Taken from Caffé#100 by Pino Allievi – FormulaPassion YouTube Channel
A race to lose your mindit was so complicated, made up of tactical subtleties, moments of waiting and others of relaunching, with the track changing from one moment to the next. And in the end, who occupied the first two places? The pilots with the clearest vision of the race, those who were able to combine speed with experience, instinct, and intelligence. First Hamilton and second, by a hair’s breadth, Verstappen, not by chance the most successful Formula 1 champions, on the track where it all began.
Hamilton he didn’t have any lucky breaks. He built his own success lap after laptrying to make as few mistakes as possible and to get all the tyre choices right. However, he had a nice help from McLarenwho in his amazing rise to the top of F1 has neglected the strategic factor, but Lewis has always been there, in the top positions, with the same speed as Russell first and Norris later, ready to take control of the race at the decisive moment, which came with the final tyre change, when he fitted the Pirelli Softs and he managed to resist Verstappen’s furious and aggressive comebackwhich was not an easy task and required a great deal of mental concentration.
The podium with the two best is a photograph to put away and think about why many victories are achieved more with the head than with the foot. A speech that also concerns Verstappen, whose Red Bull this time was not there in terms of performance but in the end came close to victory thanks to tactics, the choices of the box, the measure of the driver, reconciled with the sport after the Zeltweg incident.
So to recap, there was Mercedes, there was McLaren and there was Red Bull. Unfortunately, only Ferrari was missing.. A setback that weighs more than the others, as showing up to Friday’s tests with two different aerodynamic solutions, both tested at different times in the race, seemed like a sign of weakness that we hadn’t imagined, if not a sign of confusion.
But how come, doesn’t Ferrari have one of the most advanced simulators in F1? Aren’t there hundreds of technicians reading numbers, telemetry, making measurements? Trying a comparison test during a Grand Prix was a romantic throwback to the pre-computer era, but it felt a little awkward for thefor those who saw things from outside. And Charles Leclerc’s accusations in the pits, on strategic choices, are the confirmation of a polluted atmosphere that we thought was relegated to distant times. Charles, at Silverstone, took a lap off the pace for a series of debatable and long-to-explain reasons, while Carlos Sainz had a calmer and more error-free weekend, but with a car that was still making up half a second per lap.
It wasn’t what the fans and managers of the Prancing Horse expected. It wasn’t what Lewis Hamilton expected, curious to understand what new world awaits him and perhaps a little worried about what he is seeing. Courage, Hamilton will not arrive alone in Maranello. And he knows in advance that it will not be enough to make a car that is competitive only in spring, but it will be necessary to recreate a harmony, an environment and above all a method: good luck Lewis, you’ll need a lot of coffee in the work you’ve devoted yourself to…
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