Imola Race Review – Verstappen claims the win after eventful Imola race.

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Following an eventful outing from Imola, W2W breaks down events from this Sunday’s race and casts an eye to our next outing in raceweek 3.

Out with the New and In with the Old.

It appears to be a case of new signings taking time to settle in, with the drivers who remained with their teams through last season seemingly doing better than their new counterparts. From Lando to Charles, and even Lance and Estaban going against former world champions in the form of Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso respectively, every team with a new signing is relying on their old hand to come in with the points this past weekend. The results of the listed, as well as Gasly and even race winner Max shows that change to a new team doesn’t always work out instantly. Will this change? Well, time will tell. Drivers will surely settle over the course of the season. But with the top 4 all racing for the same team they did last season, it potentially illustrates that stability can improve a driver’s chances.

Mighty max but, also, mighty Lewis.

Max Verstappen led from the first corner and in a near faultless drive, no doubt deserved the win. Kudos must also be given to Lewis, however. Hamilton made a few mistakes Sunday, for sure. However, to still finish second and get 19 points will feel like a huge save. The 7-time champion won’t be happy with second, but it is certainly a lot better than it could have been. A bad day for Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez, probably helped with that. In tricky conditions, Max won the race in Imola with a superb effort. It is undeniable however that Lewis Hamilton still leads the driver standings, despite being down to ninth at the red flag restart.

Landooooooo.

With Max and Lewis yet again 1-2, it is strange that the day actually belongs to McLaren’s Lando Norris. The young British driver deserved better on Saturday, with inches of a track limit breach costing him a place on the second row in qualifying. On Sunday though, he was near faultless and fully deserved the podium. He sat third on race day and sits third in the world championship standing. Despite it still being early in the season, there is no doubt Lando will be hugely happy with how the season is going so far, and so will his team.

Oh Boy, George…

After W2W predicted Russell points, there was huge disappointment all round with the collision with Valterri Bottas. A chance of points went slipping away from George when there was a real chance of success, much like last year at the very same track. Both blaming each other, the incident is already causing debate. Whether or not Bottas is to blame, the young Brit will be agonising over yet another chance a first William’s points having slipped out of his grasp. It was good to see Kimi Raikkonen take advantage of such an incident and be on course to score his and his team’s first points of the year. Nonetheless, a 30 second penalty cancelled out his efforts and gave a first point on the season to another former world champion, Fernando Alonso.

Ferrari and Lance exceeding expectations.

Following the signing of Sebastian Vettel, not many gave Lance Stroll a chance against the four-time world champion. In truth, however, this season has had Aston Martin very much relying on the Canadian to score 100% of the team’s points through the first two races. Another impressive display in Italy, following another disastrous day for Seb with issues from the off, silences any rumours that the German is anything like a ‘number 1’ driver. A penalty demoted Lance to eighth once all was wrapped up, but this was still a great result regardless.
For the prancing horses, a podium was so near yet so far. Despite this minor disappointment, a 4th and 5th place finish for the red team is a significant improvement on last seasons results where even reaching Q2 was a luxury, on occasion. With both drivers performing well and scoring points, things are looking up again for the Italian team.

Leave a comment below on what you thought on race two of the 2021 season!