Round 2 brought the F1 circus to Imola, North Italy for the 29th time. The circuit is known as an "old school racing track" with high kerbs, bumpy surface and elevation changes. A highly entertaining race wasn't looked forward to, as in 2020 there were only six successful overtaking moves in the race. However, this year's race proved a whole different story.
Drama began already in the qualifying. The first session was red-flagged after six minutes of running, as AlphaTauri's Tsunoda crashed out, destroying his car. The track limits in turns 9, 12 and 15 were monitored carefully, and Perez's and Gasly's fastest lap times, among many others, were deleted due to exceeding the track limits. Once again, Q2 came down to the tyre choice. Like expected, both Mercedes drivers and Red Bull's Verstappen opted for the medium compound. Against all odds, the second session saw the Williams duo come out on the more durable rubber as well. Red Bull's Perez, McLaren's Norris and Ferrari's Leclerc were the fastest drivers of the second session, all having set their fastest lap time on the red-walled soft Pirellis. Unfortunately, Charles' teammate Sainz was the first driver to be knocked out of the final segment, as the Spaniard proved unable to put together a lap time competitive enough.
The battle for pole was extremely tight. Hamilton laid his hands on provisional pole, but by teeny tiny 0.091-second margin to Max Verstappen. Perez in the sister Red Bull showed excellent performance as well, the Mexican being third fastest after his first attempt. Clearly Mercedes had lost their dominant upper hand in terms of one-lap pace, as Bottas was down in P6 after the first runs. The final shootout for pole was absolutely jaw-dropping. Only hundredths of a second separated the top three. Hamilton managed to conquer his 99th pole position, but Perez in second was only 0.035s down on the seven-time world champion. The Mexican claimed his career best qualifying result, out-qualifying teammate Verstappen, who has been out-qualified by his teammate only three times since 2018. The flying Dutchman was only 0.078s down on the pole-setter Hamilton, forced to settle for P3. Charles delivered a strong qualifying as well, making it alongside Verstappen on the second row. AlphaTauri's Gasly and McLaren's Ricciardo locked down the third row. Norris in his sister McLaren set an outstanding lap time on his last flyer, but the young Briton's lap time, which would have entitled to career best P3 on the grid, was deleted due to exceeding the track limits. Due to this turn, Norris had to settle for P7 on the grid.
Weather forecast predicted a dry race, but heavens opened about 45 minutes before the race start. However, in spite of heavy rain in the first sector of the circuit, the back straight and some other areas of the track were almost dry. This threw an interesting challenge to the drivers in terms of the tyre choice. All other drivers, except the Haas duo of Schumacher and Mazepin and AlphaTauri's Gasly, opted for the green-marked intermediate tyres, as the three above mentioned opted for the full-wet compound. Ferrari's Leclerc had a moment of scare on the formation lap already, as the Monegasque spun on the damp track. Luckily he got away with his Prancing Horse unharmed.
The start of the race was absolutely staggering. Verstappen took a courageous flying start from P3, making it alongside Hamilton on the Briton's left side. Going into Turn 1, these rivals went side by side, Verstappen forcing his rival to hit the kerb. There was contact between the two, and Hamilton's W12 had a rough jump over the kerb. Even a small piece of the end plate of Hamilton's front wing fell off due to the contact. Max took the lead extremely confidently in spite of the challenging conditions. Red Bull's Perez went wide, which enabled Charles to jump third. Meanwhile in the back of the pack, Williams' Latifi crashed into the barrier after colliding with Haas' Mazepin. This shunt brought out the safety car.
Restart took place on lap 7. Verstappen wasn't to be surprised, and the Dutchman defended his lead like a lion. Charles was almost able to challenge Hamilton for the second place, but nevertheless, the order of the two remained unchanged. Sebastian Vettel in his Aston Martin was the first driver to opt for slicks on lap 22. Unfortunately the ex- Ferrari ace was also handed a five-second stop-and-go penalty, because his tyres hadn't been attached at the five minutes signal before the race. Verstappen opened the pit stop roulette in terms of the top drivers, his gap to Hamilton being about three seconds. Mercedes called Hamilton in on the sequential lap, not to give Red Bull an advantage in terms of undercut. However, the Briton's pit stop took a bit too long, four seconds, which proved crucial for the Mercedes ace. Verstappen managed to remain his lead in the race.
All of a sudden on lap 31, Hamilton made a mistake, which is very untypical of him. Making his way past the backmarkers, he ended up on the damp part of the track, which made him go wide on the gravel. The error was costly, as it took about 40 seconds, before the Briton made his way back on the track with damaged front wing. Hamilton's chances for the win were seriously compromised. However, there was more drama to come on the following lap, which actually turned into the silver lining for the Briton.
On lap 32 Russell in his Williams was right at the back of Bottas' W12, and the Briton was hungry to get past the Finn. He attacked the Finn on the straight, but Valtteri's small move made him go on the damp white line, which led into Russell crashing into Bottas' Mercedes. Both cars were thrown into the tyre wall, and there was like a shower of debris in the air, as both small and bigger pieces were flying off from both cars. The race was red-flagged, which was the only right decision to be made by the stewards. The cars returned to the pit lane.
After a 25-minute suspension, a rolling start was about to take place. At this point Verstappen had his moment of scare, as he spun behind the safety car, still managing to keep his RB16B in one piece. Charles, either wasn't completely awake in the tricky situation, and Norris managed to pass the Monegasque, making his way up to second. Worth noticing was the fact, that both Norris and Perez had soft Pirellis on their cars, whilst the top three were on the medium Pirellis. However, Perez destroyed his tyre advantage on lap 38, as he once again spun out at the Villeneuve chicane.
No matter how difficult it was considered to overtake in Imola, Hamilton proved everyone wrong. The annoyed Briton attacked his rivals one by one, snatching position by position, making his way towards the podium. With eight laps to go, Hamilton smelled Charles' blood, and unfortunately there was nothing the talented Ferrari ace could do to prevent Hamilton from pushing him off the podium. On the closing laps Norris in P2 was in serious trouble with his dying soft tyres, and Hamilton hunted down his fellow countryman second by second and tenth by tenth. With three laps to go, Hamilton made another ice cold attack, depriving Norris of the second place. However, this was the end of the hunt for Hamilton, as Verstappen in the lead had already built up a 20-second gap.
Verstappen drove to the chequered flag as the race winner, grabbing his very first win on the Italian soil. Hamilton made an amazing recovery after his costly mistake, which had dropped him down to P9. Norris completed the podium for McLaren and was voted as the Driver of the Day by fans. Both Ferrari drivers drove an excellent race on the team's home soil, as Charles finished 4th and Carlos 5th. This was definitely an improvement compared to the team's poor performance last year. It was the extra point for the fastest lap time, that made Hamilton maintain his first place in the drivers' championship standings! The Briton now has 44 points to Verstappen's 43. Norris is third with 27 points and Charles fourth with 20 points. The battle is quite tight in terms of the constructors as well. Mercedes in the lead have 60 points to Red Bull's 53 and McLaren's 41. Ferrari are currently in 4th place with 34 points.
The record-long season continues in Portugal in a fortnight. Hopefully Portimao will continue the series of super exciting and colorful races! Forza Ferrari!
With passion for racing red,
Iina Huhmarniemi
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