Formula One Vault

This Grand Prix – Emilia-Romagna

Hello, welcome to your Emilia-Romagna This Grand Prix, it’s two all in terms of race wins between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen. Mercedes looking out after four races but George Russell again leads Mercedes challenge are we then in a transitional year to a new generation. Mercedes was in dire straights failing to get through to Q3, on Friday and then Lewis Hamilton lost places in the Grand Prix.

General News

The issue of way collaborations between manufacturers and their customers was raised again this week, following Haas making a great start to the season. As we all know Since entering the sport in 2016, Haas has been open about buying as many parts as possible from Ferrari and this year setting up of a Maranello hub and the addition of a number of the Italian team’s former staff.

The closer ties between the two have re-entered the spotlight for several reasons this year, as Haas has setting up of a Maranello hub and the addition of a number of the Italian team’s former staff. That has prompted fears that Haas could be gaining from shared knowledge, something which teams that work in complete isolation cannot get

Pirelli has finalised the first batch of dates for its 2023 tyre testing programme, with the schedule obliging four teams to stay on at Imola next week. There were some difficulties with the expanded calendar and number of races, and doubleheaders makes these difficult to organise.

Weekend recap

FP1 saw Charles Leclerc set the pace going eight tenths faster than teammate Carlos Sainz in the wet. The Monacan set a 29.402 going eight tenths ahead of teammate Carlos Sainz, as Ferrari looked to continue to set the pace as they were over a second faster than Max Verstappen.

Verstappen beat Leclerc to take pole for the sprint following a heavily interrupted two-hour long qualifying. The session saw four drivers crash as well as a car stop on track with Lando Norris taking third despite his own crash at the end of Q3 at Acque Minerali causing the session to stop forty seconds before the chequered flag.

FP2 saw George Russell go fastest setting a 19.457 to put himself ahead of Sergio Perez by eight-hundredths of a second with the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc third. But the Alpine of Fernando Alonso showed the team has pace going fifth just over eight-hundredths faster than Carlos Sainz.

Verstappen and Leclerc once again fought hard in the sprint, the Ferrari driver managing to hold Verstappen behind until the final three laps when he got a brilliant run out of Rivazza all the way to Tamburello where he made the move. It was a beautiful move in the closing laps which saw the Red Bull driver take pole position.

Verstappen drove a dominant race to win by sixteen seconds ahead of Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez. The world champion looked unstoppable after holding the lead from pole as he fended off his championship rival and pulled ahead following an early safety car.

Following the safety car, Verstappen soon set about opening the lead from Charles Leclerc who soon lost out to the McLaren of Lando Norris. By the time the first pit stop came on lap twenty, Verstappen retained the lead over Leclerc, who then lost out to Perez who managed to pass the Ferrari on the out lap at the Villeneuve Chicane.

Mercedes

Going into the weekend in his pre-race briefing CEO and team principal Toto Wolff has put the teams chances of retaining the constructors championship and regaining the drivers at twenty per cent, but says there may be improvements for this weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

In the first three races on paper, they have been in third an effective ‘no mans land’, but they have capitalised mainly on Red Bull’s issues to go into this weekend second in the constructors as well as George Russell second in the drivers., In the same press briefing, Wolff says the team would not be focusing on immediate upgrades for their car, which has violent ‘porpoising issues’ and is struggling through high-speed corners compared to their rivals. Both Ferrari and Red Bull have brought upgrades using them to positive effect.

Toto Wolff has dismissed talk of friction with Lewis Hamilton over their struggles, despite intrigue following an animated conversation the pair were spotted having. Following Hamilton’s Q2 knockout on Friday the two were seen having a heated discussion in the garage

But Wolff has rubbished claims that the conversation was anything more than the pair of them expressing their joint annoyance at the tyre warm-up woes that hampered them.

Asked by Motorsport.com to offer some insight into what their discussion was about, Wolff said: “It’s quite funny how it’s been interpreted. Lewis and I shared frustration that we weren’t really able to extract lap-one performance and how annoying it was. But it was basically the same point of view and just sheer anger.”

“There is no division, and there is no blaming or anything like that. There’s pressure in the system, but I would say the necessary pressure to get things right.

Following the race, Hamilton was sue he was now out of the championship saying “A weekend to forget, that’s for sure. I’m out of the championship, for sure. There’s no question about that, but I’ll still keep working as hard as I can and try to pull it back together somehow.”

Russell meanwhile is third in the drivers champions, being the only driver this season to finish in the top five in the first four races. You need to wonder if Hamilton is now saying that and if Mercedes get into the title race will he play the supporting role to Russell?

Red Bull

Max Verstappen says he still doesn’t like the sprint race format, despite his victory over Charles Leclerc at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.  The Dutchman made a poor start before passing the Ferrari driver on the final lap to secure pole for the Grand Prix. But despite the thrilling nature of his pass, and the extra points he has earned, Verstappen says his long-standing dislike of the sprint weekends has not been quelled.

He has cited in the past that he does not like there being just one practice session before qualifying and that parc ferme restrictions lock in the car set-up from Friday afternoon.

Asked if the exciting race had changed his views on the sprint, he said: “No, it doesn’t for me. I’m still not a fan of sprint races because in the end it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t matter if you have such a good fight during the sprint race or during the actual race.”

Ferrari

Charles Leclerc says he starting to sense his first F1 championship push after storming out of the blocks in 2022. The Ferrari driver headed into Ferrari’s home race in Imola, with a thirty-four point lead, as the Tifosi decent on the circuit for the first time since 2006.

After his win in Melbourne, he said “Obviously we only had the third race, so it’s difficult to think about the championship, but to be honest, we’ve got a very strong car, a very reliable car too.”

Ferrari started the weekend by announcing that Carlos Sainz has signed a two-year contract to partner Leclerc until 2024. The deal comes not as a surprise as there has been hints over the last few months that the deal was more a formality, with the team saying it’s about “a completely natural step … ensuring stability and continuity”

Sainz despite signing that new contract had a nightmare weekend, although Daniel Ricciardo took responsibility for the race retirement. Sainz had made a poor getaway from fourth but appeared to have consolidated fifth place as the pack turned into the left-hand apex of the Tamburello chicane.

Explaining the incident from his perspective, Sainz told Sky: “For some reason, Daniel went into the kerb, left him plenty of space, but I think he must have lost the front of the car and bumped into me with the unlucky situation that I got stuck yet again in the gravel.”

Leclerc by Sunday night and following the crash in the race, he said it might come back to bite him as he was “greedy.” While Leclerc did not retire from the race, he had to pit with damage and dropped from third to ninth before recovering to sixth.

The Ferrari driver maintained a twenty-seven point lead, but the expected tight battle between himself and Verstappen like we saw with Hamilton last year means these “big mistakes” cannot be made.

He told Sky Sports, “I believe the spin shouldn’t have happened today. P3 was the best I could do… we didn’t have the pace for much more and I was too greedy, and I paid the price for it and lost seven potential points compared to my third place.”

McLaren

After qualifying third for the sprint, Lando Norris believes he could have beaten Charles Leclerc to second. The Englishman was a surprise third which many wouldn’t have expected that result given the struggles we have seen in the opening races, but we know both that wet weather is a real equaliser and Norris has excelled in the wet and nearly got pole and won in Sochi last year and performed well in Austria in 2020.

After advancing to Q3 in a stop-start Q2, in which the rain that plagued practice returned, Norris found himself third on the provisional grid for Saturday’s sprint. But he believed he had the chance to get on the front row, saying his first lap was far from ideal.

He told Sky Sports, “Yeah, I would have liked to have that last lap in because we didn’t do a lap where we were like full power, full battery. But the beginning of Q3 was like a two consecutive [laps] and when you do two consecutive, you have to kind of split the battery 50/50. If I managed to get a lap at the end which was 100% battery, there was a good three, four-tenths left in it.”

However, says that in a dry session that he would have likely to have qualified further back. He also confirmed the team had a small upgrade this weekend, but nothing that would have brought them into the fight at the front.

Daniel Ricciardo believes McLaren is still “half a step behind” in its preparations for Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix after losing half of its Formula 1 practice running at Imola. FP2 was a nightmare for Ricciardo, who failed to get out because of a PU issue while Norris only managed six laps.

t means Norris and Ricciardo will lock out the third row of the grid for Sunday’s race, which is expected to offer strategies dominated by the medium and hard-compound tyres. Ahead of the race, he told Reporters “So maybe there’s a bit of a compromise tomorrow. I think we learned enough today to have confidence going into tomorrow without any real hesitation or big question marks. We know enough to I think execute a good enough race.

One of the issues for McLaren in the sprint appeared to be tyre management resulting in Norris dropping to fifth on the final grid, he conceded it was difficult to judge the team’s pace to teams who were 1.5 seconds faster.

Alpha Tauri

Going into this weekend Pierre Gasly said going into the weekend it was a big test for the team prospects this season. The Frenchman said, “We should have a couple of new parts on the car and it’s not like we are dead slow. I don’t think we are missing much, but we need to come up with some development if we want to keep up with the other guys.”

Gasly again underlined those comments in the race in a thrilling battle with Hamilton, saying it wasn’t to hard to keep Hamilton behind in the race. Hamilton had got dumped behind Gasly after the mid-race switch to slicks, having lost some time when Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was released into his path on the way out of the pits.

Reflecting on their lengthy battle, Gasly said that both of them were pretty much trapped – as he was as powerless to find a way past Albon, as Hamilton was to make a move on him. The Mercedes driver did look to have the pace advantage and you need to say the Frenchman was aided by the DRS.

The battle between Gasly and Hamilton brought back memories of last year’s Monaco Grand Prix, where the Frenchman spent the entire race fending off the seven-time world champion.

Alfa Romeo

Alfa Romeo did however bring upgrades, with the team bringing a revised floor as part of its very different strategy to many this weekend. It’s aiming to remain in the midfield fight as they have scored in two of the first three races. Team principal Fred Vasseur acknowledged that Alfa Romeo has to keep up in the development race if it is to carry the fight to its rivals over the season.

Haas

Kevin Magnussen thought his qualifying was over following his spin in Q3 before taking fourth, the best result of his career. The Danish driver looked set to start ninth after causing a red flag following a spin at Aqua Minerali, luckily he avoided the wall and stalled the car allowing him to re-join the session.

Magnussen told reporters on Friday evening “I was super pleased, it’s another unbelievable result for us. The car was just great, so fast and a joy to drive. [I’m] so proud of the team.”

Magnussen joked that he “ran out of talent” when he spun out during Q3, and that he “fully” thought that his session was over. Explaining what happened he said, “I touched the white line and then it was gone, and I thought I was going to hit the wall.”

“I then went into gravel and slowed down quite a lot so I realised, I saw the anti-stall, pulled the clutch while I was still backwards, and then went onto the throttle just enough to get out into that escape road.” It was the Dane’s best result since Hockenheim 2018.

Results Summary

Championship Standings