Motorsport

One more, psychologically it's much more of a blow to go back to where you started when you believe you're in your prime (which Bottas certainly should be).

I certainly get that. Think it's probably an emotional decision as much as logical from him.

Equally, it's possible that Williams didn't want him!

After watching a bit of practice, I'm still a Zandvoort-sceptic. I'm not convinced that the changes are going to be enough to actually allow close racing. They've turned it into a safe F1 venue (which is a good achievement in itself) but is it even possible to make it into a good F1 racetrack? It's kind of the same reservation I had about Brands Hatch whenever it's been discussed as a potential venue for the British GP. Sure it sounds like an awesome idea, but actually, are modern F1 cars simply too big and too fast for good racing there anyway.

Just from a bit of sim racing with Formula 3 cars on the pre-2020 layout, it's a fun track to drive but, it's actually pretty easy to defend your position. Just defend the inside into T1 early and there's little the guy behind can do elsewhere unless you make a mistake. The new T1 doesn't appear to resolve this and if anything might be even worse. The old banking at least allowed you to risk entering carrying a bit of extra speed as you could run wide up the bank to slow the car down.

I want it to work for its history, and the fact that it's another circuit we can easily get to from the UK, but not if the layout is inherently flawed. Hope it won't be like Valencia that suddenly got introduced to monetise the new Spanish F1 fans. The track was rubbish and it bumped better options off the calendar for commercial rather than sporting reasons.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of this one I don't think. It's actually a pretty cool track that provides some decent shots of the cars and it's nice to see actual gravel traps instead of car park run offs, but it's so clearly not really suitable for present day F1. Any car stopping is an instant red flag because access is so poor. Qualifying is going to be a right laugh trying to get proper laps in.

Highly questionable not restarting Q2. It's only a short lap so at least a few cars could have got another lap in, even if there was only 1:38 remaining.

Really hope they bring in the 'lose your best lap if you cause a yellow or red flag rule for next year. It's not exactly fair as-is.

It's just 'Crofty' isn't it? Button said Russell took too much curb and turned in too aggressively. Latifi crashed because he took to the grass twice so fair criticism in my view.

One of my bugbears is certainly commentators describing basic driving mistakes as 'unlucky'.  It's like saying a footballer is 'unlucky' if they sky a penalty.

Genuinely didn't think it would be that close, a classic 'where did that come from?' Hamilton Q3 lap. At least gives us a slim chance of a decent race tomorrow.

Giovinazzi responding to the threats to his F1 future impressively.

Oh, Verstappen's DRS didn't open apparently. So he has still got half a second in hand. As you were.

Going to be tough for Max without a teammate to provide cover.  Merc strategy team will be working overtime tonight. 

Half a second is exaggerating actually, more like 0.3s according to the FP2 analysis:

the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hughes-verstappen-long-runs-hint-at-dream-dutch-gp/

If he keeps the lead into T1, I think it'll be like Austria again unfortunately.  Maybe red flags/safety cars will provide an opportunity, because I think we'll need something unpredictable to prevent a lights to flag.

Just been watching the highlights. That dutch crowd is awesome.

Cool track too. Nice to see some F1 cars bombing round a banked curve again.

Even the F3 cars were struggling to overtake.

Apparently need to be within 0.4s to make a move into T1.

T3 is awesome and if nothing else you'd hope Tilke et al., will have taken notes for elsewhere. mind you, fully expecting a first lap or post safety car crash there today, as there are multiple lines in but they all converge on exit.

I just hope that whatever happens today, pit stop luck doesn't overly affect the result too much and that the best man/team wins. If Max is the fastest and races the best then he deserves the win. I don't want him to lose it because of random safety car timing rather than brilliant strategy from Mercedes. Let's have a proper race at least.

Very generous of Sky to assume Bottas would cause Max any more problems if he has to pass him again.

What a waste of space.

Better race than I thought it would be. Quite enjoyed that. Not sure there were any moves without a large car/tyre offset but it wasn't a total snooze thanks to Hamilton trying everything and Perez coming through. Can't believe how few incidents there were. Just Vettel (again) spinning.

Max's 0.3s a lap pace advantage was decisive, Hamilton only really got close due to traffic, and it always seemed like he was having to push much harder to achieve the same laptime.

Bottas really just double underlining why he's losing that seat. Too slow to be a factor in normal circumstances, too witless to do a hold-up team job either. All he had to do was go artificially slow through the 90% of the lap where you can't pass to ensure Hamilton was right behind Max before they got into the pit straight and he couldn't manage that. Hamilton did get a bit unlucky with cars exiting the pitlane between them and that slow stop but even then, I think Max could have pushed harder if he needed.

Didn't think Button was as good as Rosberg at co-comm. Let Crofty get away with too much nonsense. Both of them failed to understand that the random slow laps/fast laps were just traffic rather than anything significant.

Perez driver of the day is a joke. He would have been a lot higher than 10th if he'd not destroyed a set of tyres trying to pass Mazepin, and he also crashed into Norris and was very lucky not to get a 5sec penalty. He wasn't fully alongside and Norris left him enough room so not sure why that was a racing incident. If that was Max/Lewis at the front I very much doubt the stewards would have left it.

It's still not a great 'race' track, but I've changed my mind enough to be hopeful that it might be better with the new cars. It wasn't as unsuitable as I thought it would be.

Disagree about Perez, he probably made more overtakes himself than all other drivers from the various formulas over the weekend put together. And Lando barely left him space, it was a racing incident for me.