Versappen equals Vettel's record.

With the Dutch Grand Prix winning on the evening of August 27th, Red Bull driver Max Verstappen equaled Sebastian Vettel's record of nine consecutive F1 wins in the 2013 season.

Fireworks celebrate Verstappen's victory at the Dutch Grand Prix on August 27th at the Zandvoort circuit. Photo: AP

After the race, Verstappen couldn't hide his pride at matching his predecessor's feat. "F1 racing is always very difficult. In the past, there have been cars more powerful than ours now, but they couldn't win nine races in a row, especially in races like today, where it's very easy to pit at the wrong time and throw away your lead," the reigning champion said.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner also expressed admiration for the team star's latest achievement. "Vettel's record in 2013 – winning nine consecutive races – was insane. I never dared to think that Red Bull would ever replicate that record with another driver. Nobody could have imagined this," he said.

The difficulties Verstappen mentioned began just seconds into the race with a downpour at the Zandvoort circuit. He lost his lead, dropping to second behind his teammate Sergio Perez, who pitted early and switched to intermediate tires. However, Verstappen quickly overtook them on lap 13 and completely dominated the race until near the end.

Heavy rain with only eight laps remaining caused the red flag to be waved, resulting in a 45-minute stoppage in the race. But overcoming all obstacles, Verstappen maintained control, as he had done throughout the season – never truly giving his rivals a chance to counterattack. Winning his home race, Verstappen further extended his lead in the drivers' standings to 138 points over his teammate Perez.

Alonso started in fifth position, but quickly overtook Albon on the outside of Turn 2, before attacking on the inside of the Hugenholzbocht corner to take third place from Russell. On the next lap, with a similar attack, Norris was beaten and the veteran Spaniard took second place.

The rain intensified right from the first lap, and Perez, who started seventh, quickly pitted for intermediate tires at the end of lap 1. None of the top drivers pitted like Perez. Only Charles Leclerc – the Ferrari driver who started ninth – did the same. Thanks to this, Perez quickly took the lead.

Verstappen and Alonso continued to use dry-weather tires, which significantly hampered their performance on lap 2. Upon pitting at the end of the lap, they dropped to fifth and seventh place respectively. The two leading drivers' pit stop triggered a wave of cars behind them heading to the pit area to switch to intermediate tires, as the rain showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Alonso wasn't fast enough to beat Verstappen, but he finished second in Zandvoort. Photo: AFP

After Verstappen finished his tire change, Perez took the lead, trailing his teammate by 14 seconds. At this point, the Dutch driver's talent began to show. Verstappen consistently accelerated and closed the gap with his teammate. By lap 10, the gap between the two Red Bull drivers was less than 5 seconds.

On the next lap, thanks to the rain subsiding, Verstappen pitted to switch to dry tires. Perez had to pit for a lap after his teammate. When he returned, the Mexican driver was 3 seconds behind Verstappen. Alonso was slow to change tires and dropped to third behind Perez. At this point, the race's outcome was practically decided, although there were still many risks from rain towards the end of the race.

Heavy rain at the end of the race caused Perez, who was running second behind Verstappen, to lose his position to Alonso due to a steering error and a crash on Turn 1 after switching to intermediate tires on lap 60. The torrential rain forced drivers to rush back to the pits and switch to rain-resistant tires. A series of steering failures in the rain led to red flags and a temporary stoppage of the race by the organizers for safety reasons on lap 65.

In the final seven laps, Perez was penalized 5 seconds for speeding during a pit stop. Therefore, he had to work extremely hard to avoid falling behind Carlos Sainz – the Ferrari driver who successfully fended off attacks from Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes. The inability to use the DRS wing meant the Mercedes driver lacked the strength to attack the Ferrari.

While Perez benefited from switching to intermediate tires early in the race, the Mercedes drivers failed when they adopted the opposite strategy. The German team delayed switching to intermediate tires, hoping to extend the time they had on dry tires, and they only realized their mistake when it was too late.

Hamilton and his teammate made late pit stops on laps 3 and 4, resulting in both dropping out of the top 10. Struggling for the remainder of the race, Hamilton managed to climb to sixth place and Russell to eighth when the race restarted after a temporary halt. However, Russell fell behind due to a collision with Norris at Turn 11.

Key events of the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix

Key events of the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix.

"The race was over before it actually started," complained Russell, the 25-year-old British driver. "I think the weather data we had was completely wrong. We thought the rain would only last a few minutes, but in reality it was clearly going to last much longer."

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff admitted his team was unprepared for the rain at the start of the race. "We stood on the sidelines and waited too long, a completely wrong choice. And that's a shame because our car has excellent speed," he said.

Dutch Grand Prix results

Rank on one's own	Racer	Team	Location start	Number of times tires have been replaced	Fastest personal laptop	Achievements	Point
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1	6	1 minute 13.889 seconds	2 hours 24 minutes 4.411 seconds	25
2	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	5	5	1:13,837	+3,744 seconds	19
3	Pierre Rily	Amazon	12	5	1:14,441	+7,058	15
4	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	7	6	1:14,231	+10,068	12
5	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	6	5	1:14,934	+12,541	10
6	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	13	5	1:13,904	+13,209	8
7	Lando Norris	McLaren	2	6	1:14,390	+13,232	6
8	Alexander Albon	Walker	4	4	1:14,468	+15,155	4
9	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	8	5	1:14,299	+16,580	2
10	Esteban Ocon	Amazon	16	6	1:14,570	+18,346	1
11	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	11	7	1:15,171	+20,087
12	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	14	5	1:14,472	+20,840
13	Liam Lawson	AlphaTauri	19	7	1:14,820	+26,147
14	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	18	5	1:14,698	+27,388
15	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	17	5	1:16,253	+29,893
16	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	20	6	1:15,489	+31,410
17	George Russell	Mercedes	3	7	1:15,124	+55,754
18	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	15	4	1:15,417	Abandoning the race
19	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	9	2	1:17,277	Abandoning the race
20	Logan Georgeant	Walker	10		1:17,399	Abandoning the race

+) Fastest lap: 1 minute 13.837 seconds, set by Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) on lap 56.

Individual standings after 13 stages

Rank on one's own	Racer	Team	Point
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	339
2	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	201
3	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	168
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	156
5	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	102
6	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	99
7	George Russell	Mercedes	99
8	Lando Norris	McLaren	75
9	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	47
10	Pierre Rily	Amazon	37
11	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	36
12	Esteban Ocon	Amazon	36
13	Alexander Albon	Walker	15
14	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	9
15	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	5
16	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	4
17	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	3
18	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	2
19	Logan Georgeant	Walker
20	Nyck de Vries	AlphaTauri
21	Daniel Ricciardo	AlphaTauri
22	Liam Lawson	AlphaTauri

Team standings after 13 races

Rank on one's own	Team	Point
1	Red Bull	540
2	Mercedes	255
3	Aston Martin	215
4	Ferrari	201
5	McLaren	111
6	Amazon	73
7	Walker	15
8	Haas	11
9	Alfa Romeo	9
10	AlphaTauri	3

Minh Phuong

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