Race two of the 2021 F1 World Championship certainly lived up to the hype from the exciting first race in Bahrain. Mixed conditions mixed with an old school track with very little room for error and a competitive field added up to an exciting race in Italy on Sunday afternoon.
Last year RedBull’s Max Verstappen endured a horrible time in all three Italian races, coming away with three non-finishes, but he firmly put that jinx to bed this weekend with a great performance. A mistake in qualifying meant he only lined up in third position on the grid but a sublime start and a firm but fair defense into turn one against poleman Lewis Hamilton placed him right back into contention. His only mistake of the afternoon was losing the rear of his car just before the final restart which compromised his getaway plans but luckily for him LeClerc who was in second position at this point appeared to be sleeping as he didn’t react and let Max scamper away into a lead that he wouldn’t relinquish again that afternoon.
In the end it was a comfortable run to the flag for the RedBull driver as Hamilton was clawing his way back from his earlier mistake. Second place was an excellent result for Lewis after he suffered front wing damage on the curbs after that moment with Max on the first lap and then went off the road when going off line on a still damp surface lapping George Russell. From having to reverse back onto the racetrack to get going again, a process that took him an agonizingly long time, the reigning champ put that mistake behind him and dug deep to climb back to finish behind his main title rival. It may not have been a win but it was still one of those afternoons when Lewis showed his class. Winning title’s isn’t just about taking wins, it is also about scoring god points on days when things don’t go your way and in a race when he could have lost a lot of points to Max he ended the day still in the lead of the championship.
Lewis did have the advantage of a red flag period to regroup after a bug shunt between his team mate Bottas and Williams driver George Russell. Russell, eager to score some valuable points for the Williams team on day when the conditions gave the smaller teams hope, saw a chance heading towards the Tamberello chicane but put a wheel on the wet grass on the outside of the straight and spun straight into Bottas causing both drivers to have heavy impacts against the barriers. Russell felt that Bottas had moved over and put him onto the grass and his actions straight after the incident were evidence of this. In the end though Bottas did try to move back to the left when Russell was coming up alongside and there was enough room for both cars. In my opinion Russell made the mistake himself in going to far to the right and the bulk of the responsibility lies with him.
After the race he was very vocal in blaming Bottas in media interviews for the incident when emotions were still running high but yesterday on social media he backed down from that stance and accepted his error and apologized for the way he reacted. We can put that down to a valuable learning experience for George. Sometimes in the heat of the moment with the adrenaline flowing emotions can get the better of people.
That incident summed up Bottas’s weekend pretty well though. He did not have a great deal of pace all weekend, qualified in eighth place, which in a Merc is disappointing and did not go forwards from there at all. I was looking out for him moving up in the early laps but he just did not seem to be able to. And the fact that the Russell incident came while they were disputing ninth place tells you everything you need to know. With Hamilton in a tight fight with Max at the top of the table Valterri will very quickly find himself in the wing man position again. I am a big fan of Valterri and feel he was a talented driver but he really must raise his game.
The Star of the race award has to go I think to Lando Norris who scored his second career podium with a very strong mature drive form seventh on the grid. One slight mistake in Saturday in Q3 robbed him od what would have been a fine third place starting position but he was deemed to have to have gone to far off track and was demoted behind team mate Ricciardo. He was understandably disappointed but he more than made up for it in the race. Ricciardo even had the pain of being told to let Lando past early on because the Brit had more pace. Daniel finished in a solid sixth place but has not looked his usual self so far. At the moment Norris is the one that is leading the charge for the Woking team and I feel that he is in store for a very good season. Last year he lifted his game form his debut season and in 2021 he has raised his level yet again. I am sure that Ricciardo will eventually find his feet with the car but he clearly needs more time to be able to get the best out of it.
The same can actually be said for all the drivers who have joined new teams this season. Both Perez at RedBull and Sainz at Ferrari have also not appeared to be fully settled in yet despite showing some promise. My theory is that the reduced pre-season this year, which gave each driver only one and a half days in the car has severely hampered these guys getting to grips with their new machines. Previously they would have had double that time across two tests to find their feet. I feel that going forward F1 should look to increase the number of pre- season test days again.
Perez went from being happy with second on the grid on Saturday (although slightly upset to miss out on pole) to be being to having a nightmare race on Sunday. The conditions caught him out a couple of times and he was penalized for overtaking two cars under a safety car when he rejoined the circuit. I expect there to be more polished performances from him as the season goes on and his pace in qualy was very impressive.
Sainz’s race was one of to half’s really as he also left the track more than once in the slippery early part of the race but actually recovered well to finish just behind LeClerc in fifth. He has not looked to have the pace of Charles yet but as discussed above is having to do a lot of learning about his new team at race weekends. I would also expect improved showings from him after a few more races.
Further back Aplha Tauri came home with a seventh for Gasly but haven’t really achieved their potential yet. Gsly started in the full wets and stayed on them too long to really feature for the higher places. Rookie team mate Snouda had an afternoon that he will learn a lot from but that ultimately was not very rewarding for him.
Aston Martin’s problems continued as Vettel still does not like his true self and they also had to deal with overheating brakes on the way to the grid which led them to have to change them in double quick time. Eight place will not please the team that where chasing podiums last season.
Fernado Alonso, another who probably missing the extra track time that more pre-season would have given him scored his first point of his comeback after Kimi was penalized post race for a restart misdemeanor. It was a double points finish for Alpine but they will also be searching for more in the coming races.
All that meant a great race to watch and I for one loved seeing the cars tackle Imola. it has always been a challenging race track and leaves very little room for error. That was why we saw so much action on Sunday. Thank you Imola for giving us a thriller and I havce to say that I would love to see this track given a permanent place on the schedule. The cars and drivers are really tested around this narrow track and they look spectacular when they are on push laps. Brilliant stuff. It felt like the nineties again.
MIAMI ANNOUNCHED FOR 2022
It was not only a great race that we were treated to this weekend bit also the news that Miami will be hosted a second US race next year. Talked about and rumored for some time it seems like F1 has been able to work around any obstacles that there were and get things sorted. I hope it happens as I think it coukd be a brilliant event. It is a street circuit which I believe is what is needed in America to really take the sport to the public and Miami will be a great venue. Added to Canada and Austin it will mean three races in North America to really show the US fans what F1 can provide. I will be doing a blog about the new races being added to the calendar in the coming weeks so I will discuss it more then but for now this race is great news.
Bring on Portugal!!!!!
My F1 talk 