With 23 circuits, there can be a lot to take in, so we’ve organised for you to join us in Lando and Oscar’s engineering briefings, where we’ll walk you through this weekend’s key trackside topics so that you can enjoy the Dutch Grand Prix to its fullest.

Zandvoort only returned to the F1 calendar in 2021, but Lando already had a fair amount of experience with the circuit from his junior days. Oscar less so, with only an F3 test to speak of, although it should be a track that suits his strengths.

The Dutch circuit has often been compared to a rollercoaster as it flows up and down through sand dunes, but despite its undulating nature, it has proved to be surprisingly smooth. That will only increase this year, with some of the few existing bumps flattened out. Figuring out the impact of this, along with getting Oscar up to speed with the circuit will be amongst the team’s tasks in free practice, as will testing out a new maximum downforce rear wing.

Looking to explain all of that to you is Tom Stallard, who will be leading this weekend’s engineering briefing, in partnership with Google Chrome. It’s time to begin. Grab a coffee and follow us through the glass doors and into the Paddock Performance Centre. Take notes if you need them, but please keep them to yourself.

Engineer: Tom Stallard
Event: Dutch Grand Prix
Circuit: Circuit Zandvoort

Adjusting to a relatively new circuit

We’ve got what feels like a rarity in that this is a standard race weekend on a permanent circuit – but having only raced here twice in the modern era, Zandvoort still feels fresh and new. Oscar has been here even less than the rest of us. He’s done only an F3 test here – 10 laps wet, 10 laps dry or thereabouts – so he has some learning to do in practice. The banking and potentially the wind make it a difficult track to learn – but it’s mostly the sort of long sweeping corner he really enjoys, so we don’t have any big concerns.

The interesting question for us is figuring out how competitive we are. The last two races here, we haven’t been particularly strong, but the performance in Austria and at Silverstone with our upgraded car was a big improvement. Whether that helps us or not in Zandvoort is quite difficult to judge. We’ll find out during practice.

Testing out a new maximum downforce rear wing

The big-ticket item this weekend is an evolution of our maximum downforce rear wing package. The new wing assembly targets drag reduction, which has been an issue for us this season. We expect it to be a step forward, but we’ll be comparing it against the old maximum downforce wing on Friday. Oscar will be running the old wing and Lando the new – but we expect both cars will move onto the new wing as the weekend progresses.

The first part of FP1 will concentrate on aero testing with rakes fitted to the cars. This isn’t entirely provoked by the new wing. There’s a series of tests we planned for the Hungaroring, but the weather wasn’t cooperating in Budapest. Hopefully, we’ll have better luck today – though the forecast is changeable all weekend.

Wind and rain could play a part

As well as the potential for rain, we’ll almost certainly have strong, gusting winds, as that’s a near constant here on the North Sea coastline. It does have a significant impact because many of the corners are long, guaranteeing you have to drive through the wind at some part of it.

It varies from corner to corner, however, because the track rises and falls, and some corners are protected by the dunes. T6, for example, is very exposed, but then the track drops into a gully and T7-8 are sheltered – particularly when the wind is South-westerly. T10-11 is sheltered, T13 can be quite exposed, T1 and T3 are exposed. The drivers will hopefully get acquainted with it across practice – but if it’s gusting and shifting direction, there’s not much to be done.

A smooth circuit

Another factor to take into account is the bumps – or lack thereof. While the track isn’t generally bumpy, in the past two years we’ve noted a large bump before T1 and another in T6 that we used to have to drive around. Those two have now been ground off, and we’ll have to see what impact that has on how we can run the car. It may still be bumpy through T7, and that limits the extent to which we can smash the car into the ground.

It complicates the lap because if you set the car up to cope with that, you then need to have more downforce to cope with T12. It’s a difficult thing to manage to do because of the high-speed nature of the circuit. We’ve looked at what we can do to help with set-up, but it’s one of the challenges for which we need to figure out an optimal solution during practice.

Race strategy and overtaking

Tyres are also interesting here. Last year we had the C1, C2, C3. Superficially, we have the same allocation, but the C1 is a new tyre this year, with the 2022 C1 now called the C0. The C0 was always a bit too hard wherever it was used, but the C1 is a much more useful compound, so we have some learning to do there.

These are sensible compounds to bring to this track, and the indication is that the grand prix – if dry – would be a choice between a one and a two-stop race, which is the window Pirelli are aiming for.

This is a difficult circuit for overtaking, and it’s one of the tracks where the new aerodynamic package hasn’t provided much assistance. It’s very much a qualifying-biased circuit, which might encourage drivers to attempt the one-stop.

Another thing that makes a one-stop more likely are the risks inherent in a pit-stop. The pit-lane here is very short and very tight. There’s a real risk of getting held in your pit-box if the fast lane is busy, which makes pit-loss time highly variable. We’ll provide the strategists with all the tyre data we can, but they’ll have a lot of other factors to consider when trying to find the best strategy. It’s going to be an interesting weekend.

Briefing complete. Time for Lando and Oscar to head out onto the track so we can collect some data and put our hard work to the test.