F1 Highlights: Lewis Hamilton: "I Don't Want To Apologise For My Passion"

The biggest updates from the Dutch Grand Prix this weekend.

Max Verstappen Takes The Win At The Chaotic Dutch Grand Prix

Max Verstappen won at his home race this weekend, making his lead in the driver's championship even bigger. A virtual safety car and full safety car played into Verstappen's hands well, giving him some great pit opportunities. Verstappen's performance was strong throughout and was also helped by a few blunders from the other teams.

Source: Grandtournation.com

Ferrari Boss Mattia Binotto Responds To Former F1 Driver Nico Rosberg's Criticisms On The Teams Strategy

Ferrari had a terrible pit stop with Carlos Sainz at the Dutch Grand Prix, which took 12.7 seconds. The pit crew were a tyre short so Sainz was sat waiting for the additional tyre to be retrieved from the garage before he was able to set off.

During all of this chaos, a wheel gun was left in the way of Red Bull's Sergio Perez, who ended up running it over on his pit exit. 

Former F1 champion, Nico Rosberg, commented on the mishap saying that this wouldn't even happen in Formula 3. In a post race interview with Sky Sports, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto responded to Rosberg's statement and addressed the messy pit stop:

"We will not change people, that's a straight answer to Rosberg.

"What is more important is simply the stability and making sure you're improving race by race. We have a great team, I have no doubt about that."

Source: Skysports.com

Christian Horner Surprised By Mercedes Strategy

Mercedes made a quick change to their strategy under the safety car. Originally, they were going to keep both drivers out on the medium tyres to have a buffer between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. However, George Russell made a quick change saying that he was coming into the pits for soft tyres. This eliminated the buffer so as soon as the safety car ended, Verstappen got round Hamilton instantly. 

In his post race interview, Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, said:

“My understanding was they were going to leave them both out, which would have left them both pretty exposed.

“But then I thought they’d keep George out as sort of a rear gunner to try and hold Max back.

“But then when they pitted George, it gave Max a free run at Lewis, and obviously there was a tyre offset, and Max got the job done pretty quickly.”

Source: F1fall.com

Lewis Hamilton: "I Don't Want To Apologise For My Passion"

As mentioned above, when George Russell pitted during the safety car onto soft tyres, the buffer between Hamilton and Verstappen was gone which lost Hamilton his chance of winning.

We heard Hamilton over the radio saying:

“That was the biggest f*** up. I can’t believe you guys f****** sc***ed me. I can’t tell you how p****d I am.”

Hamilton has since apologised for this, saying:

“It has been such a rollercoaster ride this year. It was such a good race. The car was feeling better than it has all year long.

“I was thinking ‘Wow, we could be fighting for a win here, maybe a one-two.’ And then the safety cars came through and my fr*****g emotions were all over the place. I knew at that moment I had lost it because everyone was on the soft tyre and there was no way I was going to hold them behind me.”

“I don’t want to apologise for my passion, because that is just how I am made and I don’t always get it right. I am sorry to my team for what I said because it was made in the heat of the moment.”

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Yuki Tsunoda's AlphaTauri Mishaps Ending In A DNF

Yuki Tsunoda had a bizarre race at the Dutch Grand Prix yesterday. In the lap after a pit stop, he pulled over abruptly saying over the team radio that one of the tyres was not fitted properly. Looking like this might cause a safety car, the AlphaTauri team said to Tsunoda that the car was fine and to keep going, so he joined back in with the race. 

The next thing we see is Tsunoda going back into the pits and the team changing the tyres and also adjusting something to do with his seatbelt. After the long pit stop, he went back out and still had issues with the car and was told to stop immediately.