Pole sitter and F1 points leader Max Verstappen earned a hard fought victory in front of his hometown fans at the Dutch Grand Prix on Sunday at Zandvoort, Netherlands just 20 miles outside of Amsterdam.

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton held the lead late in the race but was eventually passed, racing on medium tires, by Verstappen, teammate George Russell and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who were racing on softs tires.

Mercedes picked Russell to pit on a late safety car, leaving race leader Hamilton out on mediums and settling for a fourth place finish.

Russell finished second followed by Leclerc. Red Bull's Sergio Perez rounded out the top five.

"With Lewis ahead, you can do two things: you can either pit him, lose track position against Verstappen and leave George out - screwed," said Mercedes Team Principal, Toto Wolff. "You can pit both, but you are settling for P2 and P3 and we agreed as a team this morning to fight for the win, so it was worth the risk."

"This was a huge race with an incredible amount of anticipation and pressure. It was also a tough race strategically.," said Christian Horner, Red Bull Team Principal. "First with the virtual safety car and then of course the full safety car. To pit Max in the lead with 12 laps to go, putting him behind two Mercedes, is a big call, but it was the right one, we would prefer to be on the better tyre."

The victory gives the 2021 World Champion 30 F1 wins of his career.

"Today was quite eventful and not a straightforward race at all," said Verstappen. "We had to make the right calls and it all worked out well in the end. Mercedes were very quick on the harder compound which we didn't expect, so it made it more difficult for us as we were less compatible with the hards."

Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, who started third on the grid, finished eighth after a twelve second pit stop on Lap 15 dropped the Spaniard from third to 11th place. The 12 second pit stop was later attributed to a late pit call that surprised the Ferrari pit crew.

Later in the race Sainz was penalized five seconds for an early pit stop release.

"Obviously, the late call for the first pit stop cost us a lot of race time and afterwards I got the penalty for an unsafe release, even though there was nothing else I could have done in that situation as I was trying to avoid hitting a McLaren mechanic in front of me," said Sainz.

"Today we had a very tough race and things just didn't go our way." added Sainz.

Leaving the Dutch Grand Prix, Mercedes is now only 30 points behind Ferrari in the Constructor's Championship.

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RESULTS 
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Pos	Driver		Team		Time		Gap

1	Verstappen	Red Bull	72	1h 36:42.773
2	Russell		Mercedes	72	+ 0:04.071
3	Leclerc		Ferrari		72	+ 0:10.929
4	Hamilton	Mercedes	72	+ 0:13.016
5	Perez		Red Bull	72	+ 0:18.168
6	Alonso		Alpine		72	+ 0:18.754
7	Norris		McLaren		72	+ 0:19.306
8	Sainz		Ferrari		72	+ 0:20.916
9	Ocon		Alpine		72	+ 0:21.117
10	Stroll		Aston Martin	72	+ 0:22.459
11	Gasly		AlphaTauri	72	+ 0:27.009
12	Albon		Williams	72	+ 0:30.390
13	Schumacher	Haas		72	+ 0:32.995
14	Vettel		Aston Martin	72	+ 0:36.007
15	Magnussen	Haas		72	+ 0:36.869
16	Zhou		Alfa Romeo	72	+ 0:37.320
17	Ricciardo	McLaren		72	+ 0:37.764
18	Latifi		Williams	71	+ 1 Lap
19	Bottas		Alfa Romeo	53	Retired
20	Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	43	Retired


Fastest Lap: Verstappen (Red Bull) 1:13.652 (Lap 62)