Oscar Piastri Wins Dutch Grand Prix As Isack Hadjar Makes Maiden Podium Appearance

 

Oscar Piastri is the Dutch Grand Prix winner and his seventh race victory of the season, as RB's Isack Hadjar made his first F1 career podium finish. 

It was a dramatic final, with the two Ferrari drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, crashing out in similar situations. McLaren's Lando Norris maintained his resolute against home-favourite Max Verstappen but retired over an engine failure in the latter stages of the race. 

Amidst the chaos, Piastri led from start to finish, despite multiple safety cars, to be quickest in 1:38:29.829s. As a consequence of Norris' retirement, Red Bull's Verstappen moved up to second, and Isack moved up to third: his career best performance. 

William's Carlos Sainz was also involved in a crash with Liam Lawson, leading to the Spaniard losing his tires and front wings, and Lawson losing his left rear tire,  which were restored after a safety car deployment. Sainz was issued a 10-second penalty for the incident. 

Before Leclerc's incident, he had been involved in a battle for P5, elbowing out Mercedes' George Russell exiting the corner. Later on, while the Ferrari driver was leaving the pit, he crashed into Kimi Antonelli, who was making an overtaking. 

The victory extended Piastri dominance in the F1 World Championship race followed by Norris in second and Verstappen in third. 

Weather Conditions and Pit Stops

Initially, the surface condition was favourable. It became tricky after a slight drizzle, making the surface slippery. The condition contributed to Hamilton swerving over the curb and crashing into the walls,  leading to a safety car deployment. 

McLaren quickly seized the incident to double-stack for hard tyres while Red Bull's Verstappen changed for medium tyres. Even as that paid off for the McLaren, engine failure later ruined it for Norris. 

Oscar Piastri's Dominance and McLaren

Earlier, there were fears that Norris was driving in an unsafe condition with punctured tyres after running over bits of fibre. Meanwhile, Piastri was doing a seven-second quicker lap than Norris.

"Yeah, starting to struggle a little bit more now with the rears," said Norris when asked about the conditions of his tyres. 

It was Norris' second DNF of the season and his first mechanical failure. As for Piastri, it was a Grand Slam finish with pole start, then set the fastest lap, raced fastest throughout the laps and won the race.