Luke’s Weekend Review – Imola GP 2024

At the front Max was building a gap to Norris still but wasn’t having the best of times as we hear him on Lap 21 complain that his front left tyre is gone, he wasn’t the only one having tyre problems as George Russell also came on the radio saying his rears are struggling, so much so that on Lap 22 we see Russell pit for some fresh tyres. This seemed to have triggered another wave of pits at the front as we see Lando Norris pit from 2^nd on Lap 23 and comes back out behind Perez in 7^th, a lap later, Piastri also comes in from 4^th with hopes to undercut the Ferrari drivers as he comes back out in 8^th behind his teammate but Norris on the same lap was able to get past Perez into Turn 1 to get back into his groove and not lose too much time. Max now with an 8 second lead was still not having the best time on Lap 25 as he gets the Black and White Flag for track limits which put some extra pressure on him as one more track limit violation and a penalty would be going his way, he pits at the end of Lap 25 from 1^st and comes back out in 4^th place.

Charles Leclerc who was leading the race at the time after Verstappen pit was also called in the pits by Ferrari on Lap 26 and unfortunately had a slightly slow stop which got him out back in 6^th behind Perez and we see Leclerc immediately start weaving on the straight to energise the Hards and get past Perez to not lose so much time behind him as Piastri was close behind. Luckily, Leclerc was able to get past Perez 1 lap later but so does Piastri who was now on the hunt for Leclerc.

On Lap 26 we see Lewis Hamilton lock up into Turn 12 and take to the gravel but luckily was able to keep it out of any barriers, He follows Carlos Sainz into the pits on Lap 27 as they both pit from 1^st and 2^nd and come out 6^th for Sainz and 9^th for Hamilton. Sainz comes out behind Perez which showed that the undercut from Piastri worked on Sainz at least as on Lap 30 when Sainz was able to clear Perez, he was 6.5 seconds behind Piastri.

Norris who by now was running in 2^nd once more got on the radio asking why he is slower than the guys behind and his engineer replied that the guys behind are using more tyre than him but Norris quickly responded that he has no pace this way and might be under pressure from the guys behind him if he doesn’t push.

Hamilton after his stop manages to get past Perez on Lap 37 after he tried on the previous lap and Perez seemed to have fought him a bit and then realised that Hamilton wasn’t his race and didn’t fight so hard on Lap 37. On Lap 38 Perez does go into the pits followed by Lance Stroll from 8^th and 9^th and they both come out in 11^th and 13^th respectively. Perez came back out behind Daniel Ricciardo but only takes him one lap to get past Ricciardo and one lap later on Lap 40 also gets past Hulkenberg. At this stage of the race, Perez was on the quicker tyre with less fuel load in the car.

Norris’s fear was coming true on Lap 40 as we see Leclerc starting to push a bit where we see him drop Piastri and close in on Norris as but Lap 42 he was only 1.2 seconds behind Lando and on Lap 43 we see Leclerc in DRS range and starting to attack Norris. After a few laps battling we see Norris breaking DRS on Lap 46 and still pushing, Leclerc goes off a bit on Turn 15 as he cuts the last chicane through the grass, and this hurt Leclerc’s chances as he drops down to 2.5 seconds behind and lost all momentum he had.

At the same time a few laps later we hear a conversation between Verstappen and his engineer where GP was advising Max that he is losing time on Turns 2 and 6 to which Verstappen replies saying I know, my tyres aren’t working. This put in a lease of life in Norris as his engineer also comes on to tell him that Verstappen is struggling, but Norris didn’t even let him finish the sentence as he responds “I see, I see, I see I’m pushing”.

Russell comes back to the pits on Lap 53 as he was struggling with his tyres and comes out ahead of Perez as he only loses 1 place to his teammate which he would have most likely lost anyway if he stayed out on the tyres he had. A lap later on Lap 54 we see Alex Albon gets called in to retire his car after he had a bit of a nightmare in the 1^st pitstop, but it wasn’t worth finishing the race as he was a lap down and it was better to save the engine.

Back to the front now where things were getting exciting as on Lap 55 Norris had closed the gap down to 2.6 seconds behind Verstappen and by Lap 61 it was down to 1.3, GP comes on once more just to warn Verstappen not to get any track limits as that will now lose him the top spot if he gets a penalty. Max also reports that his battery is dead and didn’t have much juice to fight Norris but due to Norris pushing very hard we see him on Lap 61 go wide on Turns 3 and 5 getting very close to come off but still manages to not lose so much time top Verstappen.

Norris closes the gap again on Lap 62 but again goes a bit wide on Turn 5 losing a few tenths and it was coming down to a last lap showdown as at the start of the last lap Norris was less than a second from Verstappen. Max Verstappen manages to hold the lead though and take the chequered flag by 0.7 seconds as Lando Norris comes in 2^nd place followed by Charles Leclerc getting Ferrari the first podium in Imola since 2006 where Michael Shumacher won the race. Leclerc was followed by Oscar Piastri, Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Sergio Perez, Lance Stroll and Yuki Tsunoda forming the top 10.

George Russell takes the fastest lap of the day while Lando Norris takes Driver of the day with his impressive drive again holding off Leclerc and taking the race to Verstappen a bit which gives me hope for the rest of the season. Funnily, when Lando’s engineer told him he got P2 and driver of the day, Norris responded saying bit frustrating now that he didn’t win after his maiden victory last time out in Miami. This years race in Imola was the 1^st race in the history of F1 driving here that we didn’t have any Safety Cars which goes to show how good the current grid of F1 is and the reliability in the cars.

Who do you think was the biggest winners and the biggest losers of the Imola GP? We now head to Monaco for the historic race of the Monaco GP next week where we will see if Charles Leclerc can finally have a win at his Home GP.