Norris has a problem. And it is not a minor problem. He gets flustered on the way out. Sometimes it starts late and by the time it wants to react, the wolves have already eaten it. Usually, Verstappen, the leader of the pack. Yesterday, however, Lando went well. But the joy lasted as long as it took him to face the first curve. There, the Dutch wolf pounced on him, opened its jaws, and the young Englishman, trembling, tried to defend himself.
A few meters behind, attentive, Leclerc knew how to spot the necessary gap to sneak in and, in a flash, with the elegance of a lynx, he took the lead. The worst off in this initial fray was Norris, who started on pole and lost three places.
Behind the clever Leclerc, Verstappen and Sainz battled for a couple of laps. Despite not having DRS, Verstappen won. Carlos was not discouraged. First he had to deal with a couple of threats of breakdowns. One of them was alarming, since the man from Madrid reported on the radio of a “strong smell of gasoline.” Fortunately, everything came to nothing, so Carlos and Ferrari opened the notebook of extraordinary plans and began to study it.
They added times, subtracted laps and the result came out on its own: bringing forward the stop and the subsequent tire change. Sainz was running third when he entered his garage on lap 22. He returned to the track in fifth position, with new hard tires and knowing that, under normal conditions, he had just stolen second place from Mr. Verstappen without having to risk his luck. Master maneuver of the ‘Scudería’.
Further back, an iconic and retrospective image: Lewis Hamilton’s car stuck in the gravel after making a mistake and going off. What memories of that Chinese GP in 2007, of that World Cup of blood and fire where the knives between the Englishman and Fernando Alonso flew inside the McLaren team.
But Alonso is not one for stories. He again suffered another infamous race. It is repetitive to doubt again the capacity of Aston Martin to improve the car, but after almost a month without racing, supposedly working overtime at the factory, when is a part going to arrive that will give another look to the green car. It is exasperating to see their two pilots sweat bullets in battles for the crumbs of the rear platoon. We will have to continue waiting.
#Ferrari #conquers #Americas
