Formula 1 roars back into life for a 10-race dash to the end of the season starting with this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix.
Part F1 race, part festival and part rave, the reinstated grand prix in seaside Zandvoort exists for one reason only: Max Verstappen.
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The race returned to the calendar in 2021, coinciding with the biggest rise in Max mania. The home hero has repaid his passionate fans with three straight victories.
But with Red Bull Racing under more pressure than it’s ever been in the last three years, is this the year the Dutch will cycle home disappointed?
CAN MAX KEEP STREAK TO BREAK STREAK IN MILESTONE GRAND PRIX?
This weekend is Verstappen’s 200th grand prix.
Time flies when you’re winning races.
Verstappen is currently tied with Alain Prost on 199 starts. His 200th launch at Zandvoort will put him outright 23rd on the list of F1’s most prolific racers. By the end of the season he’ll have passed Jean Alesi, Nelson Piquet, Nico Rosberg and Andrea de Cesaris for starts, moving him up to 19th.
You might be surprised to realise that the Dutchman, still just 26 years old, is the seventh most experienced driver on the current grid. Only Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Sergio Pérez, Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas and Nico Hülkenberg have made more starts.
Despite his youthfulness, he’s approaching elder statesman status.
And Verstappen has used his time wisely.
From his 199 starts so far he’s won 61 times (30.7 per cent of all starts), finished on the podium 107 times (53.8 per cent) and taken 40 poles (20.1 per cent).
He’s won three titles (33.3 per cent of seasons entered) and will almost certainly win a fourth this year, his 10th season in the sport (40 per cent).
But records have never mattered much to Verstappen. He’s interested only in winning today.
It’s why his homecoming this weekend isn’t quite as happy as he’d like.
Verstappen is on his longest losing streak in almost four years. The last time he went winless four rounds in succession was in 2020, when he went 11 grands prix between wins in Silverstone and Abu Dhabi.
Those were wildly different times. Verstappen ended that season by claiming just the 10th victory of his career. He’d never finished higher than third on the title table.
What followed was three years of almost uninterrupted domination. But this year it feels as though the era is changing again.
In a far more competitive Formula 1, Verstappen is finding it far harder to accumulate victories.
But against the backdrop of this relatively barren run arrives the Dutch Grand Prix, a race home hero Verstappen has never lost.
He’s been formidable at home ever since Zandvoort returned to the calendar in 2021: three poles, three wins.
What we don’t know is whether his victorious streak will be the one that continues this weekend or if it’ll be his losing streak that lasts another round.
PIT TALK PODCAST: Formula 1 is back from the break with the Dutch Grand Prix this weekend, and Michael and Mat preview the biggest storylines still to be resolved over the rest of the season.
CAN GEORGE RUSSELL BOUNCE BACK AFTER BELGIUM DISQUALIFICATION?
The last time Formula 1 saw George Russell was at one of the Briton’s lowest ebbs.
He’d just claimed the most famous and impressive of his career victories, mastering an improbable one-stop strategy to beat teammate Lewis Hamilton to the flag in a showstopping finish at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Except actually he didn’t.
His car was found to be 1.5 kilograms underweight during standard post-race scrutineering and was subsequently disqualified.
The team put the error down to a combination of unexpectedly heavy plank wear and the higher loss of tyre tread thanks to his one-stop strategy.
The exclusion dropped him to eighth on the drivers title table behind Sergio Pérez.
It was a blow to more than just his points tally.
Mercedes is arriving in a purple patch in the middle of the season, having finally cracked these regulations after years of struggle. It’s now won three of the last four races.
But as the team’s form has lifted, so to has Lewis Hamilton’s performances.
Russell could rightly claim to have had the upper hand on his illustrious teammate earlier in the season, when the outlook was less sunny, but he’s since begun to be overpowered.
This is important for two reasons.
The first is that, with Hamilton set to decamp for Maranello at the end of the year, it will fall to Russell to take the reins as team leader. The only way he can inspire confidence in his troops is to demonstrate he’s stepped up on track by beating Hamilton.
The second is that his place at the team isn’t necessarily safe.
Mercedes is expected to place rising star Andrea Kimi Antonelli in Hamilton’s seat next year. The Italian is the team’s future. Short of a spectacular flame-out net year, he’ll be a Mercedes fixture.
But where does that leave yesterday’s future, Russell?
And what does that mean for him in the context of stubborn rumours that Toto Wolff wants to pinch Verstappen from Red Bull Racing in 2026?
Nothing can take Russell’s tremendous Belgium performance away from him, but moral victories over Hamilton won’t be enough on their own to cement his status at the team for the long term.
CAN SERGIO PEREZ SAVE HIS CAREER?
If you’ve been following Formula 1 at all this season, you’re already well acquainted with the saga of Sergio Pérez.
The Mexican is making a mess of Red Bull Racing’s title defence, his poor performances allowing McLaren to rapidly erode what had been a hefty points advantage on the constructors table after only five rounds.
Speculation peaked in the two races before the break that he was set to be axed. In Hungary he crashed out of Q1, his second such elimination in a row and his fourth in the previous six rounds. He then squandered second on the grid in Belgium, sinking down to eighth in the order before Russell’s disqualification.
He unexpectedly earnt a reprieve 24 hours after the Belgian Grand Prix, but team principal Christian Horner’s words hinted that it was a stay of execution rather than a pardon.
“We look forward to seeing him perform on circuits where he has done well before after the summer break,” he said.
The reasoning was that some of Pérez’s best tracks are coming up in the next four rounds.
The Dutch Grand Prix isn’t one of them, however.
While Verstappen is yet to start or finish lower than first here, in the same car Pérez hasn’t qualified higher than fifth or finished better than fourth.
His differential statistics relative to Verstappen make for dire reading.
Dutch Grand Prix
Qualifying differential: 8.33 places behind Verstappen
Time differential: 0.847 seconds behind Verstappen
Race differential: 4.67 places behind Verstappen
These are not materially different to his average statistics since this year’s Miami Grand Prix, during which time he’s performed so badly that McLaren has slashed its championship deficit to Red Bull Racing by 63 per cent, down to just 42 points.
In other words, this weekend Pérez will have to do markedly better than he’s done not just this year but also historically at this track to have any hope of swinging the team behind him and convincing management to keep him for the rest of the season.
That’s the double-edged nature of Pérez’s reprieve.
While Azerbaijan and Singapore are certainly historically strong for him, Italy is less so and the Netherlands absolutely isn’t.
The Mexican might see this as an opportunity, arriving back in F1 refreshed and with his confidence replenished.
But history suggests this weekend at least could do more harm than good to his hopes or seeing out the season.
CAN LANDO NORRIS HIT BACK AFTER BELGIUM?
The subplot to McLaren’s assault on Red Bull Racing’s title lead is the evolving dynamic between drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
While Norris is the established team leader, Piastri has challenged his authority with increasing frequency.
The Australian is still further from the complete package than the Briton, who races with an experience advantage.
But the margin is closing all the time, and in the races before the mid-season break Piastri dealt a pair of big blows on his teammate to underline his internal threat.
He won his maiden grand prix in Hungary, drawing level with Norris for career victories.
He was then comfortably McLaren’s standout performer in Belgium, battling for victory while Norris wallowed three places further back.
The two races may have been linked.
The fracas over Norris’s initial reluctance to obey team orders in Budapest appeared to weigh heavily on him the following week after realising he’d detracted not only from Piastri’s maiden win but also the team’s groundbreaking one-two finish.
Did that psychological baggage hamper his performances?
Whatever the case, it left Norris exposed to the perpetually improving Piastri, who’s now third in the championship standings and just 32 points behind him.
Norris can’t afford to leave himself open to the same again.
First, there’s the long shot — very, very long shot — that he has at the drivers championship. At 78 points adrift, it would require a miracle to achieve, but every point counts.
Second, there’s the risk the internal team dynamic shifts in Piastri’s favour ahead of what could be a title-contending 2025 season, when Verstappen and Red Bull Racing likely won’t have the head start they enjoyed this year.
The last 10 races of the season for McLaren will be all about the constructors championship, but between the drivers there’ll be a subtle arm wrestle for the right to be the presumptive title challenger next year.
WHO CAN GET THEMSELVES ON A SEAT BEFORE THE MUSIC STOPS?
With just 10 rounds to go, we’re reaching the crunch point for critical decisions to be made for 2025.
The driver market is chief among them, with the days ticking down until next year’s grid is complete.
Right now four seats remain unsigned, with one apiece at Mercedes, RB, Alpine and Sauber/Audi.
In practice only two are up for grabs, with only one a potentially open contest.
Mercedes is tipped to promote Antonelli, while Alpine is expected to give Australia its next Formula 1 driver by elevating Jack Doohan from the reserves bench into the cockpit.
Daniel Ricciardo’s seat at RB remains uncommitted, and its fate relies in part on Pérez’s performances.
Ricciardo is hoping to replace the Mexican at Red Bull Racing by the end of the season, having already looked set to do so during the mid-season break before the team unexpectedly relented.
The Australian’s season on the whole has fallen short of expectations, but the last six rounds dating back to the Canadian Grand Prix have been markedly better relative to teammate Yuki Tsunoda, beating him in four from six qualifying sessions and races.
Daniel Ricciardo key stats, rounds 9 to 14
Qualifying differential: 1.5 places ahead of Tsunoda
Time differential: 0.100 seconds behind Tsunoda
Race differential: 2.5 places ahead of Tsunoda
If he can keep up that form for at least the next four races — which also happen to be some of his strongest historically — he’ll be in with a shot at combining with Piastri and expected debutant Doohan as the third Australian on next year’s grid.
Sauber, meanwhile, is weighing up who to partner with Nico Hülkenberg.
Both incumbents Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu were heavily tipped to be axed under Audi’s previous management, but new CEO Mattia Binotto is expected to look more favourably on the idea of stability, potentially leaving the door open for one or the other.
Bottas would surely be at the front of the queue, having comfortably blitzed his Chinese teammate so far this season, bolstering a resume featuring 10 grand prix victories and 20 pole positions — a better record, it must be said, than Hülkenberg has.
There are of course other options. Whoever among Ricciardo, Pérez and Lawson doesn’t end up with a full-time drive next year could be in the frame, as could a left-field choice from off the grid — Mick Schumacher, for example, could give the German giant a branding victory.
Whatever happens, we won’t be waiting long before we find out.
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