For a weekend that opened with such high hopes of fresh starts and title charges, the Dutch Grand Prix could not for some have borne more bitter fruit. Oscar Piastri did take a dominant win but his team-mate and title rival Lando Norris was left head bowed, disconsolate, alone in the blustery dunes beside the North Sea. Similarly, the seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton was forced to trudge back to the paddock, his Ferrari in pieces by the side of the track after an enormously uncharacteristic, unforced error.
This was sport as a cruel mistress writ large at Zandvoort. Piastri’s performance was as admirable and assured as any he had delivered, the 24‑year‑old Australian as unflappable as ever to deliver a consummate pole‑to‑flag victory. Indeed it never looked in doubt from the moment he held his lead through turn one, even through a brief period of light rain and three safety-car restarts.
But in his wake fate had decreed the most damnable fortune for Norris. The British driver had entered the weekend fired up for the title run‑in, with just nine points between the two protagonists. He had noted that now it was getting serious, with nine races to go after the meeting in Zandvoort, every point would matter. Dropping a few he might consider a setback but a DNF to his team-mate’s victory was surely the veritable white whale of Norris’s nightmares.
Worse still was the manner he was denied. In the turbo-hybrid era the cars have become all but bulletproof in reliability, the days of an engine going pop seemingly all but long gone. Yet as Norris harried Piastri to the flag in second place, with only seven laps to go, the unthinkable became blunt reality as his cockpit filled with smoke and it belched from the car as the oil leak that was to blame finally ground him to a halt.
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Norris pulled over, climbed out and moved, dejected, to sit alone on the dunes, helmet on and head bowed, sitting disconsolate as his hopes fell to pieces – through no fault of his own.
Nonetheless Norris, impressively, took it with no little phlegm, remaining calm and remarkably stoic on reflection. “It wasn’t my fault, so there’s nothing I can really do. It’s just not my weekend,” he said.
“Of course it’s frustrating. It hurts a bit for sure in a championship point of view. It’s a lot of points to lose so quickly and so easily.”
Piastri, as cool as ever, calmly took the flag with complete control to secure a 34-point lead in the drivers’ championship. Not insurmountable but a swing that amounts to a body blow for the British driver and one from which he must recover for Monza in a week’s time.
Hamilton has a similarly short time to reset after what was supposed to have been his fresh start in the wake of the summer break after a difficult first half of the season on his debut with Ferrari. Last week he had said he was determined to have fun driving again, to enjoy himself competing for the team he had dreamed of joining when he was child, and that he felt positive and motivated.
His hopes were left in tatters in a shower of carbon fibre as the front of his Ferrari came apart on impact with the barriers.
With very light rain just intensifying a little on lap 21, Hamilton was caught out. At turn three he went wide on to part of the track beyond the white line where painted branding adorns the tarmac. With a fine coating of Dutch drizzle it was a slippery surface and he lost the rear and slid inexorably off into the barriers. “I’m so sorry guys,” he said as, clearly dejected, he made his way on foot back to the paddock, helmet still firmly on.
It was striking in that he lost the car in circumstances in which he usually exhibits absolute control. Yet even after what was a blow to his ambitions for a reinvigorated restart at Ferrari, he remained upbeat.
“Took me by complete surprise what happened, I lost the rear up the bank and that was it. I was hoping to save it, but I didn’t,” he said.
“Apart from that, it’s been a really solid weekend. I feel like I made progress, just overall, and my approach and everything. To come away with nothing is definitely painful. I’m sad for the team because I really wanted to get those points for the team today.”
His team principal, Fred Vasseur, maintained afterwards that Hamilton remained positive, that he felt the weekend had been a step forward with which he was happy despite his error, as the Scuderia look forward to their home race at Monza.
Hamilton has known similar setbacks before and is no stranger to overcoming them, old enough and experienced enough to move onwards and, he doubtless hopes, upwards. But Norris – in his first real head-to-head title fight – must now draw deep and steel himself to these slings and arrows, even as Piastri took a mighty step toward the title.
Max Verstappen took second for Red Bull, while Isack Hadjar was third for Racing Bulls – his first podium and a superb result in his rookie season.
George Russell was fourth for Mercedes and Alex Albon fifth for Williams. Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon were sixth and 10th for Haas, Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso were in seventh and eighth for Aston Martin, and Yuki Tsunoda ninth for Red Bull. – Guardian
