Luke’s Weekend Take – Imola GP 2024

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Imola GP 2024: Intense Rivalries and Upgrades Mark the European Season Start

Imola 2024

We are ready for round 7 of the F1 season and we are heading to Italy for the Imola GP to kick off the European leg of the 2024 season. Last year we unfortunately had to miss the Imola GP due to the tragedy that happened with the floods they had, and the weekend looks much better this year although thunderstorms are expected on Sunday for the race.

Upgrades are the talk of the paddock as all teams barring the RB team brought upgrades to their cars, but all eyes were on the Ferrari as they brought a whole overhaul to the car which was dubbed the “Evo” upgrade. Ferrari will be hoping that this upgrade will bring them in contention for wins and challenge Red Bull and McLaren at the front. What a moment it will be if Ferrari win here at Imola which is one of their home races. Talking of McLaren, Oscar Piastri also gets the full upgrade package this weekend and the team also brought some new minor upgrades.

The cars weren’t the only upgrades we had this weekend as the track also got some upgrades as we see a reduction in the runoff areas and an expansion of the gravel traps. In FP1 we see the return of Oliver Bearman but this time in the Haas of Kevin Magnussen as Haas opted into letting him run in FP1 as part of the regulations, but I also assume that Haas were assessing Bearman as an option for the 2025 season as Nico Hulkenberg is confirmed to move to Sauber from next season.

Throughout FP1 we hear quite a few drivers complain about the ride of the car especially with the bottoming out of the cars due to the bumpy track. We heard Esteban Ocon very early on complaining about this and later in the session we also heard his teammate Pierre Gasly and Zhou Guanyu saying the same about the car. With 40 mins left on the clock we see the double Yellow Flags being waved in Sector 2 as we see the Williams of Alex Albon pull over to the side as his car cuts out with some sort of electrical failure and had to pull over on the side. Red Flag came out so that the Marshals can clear the car off track.

After the lights went green at Imola, drivers got going again and we saw a few drivers get caught out by the track at various Turns on the track as we see Daniel Ricciardo take to the gravel into Turn 17 as he locks up a bit under braking and had to take to the escape road. Lewis Hamilton also had a moment at Turn 12 as we see him take too much of the inside Kerb and lost the rear putting him into a spin but luckily kept it out of the walls and managed to get back going. Max Verstappen was the other driver who was struggling quite a lot to get some good times around this track as he was quite consistent in going quickest in the 1st and 3rd sector but was losing 4 tenths to Charles Leclerc who was on top the charts at the time.

Because of this Verstappen was trying to push harder and on 2 different occasions we see Verstappen losing the car on the last chicane of the track and on Turn 12 in 2 different laps and was unable to put a competitive time on the board where Verstappen made it very clear that he was not happy with the setup of the car. Charles Leclerc tops the leaderboard in the end of FP1 followed by George Russell and Carlos Sainz and so far, the Ferrari upgrades seem to be working as expected.

Looking at FP2 we see a few issues for the Haas of Hulkenberg as he had to return straight to the pits but after a few mins he was back out on track while at Williams we also see both cars being worked on in the garage and they didn’t come out for the first 15 mins of the session.

One man everyone had their eyes on was Yuki Tsunoda who was driving the RB car beautifully who at multiple times kept putting down some impressive times throughout the whole session. At the end of FP2 we see Charles Leclerc take 1st once more in the 2nd free practice session who was followed by Oscar Piastri and Yuki Tsunoda who managed to hustle the RB car at their home race while his teammate Daniel Ricciardo only managed 11th.

Imola GP Highlights: Ferrari's New Evo Upgrade in Focus Amidst Competitive Sessions

Heading now into Saturday and in FP3, Leclerc wasted no time to keep up the good work he put down on Friday as from his first push lap we see him putting in some competitive times while his teammate Carlos Sainz was a second off the pace on his first lap. Sainz does however get into the groove and later in the session he was able to top Leclerc’s time as he goes 0.020 seconds quicker showing how closely matched the 2 Ferrari drivers are. Max Verstappen was much happier with his car today as on the softs he was able to be within 2 tenths of the Ferrari pair.

25 minutes in we see the Red Flag coming out as we see the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso in the barriers on Turn 18 as on the replay, we see him lose the rear of the car as he went a bit wide on Turn 17 and once he lost the rear he goes into the barriers back first. Luckily, Alonso was all good and was able to get out of the car but gave Aston Martin a Mammoth job to get the car ready for qualifying later today. On the replay while the Red Flag was out, we also see a replay of Logan Sargeant who also had a close call on the same corner as we see him go wide onto the gravel and the grass but was able to keep the car out of the barriers.

This wasn’t the last time we saw the Red Flag in FP3 as with 5 mins in as all the drivers got their softs on for the last runs in FP3 to get ready for qualifying and we see Sergio Perez go straight into the barriers on Turn 15 as he takes a bit too much Kerb on Turn 15 and loses the rear of the car. Luckily for Perez it seems that he had slowed down the car quite a lot and only got a bit of front wing damage and potentially some suspension but shouldn’t be too worrying for Red Bull.

Session manages to go green again with about 2 minutes left and drivers didn’t waste any time to get out as we see Leclerc overtake his teammate Sainz and Lance Stroll on the way round on the outlap and then we see him get past Piastri and raced Pierre Gasly to Turn 1 as they were side by side, however this ruined both drivers laps and they both backed out. Before the Red Flag we saw Piastri set a stunner of a lap as he goes 6 tenths faster than Sainz getting him the top spot in FP3 as no one was able to go faster than him after the Red Flag went Green. Lando Norris However was not far off his time in 2nd and Sainz dropped to 3rd as the McLaren drivers manage faster times than him. Has to be said that both Ferrari drivers didn’t manage to get the last lap in so Qualifying later on should be interesting. After the session was ended, we see a close call between Kevin Magnussen and Daniel Ricciardo as Magnussen found Ricciardo in the middle of the racing line on his push lap. RB was fined €5000 for this incident as it could have been a bad one.

And an interesting qualifying it was as everyone was on their toes in Q3, but let’s not run ahead of ourselves. Looking first at Q1 we notice that Turn 18 is catching a few drivers out due to the wind as we see Alex Albon and Lando Norris struggle on the 1st runs in Q1. Albon goes over track limits, so his time was deleted while Norris was able to keep it within track limits and goes fastest at the time until Verstappen and Piastri go round as they both topped each other. Ferrari decided to go with the medium tyres for Q1 and they were able to have competitive times with the Yellow striped tyre.

Logan Sargeant has another close call again as he takes to the gravel once more and momentarily brings out the Yellow Flags and so does Fernando Alonso as he goes wide on Turn 3 and goes to the gravel again as he carries too much speed into the corner and couldn’t slow down enough. Nico Hulkenberg manages a lap time good enough for 3rd with only Leclerc and Verstappen ahead of him which is mighty good for the German Driver as we see his teammate Kevin Magnussen being impeded by Oscar Piastri and impacting his qualifying in Q1. In the end we end up losing Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu, Kevin Magnussen, Fernando Alonso and Logan Sargeant as Sargeant had his lap time deleted which dropped him to last from 17th and Fernando Alonso with a shocking exit in Q1 as well after his trip to the gravel earlier on the session. Oscar Piastri been summoned to the stewards at 18:15 local time for the incident with Magnussen.

In Q2 it was fairly straight forward as there was no major drama in the initial runs, however it got very interesting in the end as we see Sergio Perez get eliminated in Q2 as he couldn’t get a time quick enough for Q1. Sergio Perez will start the race in 11th tomorrow followed by Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly who were all eliminated in Q2.

In Q3 after the initial runs we see Verstappen on provisional pole followed closely by Norris and Leclerc which gave everyone the hope we all need, however after the 2nd runs Max Verstappen was able to find more time in the track and improved his time even further and the others was not able to improve enough giving Max Verstappen a record breaking 8th consecutive pole who will be followed by Oscar Piastri in 2nd, Lando Norris in 3rd, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, George Russell, Yuki Tsunoda, Lewis Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg will form the top 10 for the Imola GP 2024.

Who do you think will come out on top tomorrow? Will it be another Max Verstappen show? Oscar Piastri seemed confident that McLaren can take the fight to Max tomorrow given their recent performance and with the Ferrari upgrades we might see a 5 horse battel for the win tomorrow. Let’s wait and see tomorrow.

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