F1 in the Netherlands: The driver you most want to beat is your teammate
F1 in the Netherlands: The driver you most want to beat is your teammate
荷兰大奖赛：你最想击败的车手就是你的队友
After months of rumors surrounding his future, now we know: Four-time champion Max Verstappen is staying in the sport for the foreseeable future. The news broke on the eve of the Dutch Grand Prix, held this past weekend at Zandvoort in the Netherlands as F1 returned from its mandatory summer vacation. Verstappen’s wasn’t the only contract news—Williams will keep both Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz, too. 经过数月关于其未来的传闻，现在我们终于知道了：四届冠军马克斯·维斯塔潘（Max Verstappen）将在可预见的未来继续留在赛场。这则消息在荷兰大奖赛前夕传出，该赛事于上周末在荷兰赞德福特举行，标志着 F1 在强制性暑假后回归。维斯塔潘并非唯一有合同变动的车手——威廉姆斯车队也将同时留住亚历克斯·阿尔本（Alex Albon）和卡洛斯·塞恩斯（Carlos Sainz）。
More than once I’ve noticed a driver having an underwhelming weekend following a freshly signed contract; in this case, all three had a weekend they’d probably rather forget. They weren’t the only ones, though. Up and down the grid, we saw friction between teammates. And there’s no one an F1 driver wants to beat more than the only other person to have the same car as they do. 我曾不止一次注意到，车手在刚签下新合同后的那个周末表现往往不尽如人意；这一次，这三位车手都度过了一个他们可能宁愿忘记的周末。然而，他们并不是唯一的例子。在整个发车区，我们都看到了队友之间的摩擦。对于 F1 车手来说，没有什么比击败那个驾驶着与自己相同赛车的人更重要的了。
Formula 1 returned from its summer break with this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix. One of the things that sets F1 apart from most other disciplines in motorsport is the constant in-season development of the cars. A team might start the year with the best car and a commanding advantage over its rivals, but others can and will catch up. The 2009 season is a good example of this; Brawn GP started the year with at least a second a lap in hand over the rest of the grid, and Jenson Button built up a big early lead in the championship after winning five of the first six races. 一级方程式赛车随着本周末的荷兰大奖赛结束了暑假。F1 与大多数其他赛车运动的区别之一，在于赛车在赛季中持续不断的研发。一支车队可能在年初拥有最好的赛车，并对竞争对手保持巨大优势，但其他车队能够且一定会追赶上来。2009 赛季就是一个很好的例子；布朗 GP 车队（Brawn GP）在赛季初每圈比其他车队快至少一秒，简森·巴顿（Jenson Button）在赢得前六场比赛中的五场后，在积分榜上建立了巨大的领先优势。
That was the last race he’d win all year. The team was operating on a shoestring budget and simply couldn’t afford to upgrade its car. Button’s teammate Rubens Barrichello would win two more races for Brawn that year, but by year’s end, Red Bull and McLaren had both caught up with, then eclipsed, Brawn’s pace. The following year, Brawn GP was bought by Mercedes, the money spigot turned on, and, once the hybrid era began in 2014, the championships started flowing. 那也是他全年赢得的最后一场比赛。当时车队预算极其有限，根本无力升级赛车。巴顿的队友鲁本斯·巴里切罗（Rubens Barrichello）在那一年为布朗车队又赢得了两场比赛，但到了年底，红牛和迈凯伦车队都已经追上并超越了布朗车队的速度。次年，布朗 GP 被梅赛德斯收购，资金注入，而一旦 2014 年混合动力时代开启，冠军奖杯便接踵而至。
Ironically, there might be a danger of something similar happening again. After never really getting a handle on the ground effect regulations (2022–2025), Mercedes put a lot of effort into starting the 2026 rule set as it did in 2014, with the most powerful hybrid power units and a chassis that could exploit them. And it did, winning the first six races in a row. But the car has been plagued with unreliability, most of it affecting George Russell and not Kimi Antonelli (who now, like Button in 2009, has a commanding lead over everyone else in the driver’s championship). And unlike in 2014, Mercedes can’t just throw money at the problem. 讽刺的是，类似的情况可能再次发生。在始终未能完全掌握地面效应规则（2022–2025）后，梅赛德斯投入了大量精力，试图像 2014 年那样在 2026 年新规开启时占据先机，打造出最强大的混合动力单元和能充分利用它们的底盘。他们确实做到了，并赢得了前六场比赛。但赛车一直受到可靠性问题的困扰，大部分问题影响的是乔治·拉塞尔（George Russell），而不是基米·安东内利（Kimi Antonelli，他现在就像 2009 年的巴顿一样，在车手积分榜上遥遥领先）。而且与 2014 年不同，梅赛德斯现在无法通过单纯的砸钱来解决问题。
F1 teams now operate under a strict cost cap of $215 million (plus a little extra if they’re permitted an engine upgrade as was announced in Monaco), and this weekend Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff told journalists, “We haven’t got the money to put developments on the car. I said before that we are trying to evenly split that through the season based on our calculations of when we can bring the biggest updates and optimizing the championship points. But we just can’t do what we can’t do.” F1 车队目前在 2.15 亿美元的严格预算帽下运营（如果获准进行引擎升级，如摩纳哥站所宣布的那样，会有额外预算）。本周末，梅赛德斯车队领队托托·沃尔夫（Toto Wolff）告诉记者：“我们没有钱对赛车进行研发。我之前说过，我们正根据计算，试图在赛季中均匀分配预算，以确定何时能带来最大的升级并优化积分。但我们确实无能为力。”
Indeed, at Zandvoort, Mercedes was fast, but so too was McLaren, which has now proven its ability to bring upgrades to the track that work as intended across both the ground effect era and now this one. And in the hands of Lando Norris, the orange-and-black McLaren was fast enough to hunt down and pass Antonelli before winning by almost 12 seconds. 事实上，在赞德福特，梅赛德斯很快，但迈凯伦也同样迅速。迈凯伦已经证明了其在地面效应时代以及当前规则下，都能将升级方案带到赛道并发挥预期效果的能力。在兰多·诺里斯（Lando Norris）的驾驶下，这辆橙黑相间的迈凯伦赛车速度极快，成功追上并超越了安东内利，最终以近 12 秒的优势夺冠。
Alpine brought plenty of upgrades to Zandvoort, as did Ferrari and McLaren. And at Hungary, just before the break, Aston Martin finally dragged itself into the midpack. A Honda engine upgrade arrived this weekend that has helped close the gap a little more. Fernando Alonso told journalists that “we used to be 4.5 seconds average on the gap to the leader, so we improved three seconds in two races,” and the veteran driver finished in the points for the second time, coming home on Sunday in ninth place. But Honda still has work to do, according to Alonso’s teammate Lance Stroll, who complained about poor drivability and a gearbox that would sometimes reject instructions to downshift. Alpine 车队为赞德福特带来了大量升级，法拉利和迈凯伦也是如此。在暑假前的匈牙利站，阿斯顿·马丁车队终于挤进了中游集团。本周末到来的本田引擎升级进一步缩小了差距。费尔南多·阿隆索（Fernando Alonso）告诉记者：“我们之前与领先者的平均差距是 4.5 秒，所以我们在两场比赛中进步了 3 秒。”这位老将第二次进入积分区，在周日的比赛中以第九名完赛。但据阿隆索的队友兰斯·斯特罗尔（Lance Stroll）称，本田仍有工作要做，他抱怨赛车驾驶性能不佳，且变速箱有时会拒绝降档指令。
Got to beat my teammate
必须击败我的队友
An F1 driver’s most direct measure of performance is the person on the other side of the garage. Which means that intra-team dynamics can often get fractious. Relations between Albon and Sainz at Williams actually seem rather good, at least from the outside, but it didn’t stop the pair from colliding after Sainz got unsettled by a bump and locked his brakes while the two cars were side by side, ending Albon’s race. F1 车手最直接的成绩衡量标准就是车库另一侧的队友。这意味着车队内部关系往往会变得紧张。威廉姆斯车队的阿尔本和塞恩斯之间的关系从表面上看似乎相当不错，但这并没有阻止两人发生碰撞——塞恩斯在并排驾驶时因颠簸导致心态不稳并锁死了刹车，最终导致阿尔本退赛。
The Audi pair almost had a similar problem when Gabriel Bortoleto spun on a greasy but drying track that also caught out and wrecked Verstappen on the opening lap. Quick reactions by Nico Hulkenberg meant the silver, red, and black cars did not exchange paint. 奥迪车队的两位车手也差点遇到类似的问题，当时加布里埃尔·博托莱托（Gabriel Bortoleto）在湿滑但正在变干的赛道上打滑，而同一路段也在首圈导致了维斯塔潘的退赛。尼科·霍肯伯格（Nico Hulkenberg）的快速反应避免了银、红、黑三色赛车发生碰撞。