Max Verstappen will look for a return to winning form when the 15th round of the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship, the Dutch Grand Prix, is held at Circuit Zandvoort on the afternoon of Sunday 25 August.
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In his home country, Red Bull Racing’s Verstappen will look to snap a four-race win drought (his last Grand Prix triumph was in Spain in late June) – though his lead at the top of the Drivers’ Championship remains a commanding one, as he is 78 points clear of nearest chaser Lando Norris of McLaren.
However, both Verstappen and his teammate, Sergio Perez, have potential grid penalty concerns looming. Both drivers have already extended their pool of available Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) to five, one more than permitted by the F1 regulations.
Furthermore, both Verstappen and Perez are at the threshold for the Turbo Charger (TC) and the heat and kinetic motor generator units (MGU-H and MGU-K). With only four permitted per season, neither the Dutchman nor his teammate can introduce another of those parts without suffering further grid penalties.
Despite this, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner is not fretting just yet: “It depends on what happens to the pool,” he joked, before adding: “We think we’re okay at the moment.”
Red Bull’s former dominance has been eroded by both McLaren and especially Mercedes, with the latter team taking wins in three of the last four races (and that included George Russel’s triumph in Belgium being scratched off due to disqualification, allowing teammate Lewis Hamilton to inherit the win).
“One of the areas that we’ve improved with the car is being able to land the setup in FP1,” said Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.
“That’s a good foundation to start building on performance and fine-tuning it that helps your weekend enormously. In the early part of the year, we were making relatively small changes and suddenly the whole car balance left us and we were really struggling.
“So that certainly helped and it’s probably fair to say that in the earlier races Lewis was finding it more difficult to set up than George.”
Elsewhere, the major F1 news is that Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr. has signed a contract to join Williams Racing from 2025 – ending speculation over his future in the drivers’ market.
“What he [Sainz Jr.] saw with us is not where we are today but where we’re going,” said team boss James Vowles. “What I’m really happy about is that we have had serious conversations with world-class drivers who want to be here – not that have to be here. That’s a complete world of difference. You can’t rebuild [the team] without that. You need that strength in order to be competing on the world stage.”
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Dutch Grand Prix broadcast details, 23-25 August 2024
All times CAT
Friday 23 August
12:30: Practice 1 – LIVE on SuperSport Motorsport and SuperSport Maximo 1
16:00: Practice 2 – LIVE on SuperSport Motorsport and SuperSport Maximo 1
Saturday 24 August
11:30: Practice 3 – LIVE on SuperSport Motorsport and SuperSport Maximo 1
15:00: Qualifying – LIVE on SuperSport Motorsport and SuperSport Maximo 1
Sunday 25 August
15:00: Dutch Grand Prix – LIVE on SuperSport Motorsport and SuperSport Maximo 1