Antonelli extends lead at Dutch GP as Mercedes' upgrade strategy comes under scrutiny

Kimi Antonelli extended his championship lead at the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort after round 12 of the campaign, despite not winning either the main race or the sprint, while Lando Norris won the grand prix to claim his second successive victory and Max Verstappen crashed out in the opening stages of his final home race.

F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers readers' questions following round 12 in Zandvoort, examining Mercedes' shift in competitiveness after a strong start to the season and the wider implications for rival teams and developments.

Mercedes began the season with clear supremacy—winning the first six races and taking pole position in each of the opening 10 events—but their form has weakened: they have won only two of the subsequent six races and were beaten for pole by McLaren's Lando Norris at the last two grands prix; in Hungary the fastest Mercedes qualified lower than second and Red Bull's Max Verstappen lined up ahead of Kimi Antonelli.

Across the season to date, the Mercedes has been the quickest in qualifying on average by 0.316 seconds over Ferrari, with McLaren a further 0.041 seconds adrift; splitting the campaign shows a marked reduction in margins, with Mercedes 0.453s per lap quicker than the next team up to the Canadian Grand Prix but since Monaco that advantage has fallen to 0.163s over Ferrari and 0.270s over McLaren, while Red Bull's qualifying gap has moved from 0.813s up to Canada to 0.353s over the past six races.

Published FIA upgrade sheets show Mercedes have fitted 24 new parts so far this season compared with 37 for Red Bull, 38 for McLaren and 40 for Ferrari; those declared parts figures also place Mercedes behind Aston Martin, Alpine, Racing Bulls, Audi and Cadillac, with even Haas having more upgrades and Mercedes level with Williams for the fewest components brought.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said: "We haven't got the money to put developments on the car. "We are trying to evenly split that through the season, based on our calculations of when we can bring the biggest updates and optimising the championship points. But we just can do what we can do." Wolff added: "Well, you will see how towards the end of the season (whether) they are going to be able to deploy as much stuff on to the car as they do now. "Someone might have a different strategy in spending more at the beginning and in the middle of the year than towards the end." The piece sets out two possibilities mentioned in that context: Mercedes either invested more in the initial design and build of this year's car or are conserving resources for a major upgrade or next year's car, which the article says is due at the so-called Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia at the start of October when there are either eight or nine grands prix remaining depending on the situation in the Middle East.

Aston Martin introduced a new front wing and diffuser to the heavily revised car from Hungary and Honda debuted its 'spec two' engine at Zandvoort; the team had hoped the engine would cut lap times by roughly 0.3-0.5 seconds but the weekend produced mixed evidence, with Fernando Alonso appearing competitive in parts of the race yet qualifying further from pole than in Hungary after a messy final lap left his tyres out of the "window" when he was 12th fastest and failed to improve. Alonso took ninth on a one-stop strategy, holding off Pierre Gasly's Alpine and Yuki Tsunoda's Racing Bull in the final stint, and said: "We scored one point in Monaco with nine DNFs (retirements). Today we scored two points with Max (Verstappen) DNF. It was well deserved." Alonso also commented on strategy and drivability: "We are in traffic," "Another step forward, especially on the chassis side. "We brought four or five components here... I think now we are optimising the chassis side and we are able to extract the maximum. "The engine is more difficult. I don't think we can be black and white if we have more power or not. "On the driver side of things, you change circuits one month after the other race. The drivability has been a difficult weekend. We struggled with the downshift again. We struggled with the engine braking corner to corner. It was a challenging weekend in that regard." The article notes it may take several races before the new Honda engine can be fairly judged.

Mid-race at Zandvoort Lewis Hamilton, on fresher tyres, came up behind Charles Leclerc and asked to be let through; Leclerc initially resisted a pit call and then pitted on the following lap. Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur said the team had been "thinking of running Hamilton to the end" and therefore did not want him pushing hard but had not informed Hamilton because they wanted to keep the plan secret, and added they were "expecting him to pit" in relation to Leclerc before realising he risked rejoining in traffic. Vasseur said: "Charles was supposed to pit, we extended one lap, and it was a kind of confusion, but I'm not worried about this. Everybody will be back in the briefing, they will have a clear picture about the race." He also said: "It's not so easy, but, if I look at the race now, my issue is that we didn't tell Lewis that we were expecting him to go to the end, and it was not a matter of (him) pushing (at that point)." The piece records that "Hamilton thought so, but it's impossible to know whether he would have passed George Russell if he had had a lap or two more to try."

On Isack Hadjar's summer-break injury, the article notes drivers' contracts "usually have clauses in them forbidding them from doing 'dangerous sports', such as skiing or scuba diving, although not every driver's contract is the same." Red Bull described Hadjar's issue as a "minor fracture" sustained during a boxing exercise that is part of his normal gym routine and said there is no suggestion he did anything outside his contract; Red Bull are targeting his return for the next race, the Italian Grand Prix, but "it remains to be seen whether that will be possible."

Antonelli will take a grid penalty at the next race in Italy for exceeding the permitted number of engine parts, and George Russell is set to serve a similar penalty at a subsequent race, most likely Azerbaijan; Red Bull are targeting Hadjar's return for the Italian Grand Prix.