The 2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix Review By Joe Murphy
Lando Norris was denied a second successive victory by the smallest of margins, as Max Verstappen crossed the line a mere 0.7 seconds ahead of him after 63 laps of Imola yesterday.
It seemed to be one of those days where the Dutchman was cruising to victory around the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari. However, a late charge from the McLaren behind, coupled with Verstappen having already receiving a Black and White Flag, meant the ‘dead cert’ result suddenly became debatable. A couple more laps and Lando could have taken it too, but with one too many mistakes whilst pushing hard, these ultimately cost him.
Charles Leclerc came home in third to the delight of the vast amount of Ferrari fans surrounding the circuit. Oscar Piastri confirmed McLaren’s pace turning a pre-race demotion into fourth, ahead of Carlos Sainz’ Ferrari in 5th. In fact, it could have been better for the Australian had he overtaken Sainz more quickly earlier in the race.
The race was a slow burner, with no stoppages to the race action meaning the grid never truly got a shake up or bunch up the race could have benefitted from. Mercedes raced to themselves, with 6th and 7th and the fastest lap point about as good as they could hope for as officially the fourth fastest constructor at the moment, regardless of any upgrades they have brought in. The other Red Bull came home in 8th as the inconsistency came back to bite Sergio Perez again. This saw him fall further back from any sort of title challenge. Lance Stroll salvaged a couple of points from what was effectively a testing weekend for Aston Martin. Fernando Alonso, in comparison, was officially the last car to cross the line, with only ‘Mr.Four-Pit-Stop’ Alex Albon’s DNF classified as behind.
Yuki Tsunoda took the final point ahead of the Haas pair as the young Japanese driver showed us once again why he belongs in Formula 1 with one of the standout performances of the weekend to hold of Nico Hulkenberg in particular.
Sauber struggled for the weekend yet again, whilst Alpine also failed to capitalise on some apparent Saturday pace, unable to turn this into any further points. The aforementioned Albon summarised a poor weekend for Williams who are also struggling at the moment to get anywhere near the points.
With Monaco less than a week away at the time of writing, it appears as if we have a race for second, as supposed to challengers for the title. Verstappen appears to be clear on his own with teammate Perez, the Ferrari’s and McLaren’s very tightly bunched behind from 2nd to 6th. With Mercedes seemingly too far back, it’s these three teams who we should see battling for the podium next week and beyond. With Saturday more important than ever next week, it will be interesting to see just how close the likes of Norris and Leclerc can get to Verstappen. You’d have to say the gap out front is closing though.
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