The Dutch Grand Prix gave us heaps of action, with home hero Max Verstappen suffering a crash that saw him DNF from the race, while McLaren’s Lando Norris converted back to back poles into back to back wins. If you’re a fan of Lando Norris, this was definitely a race to remember, however, if you’re a Ferrari or Mercedes fan then the race was certainly memorable, but for all the wrong reasons.
Ferrari strategy strikes again
Over the years the Ferrari team has garnered a reputation for having questionable strategy calls, and during Sunday’s race everything seemed to fall apart for the scarlet red team.
During the stage of the race where drivers started to make their second pit stops, Ferrari called Charles Leclerc in to pit. Leclerc quickly made his feelings on this known, saying he didn’t understand why he had to pit so soon. However, his teammate Lewis Hamilton trailed right behind him on track, claiming that he had quicker pace and that constantly being caught up in Leclerc’s dirty air would ruin his tyres, especially since his own strategy called for him to extend longer than his teammate due to his good tyre management. Leclerc did eventually pit in the end, but not without holding up Hamilton for another couple of laps, which obviously cost Hamilton some valuable race time.
It’s clear that whatever Ferrari had going on with their strategy during the race cost Lewis Hamilton greatly, as he could’ve finished on the podium if not for what happened. It must be frustrating for the drivers that not only fighting the other 21 drivers but also having to fight against your own team has simply become part and parcel of being a Ferrari driver. However, it goes even further for Hamilton as he often finds himself forced to fight his teammate more than any other driver. Since the weekend, media and fans argue Charles Leclerc needs to put better effort into how he acts as a teammate, as, not only did he hold up Hamilton earlier in the race as mentioned, but he also hindered Hamilton’s progress in the latter stage of the race too.
Hamilton was hunting down Russell for a potential podium position and found himself with a decent gap to Leclerc behind him, however a VSC meant that said gap vanished. Instead of holding his position behind Hamilton to aid Ferrari in securing a podium, Leclerc decided to go into full attack mode on his teammate. This was ultimately a rather questionable decision from the Monegasque driver as Hamilton now not only had to try his best to pass Russell, but also needed to focus on defending from his own teammate. Hamilton seemed justifiably upset about this on the radio and during the post race interviews. His chase for the Mercedes of George Russell looked promising before the dubious actions of his teammate, who was battling him as though a championship was on the line, which, for Leclerc, it isn’t.
A Mercedes masterclass in disaster
It seems as though Mercedes took lessons from Ferrari regarding strategy at the weekend as they had arguably one of the most questionable strategy calls of the 2026 season. It all took place towards the end of the race when George Russell was running in P2 behind race leader Lando Norris. When the aforementioned VSC happened, the four cars behind Russell pitted for brand new softs, including his teammate Kimi Antonelli, while Mercedes decided to leave Russell out there on sixteen lap old hard tyres.
Once Antonelli made his way up to the back of Russell, Mercedes then ordered the British driver to let Antonelli pass him, presumably to attempt to catch up to Norris. Russell immediately argued against this on the radio as there was no way Antonelli would have been able to catch up to Norris, therefore did what reason did he have to be ahead of Russell. Mercedes gave him no response, so Russell eventually let him past.
As if the lack of response from Mercedes wasn’t enough, Antonelli’s race engineer told him to keep Russell within a second of himself, which would aid him in combatting against the charging Ferrari cars, however this message then got cancelled and Antonelli essentially left Russell to the wolves. Russell did some superb defending to keep Hamilton behind him, and at the end of the race there was a gap of merely 0.8 seconds between them.
Although Russell managed to hold off the Ferraris on his own, this strategy from Mercedes was honestly rather ridiculous. Yes Antonelli was ahead of Russell for a large chunk of the race and only found himself behind due to Mercedes pitting him under the VSC, but that was a choice his side of the garage made and it seems unfair to expect Russell to put himself at risk because of it. These are two championship protagonists and so Mercedes expecting one to make way for the other is an unfair strategy to say the least.
Toto Wolff admitted after the race that they knew Antonelli would never have caught up to Norris, which simply confirms the fact that Mercedes would rather risk a double podium and have Russell potentially drop down to P5 all so Antonelli could finish P2 ahead of him than they would secure a double podium by leaving well enough alone. The argument has been made online since the race that Antonelli would have made his way past Russell anyway, however that would not necessarily have been the case given how well Russell fended off both of the Ferraris. Therefore, he very well could have kept Antonelli behind him too.
Regardless of whether Antonelli would have gotten round Russell on his own or not, they should have simply been allowed to race. Mercedes need to place trust in their drivers to be fair when battling each other rather than just intervening to favour Antonelli. Showing obvious favouritism is no way for a team to behave when both their drivers are very much in the championship fight. Russell has been suffering from various car problems and bad luck all season. He earlier said how he feels as though something or someone out there doesn’t want him to fight for this championship, and I think we can all now say with great certainty that that someone is Mercedes.
Feature image courtesy of Formula 1