Max Verstappen wins on the weekend in which Red Bull proves beatable. The foundation on which the world champion built his fifth success of the season was laid in Saturday’s qualifying; without starting from pole position the race script would have been different. Another important step was the first stint on medium tyres, twenty-two tight laps in which Verstappen managed to build an advantage of almost seven seconds over Lando Norris. After the switch to hard, another race began.
Until lap 44 the gap between Max and Norris remained unchanged, then the Red Bull number 1 started to lose pace. The problem was a drop in temperature of the front tires, which manifested itself in increasingly accentuated understeer. An unexpected problem, linked to the major setup change that the team’s engineers had to make after the negative results on Friday. The leap forward was good, but a modified set-up meant having to face the race a bit blindly, without the usual references of the long-runs of the FP2 session, which Red Bull had faced with medium tires in any case.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, celebrates the victory in Imola
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
From the five second ‘gap’ on lap 52, Norris reached 2″3 three laps later: it was the moment in which success in the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix seemed to be able to escape from the hands of Max and Red Bull .
At the most important moment (exactly like twenty-four hours earlier) Verstappen’s response arrived, the decisive passage was lap 59, when he reversed the trend by lapping faster than the McLaren. “In this scenario we must also take into account that after having received the warning for the track limits Max had to drive also thinking about not making the slightest mistake – explained Christian Horner – but despite this he managed to keep everything under control and managed not to make never enter Lando in the DRS area”.
What would have happened if the race had lasted two laps longer? “We would all have run out of gas,” Horner replied, smiling. Christian then underlined how the problems suffered by Max appeared in the second half of the second stint on the hard tires. “The pace we confirmed with the medium tire was excellent, we need to understand why we dropped in the final phase compared to Lando”. The certainty, and it was more visible during the Imola weekend than on other occasions, is always Verstappen.
“He had a very busy weekend – Horner underlined smiling – he also took part in the (virtual) 24 hours of the Nurburgring between one session and another! So today he won two races, one in a BMW M3 and one in a Formula 1 car. I think everyone was able to grasp what this weekend meant for Max, to get pole position he had to use all his talent, and even today the sixty-three laps of the race were a masterful lesson.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
What we saw this weekend in Imola is what everyone in Formula 1 hopes for. Every time Red Bull brought a stellar single-seater to the track, Max obviously did his duty, pole, victory and lap. faster. But deep down he is also the first to know the importance of his contribution in achieving success. The celebrations in Imola were different, because without Verstappen this weekend Red Bull would not have won. Instead, the fifth success of the season arrived and a strengthened leadership in the general classification. But this is no longer news, the only doubt among the experts is the race in which Max will celebrate his fourth world title.
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