Three weeks after a thrilling start to the 2021 season, the drivers were back in action for the FORMULA 1 PIRELLI GRAN PREMIO DEL MADE IN ITALY E DELL’EMILIA ROMAGNA 2021 at Imola. All eyes were on the battle between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
Charles Leclerc showed just how wet the track surface was, spinning on the formation lap in turn 9. He came to rest in the gravel, but was able to get back to his position to avoid starting from his the pit lane.
At the race start, Max Verstappen got away well from his third place grid position. He was immediately able to challenge Lewis Hamilton for the lead of the race on the inside of the very smooth first corner. He was on the inside of Hamilton into turn 2 and Hamilton was forced to hobble over the large kerbs on the inside of the turn 3 right-hander. Hamilton lost some bodywork from his car and lost the lead of the race to Verstappen. The stewards noted the incident, but felt it didn’t need any further investigation.
On the first lap, Nicholas Latifi spun, mirroring Leclerc’s formation lap spin. He rejoined the race, but he made contact with the Haas of Nikita Mazepin on the uphill straight and crashed into the wall. This brought out the safety car.
Under the safety car, Mick Schumacher created some drama, crashing into the barrier at the pit exit when weaving down the main straight to warm his tyres. He lost his front wing and needed to crawl around a whole lap to get a new front wing. To make matters worse, race control closed the pit lane due to debris at the pit exit, meaning that Schumacher needed to do an additional lap before he was able to pit at the end of the safety car period.
Sergio Perez also landed himself in some hot water with stewards under the safety car. He lost grip and ran wide through the gravel. He lost 2 positions, but rejoined the circuit and retook those positions. This is not allowed under the safety car, earning him a 10 second time penalty for overtaking under the safety car, which he later served while pitting.
The race resumed on lap 6. Hamilton was able to get right on the rear wing of Verstappen, but he wasn’t able to launch an overtake attempt and dropped off after the first few corners.
Lando Norris, Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll provided some entertainment for the fans watching the race, battling for P6 through P9. It was Norris who came out on top and it was Gasly who lost out. Gasly dropped through the field quickly, being the only car still on the full wet tyres, which was clearly not the right tyre for the conditions.
Norris eventually caught up to his McLaren teammate Daniel Ricciardo. Norris appearing to be the faster of the two, the team instructed the duo to swap positions. This turned out to be the right call, as Ricciardo dropped behind Carlos Sainz.
Sebastian Vettel was the first car to venture into the pit lane for slick tyres. Shortly after the pit stop, he was given a 10 second stop and go penalty for a pre-race violation. While his team was working to fix a brake issue with the rear brakes in the pit lane before the start of the race. In doing so, they did not have the tyres on the car at the 5 minute signal before the start of the race, which is required under the regulations. He served the penalty the following lap.
After serving his penalty, all eyes were on Vettel to see if the slick tyres are the ideal tyre for the current conditions. He showed promising pace and Verstappen was the first of the lead cars to dive into the pit lane on lap 27 for the medium tyres. Mercedes kept Hamilton out on the track, attempting to overcut the Red Bull.
Hamilton came in the following lap for medium tyres, but his stop was slower than the Red Bull and he was not able to beat Verstappen out of the pit lane. As Verstappen made his way through a cluster of lapped cars, Hamilton was able to close the gap to the lead.
But drama struck for the defending World Champion. While attempting to overtake the lapped Williams of George Russell on the inside of turn 7, the Mercedes lost grip and he skidded into the gravel trap on the outside of the corner. Hamilton tried to get going again, but the poor steering lock of the modern cars put Hamilton into the barriers, damaging his front wing. He was able to reverse out of the gravel trap, but he was stationary for a long time and needed to pit for a new wing.
But the drama wasn’t over for the Mercedes garage. Down the main straight, George Russell had a huge run on Valtteri Bottas’ Mercedes. Russell was on the outside of the smooth high-speed first corner. Bottas was moving slightly to the outside of the circuit. Russell reacted by moving further to the outside, but he put a tyre on the grass, instantly spinning the Williams into the sidepod of Bottas. Both crashed heavily into the barriers.
With the first sector of the circuit littered with debris and two heavily damaged cars to remove from the side of the circuit, the race was red flagged.
The race was restarted, but race control opted to have a rolling start instead of a standing start. All of the cars were able to unlap themselves, including Lewis Hamilton. The track still proved to be quite slippery, as Kimi Raikkonen proved under the formation lap when he spun. Verstappen was lucky not to spin out of the lead on the formation lap, nearly spinning over the inside kerbs in the final corners before the restart of the race.
He shook off the mistake and led the field across the line to restart the race. Lando Norris jumped right back to racing, overtaking the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc for second position.
Yuki Tsunoda joined the long list of spinners in the race, spinning into the gravel in turn 3, but doing a good job not to get himself beached. Sergio Perez also spun a few laps later in turn 6, severely hampering his chances for a good race.
By lap 42, Hamilton had fought he way back up into the top 5. About a second separated each of the top 5 cars, with the exception of Verstappen who had checked out in front and pulled out a gap of well over 10 seconds. With just 10 laps remaining in the race, that gap had increased to 15 seconds.
Hamilton was able to get by Sainz and take P4, but Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc put up a good fight. Leclerc was within DRS range of Norris, which helped to counteract Hamilton’s DRS, but Hamilton was able to cruise by the Ferrari when Leclerc fell out of DRS range to the McLaren ahead.
Norris put up a good defensive fight against the fighting Mercedes. Hamilton was able to close in on the back of the McLaren down the main straight, but was not able to get by and dropped back on the rest of the lap. On lap 60, he was finally able to dart past the slower McLaren and take P2.
With the gap more than 20 seconds to Verstappen, Hamilton had to settle for the second step of the podium. The lead in the championship all came down to the bonus point for the fastest lap, which went to Hamilton and keeps him narrowly at the top of the championship table.
With the championship battle between Verstappen and Hamilton heating up, fans will need to wait two weeks for round 3 of the battle in Portugal on the weekend of May 2.
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| DNF | ||
| DNF | ||
| DNF |
