Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has won his 59th Grand Prix at Sunday’s Emilia Romagna GP ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
The processional character of the race suddenly changed to a nerve-cracking one as Briton ate the Verstappen’s gap ultimately coming short of a chance to try a DRS overtake on Dutchman.
This marks Verstappen’s third consecutive victory at Imola which also marked the Dutchman’s equalization of Senna’s record of most consecutive pole positions.
Race start and early stage
The first driver who did not choose medium tires is the 11th-placed driver from Qualifying, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez. Mexican decided to start the Emilia Romagna GP on hard tires.
There were no changes at the start of the race as Lando Norris could not beat the pole-sitter heading into the Tamburello section. There were no changes within the top 5 after the first lap of the race.
The biggest winner of a fairly peaceful first lap is Nico Hülkenberg who gained two places and sits in eight.
The first one to start on the slowest tire compound, Sergio Perez switched a position with RB’s Daniel Ricciardo and after the first lap held a last points-paying position.
Alonso’s start from the pitlane and on the softest tire compound did not pay him off positively with Spaniard lapping in the last position.
Alonso’s weekend seems more forgettable as the laps are counted down to the flag.
Albon and Gasly joined the aforementioned Alonso as the first ones to switch on tires and start their second stint.
Meanwhile, Williams’ Alex Albon slowed down after he noted that this circumstance was due to unfittingly set tires.
Amid all tire fittings failures, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri is hunting down Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.
“McLaren is fast.” – the Spaniard expressed himself whilst defending from Australian.
Coming back at Alonso, replays have shown an inferno over brake discs of the front left tires as Aston Martin’s driver leaves of pits.
Most of the drivers in the midfield have decided to switch their tires and most notably Yuki Tsunoda undercuts Hülkenberg for a net P8.
All the predictions that Red Bull may have a challenging weekend ‘fails’. Dutchman has already managed to cover a gap of 5 seconds ahead of McLaren’s Norris in 2nd place.
The other side of the Austrian garage has a slight excursion into ‘Rivazza-1’ in lap 18. Mexican, approximately lost around 5 seconds to Hamilton after a visit to gravel.
Leaders are yet to pit
One-third of a race and most of the points-paying positions are still out on track extending their stint.
Max Verstappen lengthened its lead to 6.4 seconds whilst the only active battle inside of the Top 10 is still between Sainz and Piastri.
Lap 22 and George Russell is the first one to pit among the top teams. Briton will start a new stint from 10th place.
Norris leaves the pitlane in lap 23 and is stuck behind Sergio Perez, thus potentially dangering his probability of challenging Dutchman this afternoon.
Coming around the very next lap, Norris returns his position and passes Perez in the only DRS-zone.
Alexander Albon receives a 10-second time penalty for an unsafe release.
Verstappen enters the pit lane in the 25th lap and has balanced out his time difference to Norris by being just less than 5 seconds ahead.
The first stint draws to its end with Leclerc taking a set of hard tires and having to do what Norris did, pass Sergio Perez.
Sergio Perez becomes a sitting duck and loses two spots within a couple of corners. First to Leclerc in the DRS-zone and then to Piastri with a brave pass round the inside at Villeneuve chicane.
In lap 28, Hamilton (who locked up in Aqua Minerale) and Sainz ultimately switch to a new set of fresh hard tires.
McLaren’s and Ferrari’s dispute for podium spots for Emilia Romagna GP
Halfway through the Emilia Romagna GP, Carlos Sainz’s quest to return a place from Piastri commences with an overtake over Perez into Tamburello.
Red Bull’s ‘Checo’ Perez succumbed to his chances of a podium finish by accepting that his race is based only on doing a recovery driver following an early exit from Saturday’s qualifying.
Hamilton takes 8th from a ‘sleepy’ Stroll with a brave late-braking maneuver at the ‘Variante Alta’ in lap 34.
Soon afterward, Lando Norris is ‘bewildered’ by his pace. However, his racing engineer Will Joseph has calmed him down by stating that ‘other teams are using tires more’.
Perez is certainly going to be a driver that has been most times overtaken this Sunday. This time, in lap 37, Mexican has fallen into the hands of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.
Perez enters the pitlane for his only stop and now has 24 laps to jump over a couple of drivers in the field.
The next lap, Perez gets rid of Hülkenberg with ease and is now in 9th.
Piastri’s chase of Leclerc is quickly dispatched by the Monegasque driver who created a gap of 2.6 seconds, as of lap 40 of the Emilia Romagna GP.
As Leclerc clears a threat of a one Mclaren driver, Monegasque becomes a threat for Norris and is within DRS range.
Norris was informed by his racing engineer about Leclerc’s greater use of tires, while Leclerc was informed that ‘he is the fastest driver on the track’.
Norris hunts Verstappen at Emilia Romagna GP
Max Verstappen is barely seen on the screen and the 3-time World Champion is calmly cruising towards his 3rd victory in Imola.
In lap 48, Leclerc overshoots chicane ‘Variante Alta’ whilst chasing 2nd place Norris, in the process Leclerc lost one second and is now 2.3 seconds behind Briton.
The gap has extended now to 3 seconds and seemingly Leclerc has admitted defeat in a battle for the silver.
On the back of the field, Haas’ Kevin Magnussen is making sure to make a race exciting. ‘Danish Viking’ dispatched Zhou, Ocon, and Bottas consecutively in 3 laps.
10 laps to go and Russell heads down into the pit lane, presumably for the fastest lap of the race.
Verstappen is ‘warned about track limits and a potential 5-second penalty’ which would relegate him to 2nd with Norris upping the pace and gaining 1,5 seconds since last stops.
Albon is notified to retire the car, in lap 55.
It is unknown whether Max Verstappen has suffered an issue and where the championship leader lost 3 seconds of lead. Lando Norris is now way below the 2-second lead.
With 5 laps to go, Norris only needs half a second to enter within the DRS zone of Max Verstappen.
All cameras are on the awaited battle between Norris and Verstappen. Lap 61 and Verstappen state that he is almost ‘run out of battery’.
It is the final lap of the race and Norris has just managed to enter the DRS range of Dutchman. The second sector gap currently sits at eight-tenths of a second but it seems that Lando Norris was late for a couple of laps as Max Verstappen comes home in 1st ahead of Lando Norris.
Max Verstappen was congratulated on his ‘2nd win today’ and Lando Norris reiterated a ‘lack of luck and loss of a good amount of time in early phases of race’.