2021 Dutch Grand Prix interactive data: lap charts, times and tyres

Max Verstappen and Red Bull successfully repelled a dual-pronged attack from Mercedes to win the Dutch Grand Prix through a combination of pace, strategy and execution.

Despite the high frequency of incidents around the tricky, remodelled Zandvoort circuit, the race was not plagued by accidents and Safety Car interventions as many in the paddock had anticipated. Instead, the race that unfolded was a straight shoot-out between Verstappen in front and his championship rival Lewis Hamilton pursuing him.

Hamilton remained within four seconds of his adversary for the vast majority of the 72 laps of the race, even getting as close as just over a second of the Red Bull after the pair made their first pit stops – far earlier than the rest of the field.

With their first attempt at an undercut having failed to get Hamilton ahead of Verstappen, Mercedes took an aggressive approach with Valtteri Bottas’ strategy in an attempt to make the most of their extra car advantage.

Keeping Bottas out on his soft tyres for a further 10 laps not only allowed Mercedes to explore a one-stop strategy with their second car, but provided an opportunity for him to hold up the Red Bull around the narrow, winding corners, back Verstappen into Hamilton and open up a potential passing opportunity.

With the benefit of their new medium tyres, Verstappen and Hamilton both began taking over a second a lap out of Bottas ahead. But as soon as Verstappen got to within a second of Bottas at the start of lap 29, Hamilton’s hopes of using his team mate to catch the Red Bull were dashed. George Russell – who is widely expected to be confirmed in the near future as his next team mate – exited the pit lane right in front of him, forcing him to back out on the approach to turn two and costing him a full second.

Verstappen, with such a performance advantage over Bottas at this stage of the race, simply bided his time over the rest of the lap and was well within the slipstream of the Mercedes by the time he reached the DRS activation point. There was little Bottas to do to prevent Verstappen from cruising by and back into the lead once more.

Having been unsuccessful in their first attempt, Mercedes opted for a second attempt at undercutting Verstappen at the end of lap 39, bringing Hamilton in for a second set of mediums. Again, Red Bull immediately responded – only this time, Verstappen emerged ahead of both Hamilton and Bottas, who had fallen to over 25 seconds behind the leader after his extended first stint, and having briefly lost time when Sebastian Vettel spun in front of him on lap 37.

Despite his protestations over his tyres being unable to last to the end of the race, Hamilton continued to remain close enough to Verstappen to keep the thousands of Dutch fans lining the circuit from being too comfortable. Aided by the pace advantage of the medium tyres compared to the hard-shod Red Bull, Hamilton sat within two seconds of the leader for several laps before the gap eventually fell to around four seconds.

As the laps counted down and it became clear that Verstappen was firmly in control of the race, Mercedes used the enormous gap they held over Pierre Gasly in fourth to orchestrate a late switch to softs to secure the bonus point for fastest lap.

As Verstappen claimed a popular home victory, Christian Horner pointed to his driver’s ability to dispatch Bottas at the first opportunity following his first stop as the winning move of the race.

“The crucial part of the race for Max – because the two-stop was the faster race – was to make sure that we re-passed Valtteri immediately,” said Horner.

“And he did that. That then opened up opportunities to make the second half of the race much more manageable, whereas if he’d have spent a lot of laps behind Valtteri, that could’ve opened us up to an undercut.”

While Red Bull were successful in keeping Mercedes at bay this time around, they are likely to increasingly rely on Sergio Perez to ensure that Verstappen is not left to fend for himself too often over the crucial races to come in the season.

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2021 Dutch Grand Prix lap chart

The positions of each driver on every lap. Click name to highlight, right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

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2021 Dutch Grand Prix race chart

The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Very large gaps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

Position change

Driver	Start position	Lap one position change	Race position change
Lewis Hamilton	2	0	0
Valtteri Bottas	3	0	0
Max Verstappen	1	0	0
Sergio Perez	20	1	12
Lando Norris	13	0	3
Daniel Ricciardo	10	1	-1
Lance Stroll	12	0	0
Sebastian Vettel	15	0	2
Esteban Ocon	8	0	-1
Fernando Alonso	9	2	3
Charles Leclerc	5	0	0
Carlos Sainz Jnr	6	0	-1
Pierre Gasly	4	0	0
Yuki Tsunoda	14	0
Robert Kubica	16	0	1
Antonio Giovinazzi	7	-3	-7
Mick Schumacher	17	-1	-1
Nikita Mazepin	18	1
George Russell	11	0	-6
Nicholas Latifi	19	-1	3

2021 Dutch Grand Prix lap times

All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below:

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2021 Dutch Grand Prix fastest laps

Each driver’s fastest lap:

Rank	Driver	Car	Fastest lap	Gap	On lap
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’11.097		72
2	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1’12.549	1.452	69
3	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda	1’13.275	2.178	60
4	Sergio Perez	Red Bull-Honda	1’13.461	2.364	59
5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’13.958	2.861	Set on 2 laps
6	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	1’14.236	3.139	48
7	Fernando Alonso	Alpine-Renault	1’14.323	3.226	60
8	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	1’14.675	3.578	54
9	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’14.780	3.683	58
10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri-Honda	1’14.818	3.721	57
11	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren-Mercedes	1’14.920	3.823	59
12	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’15.125	4.028	66
13	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	1’15.260	4.163	45
14	Robert Kubica	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’15.442	4.345	44
15	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’15.611	4.514	57
16	George Russell	Williams-Mercedes	1’15.628	4.531	57
17	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Honda	1’15.783	4.686	44
18	Nicholas Latifi	Williams-Mercedes	1’15.790	4.693	25
19	Mick Schumacher	Haas-Ferrari	1’15.927	4.830	36
20	Nikita Mazepin	Haas-Ferrari	1’16.066	4.969	35

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2021 Dutch Grand Prix tyre strategies

The tyre strategies for each driver:

	Stint 1	Stint 2	Stint 3	Stint 4
Max Verstappen	C3 (21)	C2 (19)	C1 (32)
Lewis Hamilton	C3 (20)	C2 (19)	C2 (31)	C3 (2)
Valtteri Bottas	C3 (31)	C2 (36)	C3 (5)
Pierre Gasly	C3 (24)	C2 (47)
Charles Leclerc	C3 (34)	C1 (37)
Fernando Alonso	C3 (33)	C2 (38)
Carlos Sainz Jnr	C3 (31)	C1 (40)
Sergio Perez	C1 (8)	C2 (39)	C3 (24)
Esteban Ocon	C3 (31)	C2 (40)
Lando Norris	C2 (42)	C1 (29)
Daniel Ricciardo	C3 (30)	C1 (41)
Lance Stroll	C3 (27)	C1 (43)
Sebastian Vettel	C3 (10)	C1 (34)	C2 (26)
Antonio Giovinazzi	C3 (27)	C2 (6)	C1 (37)
Robert Kubica	C2 (40)	C1 (30)
Nicholas Latifi	C2 (23)	C1 (47)
George Russell	C2 (27)	C1 (41)	C3 (1)
Mick Schumacher	C3 (4)	C1 (26)	C2 (39)
Yuki Tsunoda	C3 (31)	C2 (17)
Nikita Mazepin	C2 (33)	C1 (8)

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2021 Dutch Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

	Driver	Team	Pit stop time	Gap	On lap
1	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	18.555		47
2	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	18.578	0.023	40
3	George Russell	Williams	18.634	0.079	27
4	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	18.664	0.109	10
5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	18.681	0.126	44
6	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	18.868	0.313	39
7	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	18.873	0.318	31
8	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	19.018	0.463	33
9	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	19.049	0.494	27
10	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	19.142	0.587	21
11	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	19.163	0.608	24
12	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	19.202	0.647	70
13	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	19.240	0.685	31
14	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	19.287	0.732	8
15	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	19.389	0.834	27
16	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	19.449	0.894	30
17	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	19.490	0.935	34
18	Robert Kubica	Alfa Romeo	19.708	1.153	40
19	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	19.770	1.215	20
20	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	19.850	1.295	31
21	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	19.999	1.444	33
22	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	20.043	1.488	33
23	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	20.327	1.772	31
24	Lando Norris	McLaren	20.443	1.888	42
25	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	20.646	2.091	23
26	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	21.730	3.175	67
27	Mick Schumacher	Haas	24.578	6.023	30
28	George Russell	Williams	25.533	6.978	68
29	Mick Schumacher	Haas	35.573	17.018	4

2021 Dutch Grand Prix

• Alonso studied junior series, not IndyCar, for Zandvoort banking clues
• 2021 Dutch Grand Prix Star Performers
• Paddock Diary: Dutch Grand Prix part two
• Verstappen makes the Netherlands 12th country to produce a home F1 winner
• Alonso “lucky” after near-miss with barrier plus contact with three rivals on lap one

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