(Motorsport-Total.com) – The Mercedes crew celebrated a double victory at the Huge Prix of Emilia-Romagna and won both the drivers ‘and the constructors’ championships for the seventh time in a row secured. Lewis Hamilton won the Imola race 5.8 seconds ahead of Valtteri Bottas. And because Max Verstappen (Red Bull) was eliminated at the same time, the title race is decided.
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Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton are celebrating Mercedes’ seventh World Cup double Zoom Fetch
In the Driver ranking is required four races to go ( , The remaining Grand Prix can take place as planned, despite the exploding corona numbers ), only openly which Mercedes driver wins in the end. 104 Points are theoretically still to be awarded, and Hamilton’s lead after Imola is 85 Counter.
Daniel Ricciardo (Renault) secured third place Surprise man Daniil Kwjat (AlphaTauri), Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and Sergio Perez (Racing Level). Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) finished twelfth and went out for the third time in four races.
Overall saw 15 from 20 cars started the checkered flag. Most prominent failure (next to Verstappen) battle Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri), who sprinted in fifth place when his Honda engine gave up the ghost.
‘ORF’- Expert Alexander Wurz already believes: “Without a virtual safety automobile, he would have been half a second ahead of Bottas. The times he drove when he had to lap were very impressive. Bottas lost the Huge Prix today. You can Hamilton -Fan or not. But how he managed to do it today is extremely scary. You can only say wow. “
At first it was a three-way battle for victory. Pole setter Bottas had won the originate, Hamilton lost a space to Verstappen because of wheelspin. In the 18. On the lap, Verstappen switched from medium to exhausting, and Bottas came in one lap later. Only Hamilton stayed outside.
The reigning world champion gradually expanded his lead despite the old tires – even when he ran into a package of lapped vehicles. When Esteban Ocon (Renault) rolled out due to gearbox damage, it smelled of safety automobiles. Hamilton, whose pit stop was planned for this lap anyway, would have victory in his pocket. At the time, his lead was 28 seconds.
Instead of a real one, FIA race director Michael Masi only opted for a virtual safety automobile. Yellow was activated when Hamilton drove into field and green was shown when his pit stop was over. It would have been better not to time the VSC part from the perspective of the 28 – year-olds
When Bottas wanted soft tires a week ago to strategically deviate from Hamilton, the Mercedes crew gave him hard tires. When Hamilton did not come to Field today and thus deviated from the Bottas strategy, it was not an issue. The conspiracy theorists have always known: Mercedes prefers Hamilton after all!
Total nonsense, even waves Bottas aside, who is affected and would be the first to complain about it. “These are two completely different scenarios,” he explains. It was already agreed before the race that in such a tumble the lead car would first come to the pit stop to counter a so-called “undercut”.
Such scenarios (and how to deal with them is) are at Mercedes in a paper that the crew calls “racing intent” and the rules of the game between the two teammates. “The ‘Racing-Intent’ is good and swish, and it works. It would have been the other way around,” explains Bottas.
Furthermore, no conspiracy.
What as soon as you couldn’t see on TV: In the second lap, the Finn drove over a round 40 Centimeter large part of the wreckage of the Vettel Ferrari. The battle there had collided with Haas driver Kevin Magnussen one lap earlier. The part got caught under the Mercedes and impaired its aerodynamics “significantly”, as it was later called.
“We immediately saw that it 50 has lost points downforce “, says team boss Toto Wolff and calculates:” That’s one second of lap time. That’s why we have the pace at the beginning surprised that he could still walk. But at some point it catches up with you when the tire gives way. “
The race had started so well for Bottas. After the first lap he was already 1.7 seconds ahead of Verstappen, who kept Hamilton away from him. But then he drove over the wreckage, and after the second lap, Verstappen was on for a second – and was able to follow him well from now on.
Once, Verstappen even complained to the pit radio, why Bottas drives so slowly. In lap 35 there was an exchange of places: Bottas slipped a little too far in the Rivazza curve outside and therefore didn’t have enough momentum for the originate and home straight. Verstappen activated DRS and passed the Mercedes in front of the Tamburello chicane.
That has not yet been finally clarified. When braking at the Tamburello chicane, his RB 16 suddenly broke out. “We suspect that he ran over something,” says team boss Christian Horner. “He was talking to his race engineer, and then boost!” Suspected tire damage.
Verstappen himself is annoyed: “The tire was suddenly gone and I could no longer hold the car. I don’t know exactly what happened to be used. What a shame , because my pace was very good. I could not only have finished on the podium, but even finished second. “
And with Gasly?
In retrospect, the Monza winner might have made it onto the podium again . At the originate he got away better, but instead of going forward on P2, Hamilton cut him off. Gasly had to back off and initially lost his fourth place to Ricciardo. Then he drove safely to fifth place.
Until he had to park on the eighth lap – used to be did not come as a surprise: “The boys already lost a loss on the lap in the grid found the water pressure. They tried everything to get it under control, but unfortunately it didn’t work out. So we had to stop after a few laps. “
The Renault driver immediately overtook the Originate Gasly and initially drove to fourth place until the pit stop. When the safety automobile finally hit the track because of the Verstappen crash, some of his direct opponents drove to the field. Ricciardo stayed outside and suddenly sprinted in third place. Even if with rather old, hard tires.
In the last laps he had to defend himself against Kwjat, who had pulled on fresh softs and attacked as if unleashed. First he overtook Albon, then Leclerc – but behind Ricciardo he gritted his teeth.
Ricciardo then caused a laugh during the FIA press conference. Because of the World Cup decision, the journalists didn’t ask him a single question in the virtual Zoom meeting – everything revolved around Hamilton and Bottas. When the PK came to an end, Ricciardo got up and said: “Thank you for letting me be there!”
Sergio Perez. The racing level driver drove a long and very fast first stint from eleventh on the grid with medium tires, with which he even overtook Ricciardo and effectively sprinted to P4. This even turned into P3 due to Verstappen’s failure.
But when the safety car hit the track, his crew called him to change tires. Ricciardo, Leclerc and Albon stayed outside. Suddenly, Perez only sprints in seventh place. “Another podium that we are giving away,” he annoyed on the pit radio. Because Albon was eliminated, Perez won another place. But there was no way around Leclerc: P6 instead of P3.
“In retrospect, it was a bad decision,” says Perez. “We had to decide very late whether we would come in. But in retrospect it is easy to talk. That hurts. Because today we had the podium in our pockets. I am very disappointed, but we are a crew. We win and lose together . “
Leclerc is “satisfied” with fifth place, which he was able to defend against Perez by 0.5 seconds. “The best thing about the last three or four races is that we bring small updates every time and thus take a small step each time. There is still a long way to go. But we have found the right way at least once,” he says.
It hadn’t looked good for him in the meantime. In round 13 he came to one first regular pit stop. The soft tires on the Ferrari had degraded faster than on others. After switching to Exhausting, which he wanted to take, he braked himself so hard that he would have run into Ricciardo in the Tosa. But that had no consequences.
Vettel was less skilled in the same curve. He collided with Magnussen already on the second lap, used to be the Danes de facto costing the race (later he gave up with gearshift problems that caused him “headache” because of the vibrations) and some of his aerodynamics
Later his pit stop also took place (idle time 13, 1 second) next to it. The impact wrench jammed in the front right. “Fits to Ferrari”, utters Wurz.
“After ten, I had, 15 Laps free ride for the majority of the race. That was much better. The pace itself wasn’t that wrong, “says Vettel. “But then we didn’t have a good stop. That ultimately cost the race. I was stuck in the back again and lost a lot of time. We could have been smarter with the virtual safety car. We tried to get on the soft tires , but weren’t the only ones. We were too far behind. “
Should he 2020 still sitting in the Red Bull cockpit, that would be a big surprise. Almost overtaken him in lap , of all people, Kwjat. The Russian, who will also be sacked by Red Bull at the end of the year, then passed Albon at the Safety-Automobile-Re-Originate. And a few seconds later the Thai turned and fell back to the end of the field.
The suspicion is that his hard, not changed tires were not at the right temperature. “I don’t think so,” waves Albon. “I think more likely that someone met me.” Anyway: In the end he came as 15 . crossed the finish line, almost a minute behind.
Team boss Horner experienced the incident like this: “He drove the whole race against Charles and Daniel. In the Re-Originate, he fought against Perez, who had new tires and lost one in the second chicane bit of control. Very frustrating for him and the crew to get zero points. “
The shooting star, who has never lost a qualifying against a team-mate, “is today the skill ran out “, analyzes the expert Wurz in the ‘ORF’. George Russell sprinting on course to his first championship points, was driving behind the safety automobile when his Williams slipped on the way down into the Aqua Minerale and crashed into the wall .
“I don’t know, used to be I should say. There’s no excuse for that. I’m so sorry, guys, “he reported on the pit radio. Later he added:” I don’t usually make such stupid mistakes. “
” I pushed aggressively from the first lap on – I’ve never driven so aggressively! I wanted to continue behind the Safety Automobile because I knew that the guys behind me were on hot, fresh tires. If I wanted to keep them behind, I had to aggressively warm up my tires, “explains Russell.
Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo) drove the longest first stint of all Participant. He was hoping for a safety automobile – and had bad luck: no sooner had he changed tires than the safety automobile actually hit the track! Otherwise he would have ended up further ahead. He also scored two championship points in ninth place. And the team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi, who started on Soft, finished tenth.
What’s next?
Nobody knows that exactly because of the tightened corona lockdown. As planned, the 15 November the Huge Prix of Turkey in Istanbul on the program. One thing is certain: Dwell information from the paddock in Imola there is the 240109 ticker “Paddock reside” on M otorsport-Total.com and Formel1.de until late in the evening. Even long after the TV broadcasts ended …
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