We wanted the challenge between the two greats of the world championship and we had it: beautiful, full of tension and with an exciting battle of very hard attacks and defenses. A face to face that rewarded Lewis Hamilton.
An immense hepta-champion who emerged victorious in a historic weekend that saw him start last at the start of the Sprint Qualifying after the exclusion for the irregular rear wing, and started tenth on the grid of the GP of San Paolo, paying five positions for engine replacement. A 25 position handicap that was reset to zero on lap 20.
Then it was a direct challenge with Hamilton who went after Verstappen by staying in the wake of Red Bull for a long time with the risk of overheating the tires. The Englishman was not helped by the pit stop strategy (the Mercedes garage copied and covered the Red Bull calls, while the driver had pleaded to switch to medium tires) and had to build overtaking on the track with fantastic action at the lap 58, after ten laps before the Dutch accompanied the W12 outside of turn 4 with a rough action, but considered regular by the race direction.
Max tried to defend himself also by squirting on the straight, deserving a black-white flag. Verstappen had no more and after overtaking he defended the second place, but the slap was pretty strong, because Red Bull had also planned a success in Brazil which, however, did not arrive.
Hamilton’s overtaking was prepared at Turn 1 and then the surgical action outside Red Bull will enter the film library of F1 history – simply fantastic. It must be said that Mercedes with hard tires confirmed a technical superiority that had already been seen previously.
Hamilton shortens the gap from Verstappen to 14 points and has a fresh engine to tackle the last three stages of a world championship that remains very open and exciting. Lewis fired up the Brazilian torcida with his feat, but Verstappen was lucid in gathering the most he could take home. Sergio Perez, fourth, was called to the pits to look for the fastest lap in the last lap and the Mexican took away Hamilton’s additional point in extremis with a 1’11 “010.
Red Bull comes out defeated in a race in which it was given as the favorite because Bottas also made his contribution in the challenge for the Constructors’ World Championship. Behind the big four, a beautiful Ferrari was seen again, the only team not to be dubbed by Mercedes and Red Bull. Charles Leclerc with the fourth place clears an uncertain Saturday and drags Carlos Sainz in the wake. The Cavallino team signs an 18-1 against McLaren and puts a serious risk on the role of third force.
Pierre Gasly is seventh with the AlphaTauri ahead of the two Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso, protagonists of another beautiful battle for fifth place. Yuki Tsunoda was missing who also deserved a 5-second penalty for having trimmed a spin on Lance Stroll, who was then forced to retire with the bottom half demolished.
Sebastrian Vettel out of the points, 11th with Aston Martin ahead of Kimi Raikkonen who sadly ends his F1 adventure with Alfa Romeo. The rest is a corollary, because the battle for the title is more open than ever …
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