The North Sea roiled just off the Dutch coast, sending showers and storms towards Zandvoort in an attempt to disrupt Max Verstappen and his Red Bull Racing team.
Instead the reigning champion emerged with his reputation enhanced, having met the challenge to his authority over his home grand prix and overcome it with ease.
No driver seems capable of stopping the series leader. Neither does Mother Nature seem to have it in her.
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The Dutch Grand Prix was a race won as much on speed as it was on instinct. Making the right decisions at exactly the right times was crucial to getting a good result.
Take McLaren as a counterexample. Despite starting a strong second on the grid, Lando Norris slumped to a disappointed seventh, having missed the first two pit windows as rain lashed the track unexpectedly early, forcing a decision faster than team and driver were willing to contemplate.
The same applies to teammate Oscar Piastri, who snatched two points in ninth on an afternoon the McLaren was quick enough for more.
McLaren is far from the only team to make what were ultimately split-second wrong decisions.
But we’re also yet to look back on a weekend and say Max Verstappen’s side made a bad call that cost the Dutchman points.
And it’s hard to imagine seeing such a scenario in the next nine races too.
BIG TROPHY FOR BIG ACHIEVEMENT
For a small track in a small country, the Dutch Grand Prix puts on a big show with a big atmosphere.
And after a big grand prix packed with big spectacle, the winner bagged himself a big trophy for his troubles — and a big slice of history.
Verstappen is only the second driver in Formula 1 history to win nine consecutive races after Red Bull Racing alumnus Sebastian Vettel won the final nonet of the 2013 season.
Alberto Ascari won nine in a row between 1952 and 1953, though the Italian didn’t enter the 1953 Indianapolis 500, which at that time counted towards the Formula 1 world championship, an inclusion that generated a great many statistical anomalies.
But whatever your view on that quirk in the history book, the bottom line is that no driver has ever won 10 in a row, and Verstappen now finds himself positioned to take the record outright just a few days from now at the Italian Grand Prix to close the European season.
Teammate Sergio Pérez’s fourth place also keeps Verstappen in the frame to have a chance to win the championship at the Japanese Grand Prix, which would be the equal earliest title triumph in the sport’s history alongside Michael Schumacher’s dominant 2002 campaign.
It’s already been a big season for Verstappen, but his big first race back from the break has confirmed the big task ahead of anyone hoping to catch him.
IS RED BULL RACING PLAYING FAVOURITES?
Despite Verstappen winning yet again, he was genuinely challenged at the Dutch Grand Prix, including by a long run early in the race during which he was deprived of the lead.
He’d aced his start from pole, but the rain that had been expected 30 minutes into the race turned up some 29 minutes early, forcing some crucial decision-making.
It was Sergio Pérez who got the call right, diving directly into pit lane for intermediate tyres for a strategy that propelled him to an enormous lead. Verstappen dropped to as low as 11th after his later stop and at one stage was 15 seconds behind his teammate.
But the Dutchman’s pace was ferocious, and by lap 11 he was back to only three seconds adrift of the lead and looking good to give the home fans what they wanted.
But by now the track was dry enough to move back to slicks, and another call was needed. This time Red Bull Racing made it on behalf of its drivers: Verstappen would get pit stop priority.
The power of the undercut was huge, and when Pérez stopped just one lap later he was surprised to find himself in second place.
Was it just another case of Red Bull Racing favouritism?
Team boss Christian Horner denied that was the case, pointing to Fernando Alonso in third having stopped a lap earlier and being a potential undercut threat.
Had they stopped Pérez before Verstappen, the Dutchman would have been vulnerable to dropping to third behind the Aston Martin. Stopping him first at least kept the team in a one-two position, even if the drivers were swapped around.
His argument has some merit.
Alonso had been 10 seconds behind Verstappen and 13 seconds behind Pérez before his stop. Once all three were on the soft tyres, the gap to Verstappen had been slashed to seven seconds but the margin to Pérez was just two seconds.
The extra lap equated to a loss of almost 10 seconds — time Pérez could just about afford but that Verstappen couldn’t.
But anyway, would it matter if Red Bull Racing had brazenly played favourites here? Not only is Verstappen the clear lead driver aiming to beat some historic records on his way to the championship, but he was evidently substantially faster at the time. The pit stop only avoided a potential crash between racing teammates in tricky conditions.
You could also argue that Verstappen had ended up second only because the team hadn’t been decisive enough about getting him into pit lane on the first lap.
It mightn’t always be attractive, but in this case it’s difficult to argue against the team’s intervention to get Verstappen back into the lead.
LESSONS LEARNT FROM AUSTRALIA IN LATE RESTART
Verstappen’s other challenge came deep into the race, when the rain returned with a vengeance to try to deprive him of what had been a hard-earnt 10-second margin.
It was heavy enough to cause a red flag, partly because Zhou Guanyu had sustained a 19G crash at turn 1 and partly because the heaviness of the rain had dangerously reduced visibility.
But peak intensity lasted for only around 10 minutes, and before long minds turned to restarting the race — and with only seven laps left on the counter, some undoubtedly had flashbacks to the Australian Grand Prix.
The farcical double-suspended and debris-strewn ending to Melbourne’s race forced the sport and in particular the drivers to do some deep thinking on what sort of racing is acceptable so close to the chequered flag.
In Australia it was clear too many drivers were risking too much for big gains with only three laps to go.
Add heavy rain and the risk would appear to be severe.
Recently the Grand Prix Drivers Association had voted to lobby the sport to consider its options in these situations to prevent the sort of embarrassing spectacle on display in Melbourne.
Alex Albon appeared to speak on behalf of the drivers when he reportedly commented over team radio that, “The reason why we voted, all the drivers, not to restart for these last three laps is exactly this. It‘s just going to be f***ing carnage and a complete lottery who comes out on top.”
Whether it was in deference to the drivers or just the conditions, race control took the safer option of a rolling restart rather than lining up the cars like skittles on the grid.
Sure, it’s less spectacular than the standing restart that the regulations put forward as a first preference. But would you prefer seven laps of green-flag racing to see out the race or the potential of yet another suspension and the risk that the grand prix doesn’t reach its conclusion?
Discretion was the better part of valour at the Dutch Grand Prix thanks to the lessons learnt a few months ago Down Under.
SOME MUCH-NEEDED PODIUMS COMPLETE THE DAY
There was plenty of unpredictability despite the straightforward rolling start, with the podium up for grabs right until the final lap and falling to Fernando Alonso and Pierre Gasly. Both were much-needed results.
Second place was vindication for Aston Martin, which had brought a new floor to the Netherlands in the hope of turning around its form dip from the month or so before the mid-season break. Back-to-back tests during practice appeared to validate the step forward, and though this was hardly the cleanest weekend to use for analysis, Alonso was able to put in one of Sunday afternoon’s punchiest drives to secure second place. His first lap in particular was a classic piece of Alonso aggression.
The score reduces Aston Martin’s deficit to Mercedes in second to 40 points in a boost for team morale.
But Pierre Gasly’s first rostrum appearance in two years — his sprint podium in Belgium excluded — came as a far bigger relief.
Only a few weeks ago Alpine was plunged into turmoil by a management clean-out following a half-season of underwhelming results barring one or two bright spots.
While the moves were brutal, there’s been no getting around the fact that the A523 hasn’t been a match for the frontrunning five and that the team hasn’t been executing on the occasions the car’s been quick enough to snag some big points.
But Alpine was flawless in its execution of Gasly’s race.
The Frenchman started 12th and rose into a podium-challenging position thanks to some perfectly timed stops around the first rain shower and some excellent car control to maximise his tyres thereafter.
A five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane was the only flaw and lost him a place to Carlos Sainz, but he had the pace to get back past the lumbering Ferrari, and he had no trouble keeping inside Pérez’s five-second window when the Mexican also copped a speeding penalty late in the race.
There was no more on the table for Gasly to grab, and his reward was a small personal gain in the drivers championship but also modest inroads on Alpine’s deficit to McLaren for fifth in the constructor standings, now down to 38 points.
