Zandvoort isn't exactly the best track for racing, but the 2022 Dutch GP was incredible as a strategy race.

Red Bull wasn't the dominant force they were in Spa, but still had to be considered the team to beat. Max Verstappen is on another level to everyone else. The pass on Hamilton didn't have anything to do with tires, instead it came down to positioning and timing from Max, as well as using the straightline strength of the Red Bull vs the straightline weakness of the Mercedes. Perez has fallen off the pace to Max for whatever reason, now consistently half a second. Nobody cares because Red Bull are so far ahead and there is no real championship pressure, and Perez clearly can still race, but he needs to try to close that gap before it becomes a problem.

Mercedes have be pretty dang happy where they sit compared to the season. Still need to improve in Quali, but their race pace has been strong all year and with a competitive car they can be in there for wins. Hamilton claiming he was 7 tenths up on Max's lap is false, he was at most .360 ahead and had already lost that advantage before he lifted. George Russell influencing his race with the soft tire call can be considered a strength. He made the right call for his race. Mercedes allowing the tire change is somewhat odd and much different to the Bottas days when they would never allow a different tire strat to Lewis. Most will agree that Mercedes probably should have left both cars out, using George as a buffer if they genuinely wanted a shot at winning. It likely would not have worked out, but it was never going to work by pitting George and leaving Lewis out on used Mediums. Lewis Hamilton has ever right to be frustrated, but once again he immediately slams his team when it doesn't go right for him. It's pretty sad when even his teammate has to apologize and console him, despite not getting any kudos from the team for coming in 2nd. Also it does appear the technical directive may have helped Mercedes.

Ferrari are at a point when everyone is just waiting for what mistake they will make at any given point. It's hard not to assume the technical directive didn't perhaps hurt their performance, even though Binotto refuses to admit that. But he also says the team doesn't make mistakes. Leclerc was oh so close in quali, but the car wasn't very good in the race. Barely good enough to fight with Mercedes. 3rd place was the best he could do. Carlos looked even slower, but he was holding his position ahead of Russell. It's easy to say Ferrari made a late pit call, which is a mistake by itself, but the fact that 3 tires were ready and nobody even noticed they forgot the 4th one. That is beyond embarrassing. I understand Sainz's excuse for the unsafe release, but it still nearly caused an accident and a penalty was deserved. The team probably deserves a fine for the impact gun being left in Perez's path. Nico Rosberg's harsh comments are pretty accurate if you ask me.

Alpine either didn't have great pace in quali, or just missed their window. A much better car in the race and Alonso was on it for the start. His race IQ was incredibly high and he was rewarded with a deserving 6th place. Ocon had a good race as well and was just 2 tenths off of being jumped ahead of Sainz from his penalty. All in all, a good race for the team.

McLaren had a much better car in the high downforce setup, at least with Norris. He was making the 1 stop strategy work as well, and was battling strong with Alonso into the closing laps of the race. Ricciardo probably should have called in sick. P17, last car on the lead lap. Lets be honest, what team is going to pay what he will ask for at this point?

Aston Martin might finally be coming to grips with the green Red Bull. Lance Stroll looked in the best form he has been all season. For a car that has often struggled to get off the bottom of the grid, to earn points on merit. That's a good day on that side of the garage. Vettel unfortunately struggled, which likely stemmed from his poor grid position. His blocking of Hamilton after his pitstop was poor judgement.

AlphaTauri almost looked like they could fight for points, but didn't have enough against Aston Martin. Gasly realistically had one of his better races, which doesn't say much for the season he's having. Of course there was the very unusual situation with Tsunoda that it is not unreasonable to assume some fishy business took place. Regardless what Red Bull said, the race looked to be going in favor of Mercedes and for the car to stop on track twice with no evidence of something wrong. Both times the car had the ability to drive to a safe place, or even back to the pits, yet stopped in a position that would likely bring out at least a VSC. Then Yuki's post race comments sounded practiced and scripted. It certainly warrants an in depth investigation.

Williams actually might have made some improvements over the summer break. Albon finishing 12th is a strong result for the team. Unfortunately they can never expect anything from Latifi who once again finished dead last of the running cars.

Haas' window of good results appear to be all but closed. Even with a pretty significant upgrade, the car hasn't developed during the season and now the team is really struggling to get the car to perform both on Saturday and on Sunday. Schumacher gave hope with his good qualifying performance, but dropped like a stone and couldn't even keep up with a Williams in the end. Magnussen never looked comfortable in the car all weekend and got beat pretty soundly by his teammate.

Alfa Romeo is another team going backwards. What isn't helping is they invested into Bottas and he just isn't performing. Give credit to Zhou who is often out qualifying Bottas, especially since he is a rookie that is still learning. His races are getting much better too. Still, most expect Bottas to be the better driver in that team.

Driver of the Day: Max Verstappen. With all the changes in strategy and tires, there was a lot of challenges for Max, but he never got phased, drove every lap as he needed to, and was always going to put himself in a position to win. Honorable mention to Fernando Alonso.