Red Bull’s Max Verstappen went on to claim victory in front of his home crowd, though it required a late overtake on a very unhappy Lewis Hamilton.
Mercedes decided to split their approach, George Russell pitting at his request for soft tyres behind the Safety Car, though with Verstappen also pitting for soft tyres, Mercedes kept track position with Hamilton on the medium rubber. Hamilton then led at the restart but was swamped by Verstappen before even reaching Turn 1, ultimately falling off the podium and crossing the line P4.Palmer believes that if Mercedes had not have gone with different strategies for their drivers, then a double podium was on the cards, while he felt that removing Russell’s presence also did very little to help Hamilton’s cause.
“It was a risky play, but I can understand why Mercedes wanted to keep track position,” said Palmer as he reviewed the Dutch GP for“Zandvoort wasn’t the easiest circuit to overtake on and they’re winning a race, with not that many remaining in the season, they’ve got themselves into a good position and they had great race pace.
“Where it went wrong slightly for Mercedes was they split strategies, George Russell pushed for the stop to go for the soft tyres, and that put Verstappen in second, took away Hamilton’s buffer, and I think regardless, Lewis wasn’t going to be able to hold on to Max, you could see the grip on the restart that“Even with the buffer there, it wasn’t going to work, but taking Russell out of the equation just made it a slam dunk for Verstappen over Hamilton,...
Nothing help, still did not win and now they blame everybody but themselves! If they were that good a team they should not rely on outsiders to plan their races especially the lot from SkySportsF1 CroftyF1 martinbrundlef1 and tedkravitz. Get rid of LewisHamilton!
Interesting theory. Sort of like the shady move Bottas pulled in Jeddah ‘21. But you’re right it might have worked here - and would’ve led to a wild fight