2025 Round 15 - Dutch GP - Zandvoort

[airshifter]

Summer break is over and it's time to get racing again.

With two practice sessions now over, we move into P3 and qually. Who will get it right at Zandvoort? The McLarens should be holding the ball here, but between the two drivers the advantage seems to sway track to track. And we have seen some surprises this year, so depending on the weather and setups it could still be open for others. If the weather reports are to be believed, there is a a chance of some wet weather, and that always spices things up some.


Oscar and Lando have only 8 points between them, and will be fighting to decide who walks away with a title this year.

Max is a distant 3rd, almost 100 full points behind Oscar, with Russell and possibly Leclerc still within striking distance.


As for the WCC, McLaren are dominant, with over twice the points of Ferrari. Ferrari has 24 points over Merc at this point and the two should fill out the top 3 steps this year unless things change a lot and Red Bull make up a lot of points. But with two cars 24 points isn't a lot, and Merc might still challenge as the season progresses.



I'm just hoping we get some close racing in through the season end. The mid pack action has been decent this year, and the race at the front has had a lot of surprises race to race. Lando seems to be trying to push back into the fight, but when you have someone as cool headed as Oscar it might be tough. One big mistake from either could easily shift the balance and momentum a bit.

[Matthew]

Oscari Piastir secures pole position ahead of his teammate Lando Norris. No surprises here to see both McLarens the with the fastest qualifying times.

[Used to be Starter]

I'm super surprised there are no comments yet on today's race. Maybe it's because I suspect there may be a Steward's action or two coming. There was more contact than normal throughout the field for sure. Sorry for Norris who's engine let him down. Hadjar had a really nice, and clean, drive to third - great job on his part. We'll see if there are any position changes by the end of the day.

[airshifter]

I just got done watching the race, and it surely wasn't what I expected.

There did seem to be a lot of contact today, but I think on these tracks where it's hard to pass the drivers are getting frustrated.

[F1nKS]

I'm super surprised there are no comments yet on today's race. Maybe it's because I suspect there may be a Steward's action or two coming. There was more contact than normal throughout the field for sure. Sorry for Norris who's engine let him down. Hadjar had a really nice, and clean, drive to third - great job on his part. We'll see if there are any position changes by the end of the day.

Big day for Piastri. Now up 34 points on Norris. Norris will need to slip some sugar into Piastri's fuel.

Hadjar is a nice story. I wonder how Red Bull will handle him.

Bearman and Albon, up at 5 and 6, had good days. Yuki even got into the points.

A lot of unforced driver mistakes today.

And Carlo Sainz is always whining. It is always everybody else's fault that he is being held back from greatness.

[airshifter]

Overall not a bad race.

Max started on softs spiced up the start a little bit, and in the end it might have helped Oscar more than it helped him. I suspect Red Bull were expecting either more rain or safety cars, but either way it was a roll of the dice that didn't really work, but didn't hurt them much either.

What little rain did come didn't really spice up the show at all, but it did come at the right time to slow people down and think about it a little bit. I was hoping it would be stronger rain, but as it turns out the safety car periods through some changes into the race anyway.

Horrible weekend for Ferrari, with both cars ending their race at the same turn. Lewis got it wrong in conditions where he rarely gets it wrong, and all it took was the slightest tap to send Charles into a spin as well. Combined with Lewis picking up grid penalties for the next race, I'm sure it's a weekend he would rather forget. As for Charles, how he escaped penalty for that one move off track is beyond me. He should count himself lucky.

Shame to see Lando DNF and allow the title gap to grow. And new reports are saying it was a chassis issue that caused the problem, and they have to dig further to find the exacts. His misfortune brought a podium to Isack in his rookie season, even if he did suffer the curse of the podium trophy mishaps. Though I hate when a driver DNFs due to no fault of their own, it was nice to see Hadjar inherit that podium.

Quite a mix of unexpected cars in the top 10, including both Aston's as well as both Haas cars. Good to see some of them get into the points and find some motivation to keep pushing.



As for Sainz.... well it never seems to be his fault. Though he can be a really good driver at times he just comes across as a whiner most of the time.