AMSTERDAM – Oscar Piastri powered to victory at an incident-packed Dutch Formula One Grand Prix yesterday, with home favourite Max Verstappen claiming second place as Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris suffered a dramatic breakdown late in the race.
Piastri led from pole to chequered flag at the Zandvoort circuit to stretch his lead over Norris to 34 points in the championship race.
Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc crashed out of the Dutch Grand Prix in separate incidents yesterday in a double blow for the Italian team a week before their home race at Monza.
Seven-time Formula One world champion Hamilton suffered his first non-finish since joining Ferrari from Mercedes when he lost control of his car in the middle of the banked turn three on lap 23 while in seventh place.
The Briton slid into the barriers, triggering a safety car deployment.
Leclerc tangled with Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli on lap 53 of 72, also at turn three and also bringing out the safety car. Stewards handed the Italian rookie a 10-second penalty for causing the collision.
Hamilton confirmed he was unhurt and apologised to his team over the radio after his crash.
“I’m really not sure (what happened). I will have to look back at it,” he told Sky Sports television. “As I went up the bank, the rear snapped out and I couldn’t recover.
“It was a bit twitchy, the car. I think we made real progress this weekend. My pace was looking pretty decent. I was catching (Mercedes’) George (Russell) and I think I had the pace of a few cars ahead of me.”
Minutes earlier, he had suggested pitting to try and get ahead of Russell, but the safety car period allowed all the leaders to come in and change tyres without losing time.
Lando Norris, running second for champions McLaren, asked his Race Engineer Will Joseph, whether Hamilton’s crash was caused by the white line becoming slippery with some light rainfall. On being told it was, Norris said that was ‘race-ending’ information and he should have been informed about the risk earlier.
The crash meant Hamilton has now not scored for two races in a row, after finishing 12th in Hungary when he had described himself as useless.
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