“Fantastic job,” his race engineer called out to him, and Max Verstappen, the sovereign, replied: “Yes, incredible, although the weather made it difficult for us today.” He himself did not have the hunt for this record in the back of his mind, but he remembers a message from Sebastian Vettel, who also achieved nine victories in a row in a Red Bull racing car in 2013: “Well done if you keep it up, you break the record.” But Verstappen can do little with record books: “I’m here to win here and now.”
Two laps had been driven when Verstappen was already an enormous 20 seconds behind the leading Sergio Perez. Just an interim result brought by a rain cloud that had rolled over the North Sea dunes and caught all twenty drivers and their teams cold at the beginning of the second half of the racing year. The Mexican stopped first and switched to rain tires while everyone else was on their toes. Nothing came of the controlled race for second place behind Verstappen, after it looked at the start as if the Dutchman would pull away immediately and leave the hopeful Lando Norris behind in the McLaren.
Charles Leclerc, whose Ferrari team didn’t have the all-weather tires ready, had to feel similarly embarrassed. But Verstappen was back in the hunt for first place and had reduced the gap to his team-mate from 20 to four seconds. And it was changed again, after twelve of 72 laps almost everyone had already made two stops – and Verstappen took the lead when a dry band appeared on the track again. That corresponds to his position in the team. While the competition competes against each other with so-called undercuts tried to trick, Red Bull used this trick internally, Perez was left behind.
Ferrari and Mercedes suddenly find themselves at the back of the pack
In general, experience and instinct count for a lot in such conditions, which put – and kept – instinct driver Fernando Alonso in third place in the Aston Martin. The interplay at Mercedes was similarly disastrous as at Ferrari, George Russell saw all podium chances gone because of the wrong tactics: “How did we do that?” asked the Briton, aghast. Like Lewis Hamilton, he was in the last third of the field. Until after 17 laps rookie Logan Sergeant smashed his Williams into the gang and the safety car had to be deployed. Everything went smoothly, however: Next rain forecast, shortly before the final phase. But who trusts the weather forecast in this area?
The restart on the 21st lap went according to the old choreography: Verstappen pulled away at will. The leader is not only driven by the best racing car in the field, but above all by his own ambition. Which, according to him, has nothing to do with the scenery in Oranje: “The pressure is always there to achieve something.” Lando Norris, whose pole position was snatched away by the local hero in the final corners of qualifying, said laconically of this superiority: “It’s no longer a surprise for us. I hope I can annoy him for two laps in the race. “
Then there weren’t two curves. Towards the middle of the race, leader Verstappen passed the time as a weather scout, pointing out the gathering dark clouds to his command post. Only much later did the professional Ferrari meteorologists report “raindrops in ten minutes.” Somehow this Max Verstappen seems to have something magical.
The race goes on, although there is still plenty of water on the track
Twelve laps before the end, rain was announced again. Sergio Perez came into the pits first, apparently unsolicited – his stop lasted five seconds longer. Verstappen waited, just managing his ten-second lead before being asked by the engineer: “It would be a good time to come in now.” And already it was pattering. He stayed in front before the rain turned to heavy rain. The world champion just drove up again and had the supposedly monsoon-suitable “full wets” pulled out. But they were only partially sufficient for the capricious weather on the North Sea. With eight laps to go, the race was stopped after China’s Guanyu Zhou crashed his Alfa into the tire barriers.
After a 43-minute break there was a hole in the rain front, followed by a flying start behind the safety car for five free laps on mixed tires, although there was still a lot of water on the track. It was all about keeping the 1000 hp cars on the slippery track. Fernando Alonso put Verstappen under pressure while Perez still conceded five seconds for speeding in the pit lane and lost his podium finish. The leader initially had problems getting the tires up to temperature, but then pulled away as usual.
The dominator himself claimed before the 13th World Championship round that he would have no objection to having to stretch a little more on the track. “You might experience a season like this once or twice in your career. Of course it’s more relaxed to win comfortably. But we are racers. If the teams were closer together, it would be good too.”