With the Italian Grand Prix just around the corner, we look back at the Dutch Grand Prix and look ahead to the coming weekend.
Verstappen on pole for the 2nd time during his home race
Last weekend Max Verstappen was the fastest during qualifying for the second year in a row during the Dutch Grand Prix. One more pole position and Max equals record holder René Arnoux for most pole positions at Circuit Park Zandvoort. There are 8 other driver also with 2 poles at Zandvoort: Graham Hill, Nelson Piquet, Niki Lauda, Mario Andretti, Alain Prost, Ronnie Peterson, Jochen Rindt and Alberto Ascari.
Alonso points streak continues
Fernando Alonso had another great Sunday in the Netherlands. He started the race in 13th to finish 7 place higher in 6th place. At the end of the race he was fighting Sergio Pérez for 5th, but he couldn’t manage to overtake him. He finished only half a second behind Sergio. With this strong performance Alonso now scored points for 10 races in a row.
10 wins for Verstappen so far this year
With winning the Dutch Grand Prix Max Verstappen now won 10 races this year so far. At this point in the season he has as much victories as he had in his championship winning year.
With 7 races to go Verstappen is still in the running to break the record of Sebastian Vettel & Michael Schumacher with 13 race wins in one year.
Max Verstappen winning the Dutch Grand Prix also meant he now won four races in a row, a first in the career of the Dutchman.
Hamilton holds a lot of records at Monza
Lewis Hamilton and Monza seems to be a great match if we look at some Monza stats. He holds the record for most wins (shared with Michael Schumacher), most pole positions and most podiums (shared with Michael Schumacher). Hamilton won 5 times, was on pole position 7 times and he scored 8 podiums in total.
Italian GP last two years unexpected winners
The last two years the Italian Grand Prix brought some surprisingly winners. Last year Daniel Ricciardo won the race and in 2020 Pierre Gasly was the first to see the chequered flag.
The race at Monza in 2020 was won by Pierre Gasly due to a couple of circumstances. First Lewis Hamilton received a 10 seconds stop and go penalty for coming in the pits while it was closed. After a red flag due to Charles Leclerc crashing in the last corner, Gasly overtook Stroll during the restart. Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly were fighting till the end with only 4 tenths of a seconds between them.
The year after that Daniel Ricciardo could win the race due to the crash between title contenders Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. After the pitstop from the Mercedes driver they meet each other at the off the main straight. Max try to overtake Lewis from the outside and then they came into contact in the first chicane. They both couldn’t continue the race so Ricciardo could finish first. It was actually a 1-2 finish for McLaren.