"Max was remarkable this weekend," Horner stated. "If you drive through the town to the circuit, every house has Verstappen flags. There is so much support for him, and I have never seen a nation get behind a driver in this manner."
If Verstappen was feeling the pressure, it didn't show in the way he drove in practice, qualifying and for the 72 laps of the race.
"I know the fans always have high expectations when you come here," he told Motorsport.com.
"They of course want you to win, but its never that straightforward before you get here."
It was certainly not a cruise in the sunshine for Verstappen, despite him seeming to have the faster car, as Hamilton pushed him all the way. "The whole race it was quite close between myself and Lewis, he was really putting the pressure on, putting in some great laps," Verstappen explained. "An incredible feeling to win, an amazing day."
He posted on Twitter: "No words. I'm so happy to win my home Grand Prix and the Orange Army, just incredible, was an amazing team performance, thanks a lot, @redbullracing and @HondaRacingF1. A day to remember #KeepPushing # Dutch GP."
Mercedes had two drivers to push Verstappen, who got no help from his teammate Sergio Perez, who had to replace his engine and start the race from pit-lane. He did manage to finish 8th, and Sky F1 made him driver of the day.
The Mercedes strategy was to undercut Verstappen, starting by pitting Hamilton early and leaving his soon-to-be ex-teammate, Valtteri Bottas out. Red Bull though decided to race Hamilton, not Bottas, so they brought Verstappen in as well. Rejoining, he soon overtook Bottas on the track, whose job clearly was to try and back Verstappen into Hamilton's path, something Horner said they were wary of.
"We knew that with the strategic options Mercedes had that they were going to split, and they did exactly that," Horner noted. "So, the most important part of the race for us was for Max to make that pass on Valtteri, and he did that quickly, and then after that we were just able to cover Lewis, but an impeccable race from him [Verstappen] today. I've never seen a reaction like it in all my career to any driver.
"What we were more worried about was Valtteri backing him up and Lewis getting the undercut on both of them."
Hamilton did his best to have to gain some affinity with the Dutch crowd.
"What a race, what a crowd, Honestly, it's been an amazing weekend." he said in the post-race interview.
"Congratulations to him [Verstappen]. I gave it absolutely everything today, flat out, pushed as hard as I could but they were just too quick for us. They were on another level that I genuinely couldn't answer to most of those laps."
However, despite the complimentary comments, deep down he was not happy with his team's strategy, especially when on his second stop he was sent out on medium tyres, whereas Red Bull were committed to a hard tyre for Verstappen. "Doesn't seem to be an advantage," he told his race engineer Pete Bonnington, on the team radio. "Called our bluff too soon. There was still so much life left in that last tyre, I don't know why you rushed it. I'm not going to make it to the end on these tyres."
Which he didn't, because he made a third pit stop with two laps to go when it was clear the race was lost, to claim one point for fastest lap. And he only had to do that because Bottas, secure in third place, also pitted for fresh rubber a few laps from the end and unwittingly took the fastest lap that Hamilton already held.
Bottas was told to slow down when he had set purple (fastest) times in the first two sectors. He did go slower but still took fastest lap.
So, was this Bottas being a little defiant, knowing he has lost the drive for 2022 to George Russell?
"I didn't go for fastest lap, but Lewis got it - as a team, we got solid points," Bottas cheekily said. "I was pushing, but also knew that Lewis needed that one point more than me because he is fighting for the title. I was just playing around…all good," he told Sky Sports.
Pierre Gasly in the Alpha Tauri almost went unnoticed in a lonely, but solid drive for 4th place, ahead of Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari, and Fernando Alonso in the Alpine, who got by his good friend and fellow Spaniard, Carlos Sainz in the other Ferrari, on the last lap. Alonso, in addition to being given credit for another tenacious drive in a car that is at least a second slower than Red Bull and Mercedes, is also being credited for discovering early on in practice the best way around the banking of Turn 3, something the other drivers soon emulated.
Robert Kubica returned to F1 racing as a replacement at Alfa Romeo for a retiring Kimi Raikkonen, who unfortunately tested positive for Covid-19 after Friday practice, despite having no symptoms, and had to isolate in his hotel room. Having announced on arrival at Zandvoort, that he was retiring from F1 at the end of the year, Raikkonen said that after 21 race wins and becoming world champion in 2007 with Ferrari, he was happy with what he had achieved.
"I had fun, I did it my way, and I wouldn't change a single thing even if I could."
Raikkonen's distinguished F1 career coming to an end at age 41and after 17 seasons in the sport, is not a huge surprise. His departure leaves the door open for some driver changes in 2022. Mercedes is expected to announce at Monza this weekend that Russell will partner Hamilton next year, and Bottas is now confirmed to replace his fellow Finn at Alfa Romeo. That team's other driver, Antonio Giovinazzi is fighting to retain his drive, and qualifying 7th and finishing 10th in this race will not harm his changes of keeping the drive.
Former Red Bull driver Alex Albon is linked to the Williams drive that Russell will vacate, but Mercedes have been trying to block that move according to Horner. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has stated he would like to see Albon back in F1.
"It's one thing about the power unit, and I think Albon, as I said yesterday, is a driver that deserves a seat in Formula 1, but its tricky to have a 100 per cent Red Bull driver on a Mercedes power unit," Wolff said. "So happy to work with him, as long as they let him free from his Red Bull contract."
Politics has always played a huge part in what goes on behind the scenes in F1, and this is just another example of that. But what the fans who attended the first grand prix at Zandvoort for 36 years saw was a title battle between Hamilton, the most successful driver according to the record books, and Verstappen, who at age 23, is13 years younger than Hamilton and feasibly the one most likely in time to challenge some of Hamilton's records.
But his first priority is winning a first championship and denying Hamilton an 8th. With 9 races still to go and the Italian GP at Monza next up this weekend, a race Hamilton has won 5 times, this championship fight will, as Horner surmises, "be really close, and I think this championship looks like its going to go all the way to Abu Dhabi."
