F1. Netherlands 2023 Review

By Dewi Preece, Chelsea Wintle, Aiden McLaughlin and Gavin Huet

Driver of the day

Chelsea – Shut up, it’s obviously Liam Lawson, duh. He started his weekend two practice sessions behind every other driver, and despite a relatively harmless spin in FP3, he did everything Alpine could have expected of him over the course of the weekend. More, in fact – he finished ahead of his teammate Yuki Tsunoda and even had a tidy little battle with a floor-damaged Ferrari. Roll on Monza and more of that, please.

Gavin – Pierre Gasly. He started in twelfth, pitted on the first lap and ended up on the podium in third. A first podium in two years and his first for Alpine. His only mistake on the weekend was going too fast in the pit lane which meant a 5 second penalty, the rest of the weeknd he was faultless with the Alpine showing some real pace.

Aiden – Fernando Alonso and Liam Lawson had strong claims, but for me, it’s Pierre Gasly. It’s been a testing first season for him at Alpine and was his first podium for them. He was well ahead of teammate Esteban Ocon all weekend and despite receiving a five second penalty for speeding in the pitlane, the strategy employed by him and his team, along with the five second penalty Sergio Perez received (which meant Perez was demoted to fourth), meant a very satisfying weekend for the Frenchman.

Dewi – For future citizenship potential… do I have to say Liam Lawson?

Beyond that, it’s hard to go past Pierre Gasly for me. I’ve previously defended his mediocre season, as he’s often been caught up in situations out of his control, but he also wasn’t doing himself any favours with too many races where he disappeared in the midfield. But a sprint race ‘podium’ at Spa before the summer break, and a fully deserved third place at Zandvoort shows he’s found a groove. A faultless drive on Sunday, as well as a perfectly executed strategy where he and the team rescued an average qualifying by nailing the tricky early wet conditions and then he was pretty much faultless for the remainder of the race.

Moment of the weekend

Chelsea – The chaotic first few laps which involved a dizzying number of position changes. I highly recommend the brilliant pixelated race timelapse of @f1visualized (https://twitter.com/f1visualized) which will demonstrate in 60 seconds just how mad everything got. Also, Oscar Piastri made some outstanding overtakes in the first half of the race. It must have been hard for fellow rookie Logan Sargeant to watch that from his deck chair (or worse, Nyck de Vries from his arm chair).

Gavin – I was going to select every time it rained as that created chaos with teams selecting tyres and trying to pit their cars, but have opted for Liam Lawson trading overtakes with Charles Leclerc. Why this moment and not any other – well the answer is in the overall detail. We are talking about a rookie who has had to step in at the last moment to take over from the injured Daniel Ricciardo. A rookie who had one practice session and then had to qualify (last, but promoted to nineteenth as Kevin Magnussen started from the pit lane). A rookie who had to learn whilst racing for position. A rookie who did not put a foot wrong (the ten second penalty was due to his Alpha Tauri team double stacking their cars to change tyres) all weekend. A rookie who has been given the seat until Daniel Ricciardo is back. As Bob McMurray said regarding the step up that Liam had to make – it is like getting a private plane licence and being asked to fly a Boeing to Singapore. Take all of that and then look at him overtaking the Ferrari. If you don’t rate that then maybe you should question what you are doing watching F1.

Aiden – The second practice session on Friday, when Daniel Ricciardo crashed into the barrier at turn three changed Liam Lawson’s life forever. Even as a highly regarded reserve driver, your time in an F1 race may never come. So, Ricciardo’s broken hand presents Lawson with not just one, but at least two chances to show the world what he can do.

Dewi – I’ll make this a two-parter, because for me the moment of the whole weekend was Max Verstappen’s lap for pole position. He’s pulled a rabbit out of the hat on so many occasions, but I think this was actually his best qualifying of the year. He set his lap arguably when the track was at its worst for the final runners, and still blitzed the field. But my moment of the Grand Prix has to be the shambolic, and utterly entertaining first lap chaos. The fact you had a Ferrari car in the pits, surrounded by engineers but crucially no tyres ready, summed it up. More rain please for the remainder of the season!

Hot take of the weekend

Chelsea – Does Fred Vasseur need to take Ferrari on a team building retreat? The lack of communication between the drivers and garage continues to be mind-blowingly awful. This time, Charles Leclerc made a late call to pit for inters, leading to him pulling in for an agonisingly long pit stop as the team scrambled to find his tyres. Leclerc has admitted that it was his blunder, but it doesn’t really matter – this sort of error could be deemed ‘classic Ferrari’ at this point. It hurts.

Gavin – Red Bull should replace Sergio Perez. I have nothing against Sergio but the gulf in results between himself and Max Verstappen is getting too much to simply ignore. Yes, Max is on a hot streak at the moment, but if the cars are identical then Sergio should be a lot closer in performance than what he has been so we must deduce that his style is not suited to the car. Bringing in another driver who is similar in style to Max would surely close the gap in the team and make the Red Bull team totally dominant.

Aiden – “I would say after looking at the Alpine [we were] more [like] the sixth-fastest car this weekend,” said Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, despite finishing fifth. Ferrari are for me, the biggest disappointment of the season. They just can’t seem to get it together. Not what you need heading into your home Grand Prix at Monza…

Dewi – For most of this season I’ve begrudgingly accepted that most races are for second place, and that hasn’t been good for the sport. But there was something about this weekend, maybe it was the amazing Dutch fans in the stands, that finally made me flip on the issue – I would now LIKE to see Verstappen win every race from now until Abu Dhabi and complete the perfect season for Red Bull. As tough as it can be in the moment to favour domination, we’re in another Schumacher, Vettel, Hamilton era – and for once I’m going to try and embrace it while it’s unfolding.

Cold take of the weekend

Chelsea – What future Sergio Perez? Dr Helmut Marko has been noticeably impassive on the topic of late. On one hand, Perez made a smart move on the first lap by pitting and almost immediately taking the lead. On the other, he relinquished his third place by aquaplaning in the pit lane and picking up a five second grid penalty. Piling on the pain was the absolutely humiliating rate at which Verstappen overtook him after the initial pit-fest of the first few laps. More and more voices are questioning whether his time could (or should) be up.

Gavin – Ferrari had, as is becoming the norm, a weekend to forget. It seems the other teams, including Williams and Alpine, are more competitive and are taking steps forward whilst Ferrari just drift along into irrelevance. Coupled with their inability to be able to communicate with their drivers which happens every race weekend, the team look like they are in trouble. They also face the issue of trying to keep their drivers who must surely be tempted by some of the other teams looking at how they are being run and managed. Another bad outing this coming weekend at their home Grand Prix in Monza and there may be even more trouble brewing for the team.

Aiden – Logan Sargeant is starting to look like a man who knows his fate. Despite making Q3 for the first time, his qualifying ended sharply when he crashed out moments later. Then, in the race, he only lasted 16 laps. Although that may not have been his fault, it’s building up even more pressure for the rookie American.

Dewi – The FIA really need to figure out the point of their extreme wet tyres. It’s hard to argue that Zhou’s crash wasn’t a red flag worthy incident, especially with most of the field on the same tyre compound. The risk of another car doing exactly the same was very high. But it’s farcical that every team has a set of tyres *specifically designed* to run in those conditions, sat in their garages unused. Either get rid of them, and acknowledge we only run in dry, drizzly or slightly wet conditions, or force teams to using the extremes by utilising more safety cars and VSCs.

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