on lap 44, and said over the radio that a wheel was lose. He undid his belts and started to climb out. No, the team said, the wheels are all fine. Carry on.
So he drove slowly back to the pits. Alpha Tauri strapped him in, and sent him out again, only for him to stop out on track, for good this time. Which required officials to deploy the virtual safety car so the car could be moved to a safe place.
For Verstappen, this was “a bit unfortunate”, because while a VSC means a pit stop that costs less time, he still needed to fit fresh tyres, so Red Bull had to call him in. But it was too early for a set of softs, so they fitted hards, which Verstappen had not wanted because he did not like the feel of the car on them.
As Mercedes saw it, Red Bull’s sister team had acted in an extremely odd way that had given their lead driver a major advantage, allowing him to pit and retain the lead, rather than drop to third.
“If we were fighting for the championship, that would be something I would closely look at.” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said.
“Now I think what needs to be investigated, for the safety of drivers and everybody, the driver stopped, unbuckled, drove a full lap, came in, the problem wasn’t solved, they put the seat belts back on and he drove out and stopped the car again and that probably changed the outcome of a race that we maybe could have won.”
Race stewards did investigate the incident — and reprimanded Tsunoda for driving back to the pits with the belts undone. It seems they did not look into Alpha Tauri’s actions. There was “no evidence” of any wrongdoing, a spokesman said, pointing out the FIA has access to a lot of data and all team communications.
This was not the end of Mercedes’ hopes, though. Mercedes had also stopped under the VSC, to fit fresh medium tyres. When racing resumed, Verstappen was leading Hamilton by 15.4 seconds. But, as he had feared, he did not get on well with the hards, and Hamilton started closing in. Six laps later, with 16 to go, the gap was down to 10.7secs. Was the win on again for Hamilton? In the Red Bull, Verstappen thought not. “The gap after VSC was still big enough to manage,” he said.
