Race Rundown: The Netherlands & Monza

Race 15 and 16: Netherlands and Monza

These races had Lando fans and Tifosi wishing that it was still summer break.  While he had an ok result in Monza, the Netherlands was a whole other - TERRIBLE - story.  

Netherlands Grand Prix - Zandvoort:

This race started with Max overtaking Lando for second.  Lando then overtook Max on the OUTSIDE.  

Lewis Hamilton then went into the barriers and DNF’d.  This DNF resulted in a safety car, under which Oscar and Lando double stacked their pit stop.  There was contact between Carlos Sainz and Liam Lawson on race restart, after the safety car ended.  There was a virtual safety car due to debris on track.  

After all of this there was a battle between Charles Leclerc and George Russell.  Carlos Sainz got a 10 second penalty for causing a collision.  Then George and Kimi swapped places as George’s car had damage due to his battle with Leclerc.  

Leclerc went into the barriers, after crashing with Kimi Antonelli, and DNF’d on Lap 54.

This resulted in ANOTHER safety car.  Kimi Antonelli received a 10 second penalty for causing a collision, then another penalty later in the race, a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.  Charles Leclerc meanwhile, has DNF’d and was just chilling on a sand dune watching the race on a phone.  

Terrible day for the tifosi with a double DNF.  Then came the terrible news for Lando fans.  What happened had my jaw on the floor for quite a while and really brought me down into my feels.  Lando Norris DNF’d.  I know, I know, this is a tragedy.  He had a mechanical failure, he also ended up sitting on a sand dune, but unlike Charles, he looked absolutely wrecked.  It was such a sad sight.  The ending podium was Oscar Piastri with P1, Max Verstappen with P2, and Isack Hadjar with P3.  WE GOT ANOTHER ROOKIE PODIUM, I REPEAT ANOTHER ROOOKIE PODIUM.

Now we all know I was thoroughly upset with Lando’s DNF, to top off that sadness, F1 posted the photos of Lando sitting on the sand dune after his DNF with his head in his hands.  I can say with certainty the F1 social media admins did NOT kiss that brick before they threw it at my head.  I could only hope for a better result next week at Monza, and those results came.

Italian Grand Prix - Monza:

Monza is known as The Temple of Speed.   This race was pretty underwhelming when compared to Zandvoort.  The race started with Max getting an off the track advantage over Lando, he then dropped back and Lando became the new race leader.  Unfortunately for some, they never even got started, Hülkenberg retired during the formation lap.  Charles overtook Oscar at the same time Max overtook Lando.  Soon after Oscar overtook Charles.  Lewis Hamilton moved from 10th to seventh.

Esteban Ocon got a 10 second penalty for forcing a driver off the track and then Fernando Alonso DNF’d due to a front suspension failure.

Carlos Sainz and Oliver Bearman collided but were able to continue on.  

Like every race someone does something that upsets a fan group, this race it was the McLaren pit wall.  With Charles and Oscar battling for third and Lando in second, they needed to pit both of their drivers while protecting both of them.  They thought if they pitted Oscar first they could protect him from Charles.  Since Lando was second and Oscar third at this point they asked if it was ok.  Lando agreed to the strategy of Oscar being pitted first with the certainty that he would not be undercut by him when he pitted.

The pit wall assured Lando that he would not be undercut so they got to it.  They pitted Oscar and all was fine.  Then they pitted Lando. This is when disaster struck.  It seems that the put crew forgot how to do a decent pit stop and how a wheel gun works!  Remember that foreshadowing from the earlier post?  Yeah that comes into play here.  Lando had a 5.9 second pit stop.  This led to him being undercut by Oscar.  Due to the fact that it was a mistake by the team, they ordered Oscar and Lando to switch places.  As you can imagine some Formula 1 fans thought that this was absolutely absurd.  I personally think that this was fair, due to the fact Lando agreed to that strategy with the promise of no undercut and they messed it up so bad that he was undercut.  I could keep talking about this and the fairness and all the reasons why I agree or disagree with things the teams do but then I’ll never get back to the race rundown.

Anyway, back to the race.  Kimi Antonelli got a 5 second penalty for driving erratically.  The race ended with Max P1, Lando P2, and Oscar P3.

Azerbaijan and Singapore are up next and those have some interesting rundowns, at least to me!