After the prolonged summer season shutdown, System 1 is again this weekend with the Dutch Grand Prix.
And all eyes will likely be on Max Verstappen.
That’s definitely nothing new, however the Purple Bull driver is staring down F1 historical past. Verstappen enters the weekend having gained eight-straight races, one shy of the mark set by Sebastian Vettel again in 2013. With a victory at Zandvoort, Verstappen would tie Vettel’s mark of consecutive victories, and take one other large step in direction of his third-straight Drivers’ Championship.
However Verstappen just isn’t the one storyline to look at this week. Purple Bull senior advisor Dr. Helmut Marko added but extra gasoline to the hearth concerning Sergio Pérez’s job safety with the workforce. Whereas Pérez is below contract by way of the 2024 season and gave the impression to be rounding again into type along with his P2 on the Belgian Grand Prix, Marko opened the door to hypothesis about Pérez’s standing with the workforce for subsequent season, outlining how nothing in F1 is “100% sure.”
Then there are the groups chasing Purple Bull, or extra precisely, chasing Mercedes behind them in second place. Can Aston Martin bounce again? Can McLaren proceed their current type? Does Ferrari have a solution for his or her inconsistency?
Lastly, how will Liam Lawson fare in his F1 debut? Lawson was tapped to slip into the cockpit of Daniel Ricciardo’s AT04, after Ricciardo’s unlucky crash in FP2 resulted in a damaged wrist for the driving force.
These questions, and extra, will discover some solutions in the present day. Qualifying is ready to start simply earlier than 9:00 a.m. Japanese, and we’ll get issues rolling properly earlier than then with notes from FP3 and extra. So come again early and infrequently!
