18 thousand fans from Holland made their way to Spielberg, Red Bull's home grand prix, to cheer on their favorite Max Verstappen. The practice sessions and qualifying were promising and the teams were expected to finish the race with a one-stop strategy.
Mercedes and Red Bull had their fair share of trouble with the tires on this track, and that was already the case at the start. Valteri Bottas, one of the Silver Arrow drivers who started the race from the front row, almost came to a halt with spinning wheels. With a risky maneuver, Kimi Räikönnen, who started the race from third on the grid, squeezed between the two Mercedes drivers and drove after Lewis Hamilton, who took the lead. Räikkönen had too much speed in the following corner, which is why he was unable to keep to the racing line. Bottas overtook Räikkönen again in turn 3 and Max Verstappen passed Räikkönen in turn 5 with a classic maneuver. Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel followed Räikkönen, who was now in fourth place.
The Silver Arrows quickly distanced themselves thereafter and it looked like an easy start-finish victory for Mercedes. Until lap 14, when Valteri Bottas brought his Boliden to a halt in a run-off zone and had to retire from the race because he could no longer shift gears.
The virtual safety car was then activated, after which Red Bull and Ferrari immediately called their drivers into the pits and had their tires changed. Hamilton was the only driver from the top teams to stay out. This was a fatal mistake. When Hamilton pitted 11 laps later, he was overtaken by Verstappen, Ricciardo and Raikkonen. Only the speeding Vettel was left behind.
And so Max Verstappen took the lead for the first time and drove past the cheering grandstand and fans dressed in orange.
Tire problems and more failures followed
On the 38th lap, Daniel Ricciardo had to change tires for the second time, which gained Vettel a place and also put him in the DRS window to Hamilton, whom he was able to overtake a lap later. So Vettel had moved up to a podium spot, behind his teammate and race leader Max Verstappen.
On lap 52, Lewis Hamilton came into the pits and had to have his tires changed again. Two laps later, Daniel Ricciardo slowed down and retired from the race completely unexpectedly due to technical problems.
Verstappen took better care of his tires than his teammate, but he also struggled with blistering. The Ferraris caught up and Raikkonen reduced the gap to Verstappen, who was in the lead, to 4.3 seconds by lap 61. Vettel, meanwhile, was 2.3 seconds behind Raikkonen.
Red Bull's engineers were getting a bit nervous about the tire issue and the Ferraris' time gap narrowing significantly. But Verstappen reassured the crew, saying, "I'll manage."
On lap 63, the second Silver Arrow also reduced its speed and Hamilton had to leave the car alongside the track. The explanation was that the fuel pressure had dropped significantly. Instead of a double victory, a double failure for Mercedes.
Max Verstappen kept the Ferraris at bay until the very end and secured victory ahead of Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel.
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