[ad_1]
Lewis Hamilton won the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola having made the most of his pace and strategy to take the lead and then lead the race. He beat his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas in second, with Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo in third. The victory ensured that Mercedes sealed its seventh consecutive constructors’ championship. Daniil Kvyat was an impressive fourth for AlphaTauri with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in fifth.
Hamilton delivered another masterclass in controlled driving, which he combined with some exquisite fast laps after having dropped to third place at the start line at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari. Having handled his tires in the early stages, he chose to go long and then when he got into a very strong position to potentially take the lead at his pit stop, a virtual safety car made sure he claimed it comfortably.
Back in front, the British driver raced into the distance to claim victory and put his seventh world title at hand.
Hamilton has not competed in F1 at Imola before, although he did compete in GP2 in 2006, the last time F1 held a meeting at the circuit. Having also taken first place this season at Mugello and Portimao, places that have also not hosted F1, Hamilton has now achieved the extraordinary tally of having won 29 different circuits in 24 countries in his 14 years in F1, the broadest. of any driver in the history of the sport.
His 93rd career victory continues his remarkable dominance this season. With nine of 13 races, he is in full control of a championship that is ready to close. He leads Bottas by 85 points, with four races remaining. A 78-point lead after the next round in Istanbul would be enough to equal Michael Schumacher’s record of seven.
Mercedes has also made its own remarkable history. With their seventh consecutive title, they have a new F1 record, one more than Ferrari between 1999 and 2004. They returned to F1 as constructors in 2010 after their first two seasons in 1954 and 1955, when they took the title of pilots. years before retiring after one of his cars was involved in the accident at Le Mans that killed 83 spectators.
The Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari held its first meeting in 1980, the Italian GP. It then hosted the San Marino GP every year until 2006, but is perhaps best known for being the place where Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were killed on the same weekend in 1994. Senna was Hamilton’s hero when he was growing up and it was clearly an emotional moment. so that he obtained the seventh title of Mercedes in the track where Senna died and where the Brazilian achieved three victories.
Bottas made a clean start to maintain his lead from pole, but Hamilton was a bit slow and fell to third, beaten by Max Verstappen before the chicane at Tamburello. Hamilton had realized how difficult it would be to pass at Imola and it did. Unable to stay too close to the cars in front, the world champion opted to put as little wear as possible on his tires.
On the stern line, however, there was little to choose between them on the lap times, but Bottas did a quick one just before Red Bull pulled the trigger in his pit stop, leading Verstappen to the hard tire on Lap 19. Hamilton, however, felt he had more to come and insisted to his team that he wanted to stay out when Bottas entered on lap 20.
The British rider had the lead and had to take advantage of having saved his tires. I wanted to have fresher rubber in death. That he had pace was clear, as he quickly made a series of fast laps in clean air.
Bottas, however, was sustaining damage to the floor of his car after picking up a piece of debris and was slow, while Hamilton and his team agreed to stay out even longer, which proved an inspiration when fate intervened. When he arrived for his only stop, when the virtual safety car was called because Esteban Ocon retired on lap 30, he had a 28-second lead.
The gap may have been enough to have earned the British driver first place, but with the course slower and less time wasted at the stop under VSC, it proved moot. Hamilton emerged comfortably at the head of Bottas, an advantage that he quickly expanded. Bottas continued to frustrate Verstappen in third place, but finally the Dutchman made a good pass to him on lap 43 through Tamburello. His euphoria was short-lived, however, as he suffered a tire failure on lap 51 and was stranded at the Villeneuve chicane.
The resulting safety car, compounded when George Russell also crashed, did not derail Hamilton. He had done enough already and having executed a perfect restart, he closed the victory with poise. Sergio Pérez was sixth for Racing Point, Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris seventh and eighth for McLaren, with Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi in ninth and tenth for Alfa Romeo.
