When qualifying ended on Saturday evening at Italian time, I wrote to a friend in a Mercedes congratulating on Bottas’ pole position. He replied with the English-speaking equivalent of “It was a stroke of c.”. In the end, then, I doubt Lewis Hamilton and his team had the slightest chance of stemming it excessive power by Verstappen. But we know that one of the key moments in which the race can take an unexpected turn is the start. And at the start, in fact, the man of the Finnish woods worked an authentic masterpiece, managing, in the space of an early braking, to block his teammate and open the way to Max’s “golazo”.
I hate conspiracy theorists as much as conspiracies. But I can’t help but think of the many episodes of this kind experienced in the past, between Prost and Senna, between Mansell and Prost etc. (and no, Monza 2018 is not the same thing, there was a change of positions planned after ten laps). Not long ago, someone who knows a lot about Maranello told me about when, several years earlier, the driver of a then rival team, of which of course I do not mention, even came to the Red box to say “I’ll help you win the world championship, as long as the one over there does not win”. And in a certain sense it succeeded. Postulated that history sometimes repeats itself, even in the names, but I find it difficult to read, in the peaceful features of Carneade Bottas, the malice of those who, having already collected the torpedo, deliberately turns the rudder to the wrong side, sending himself and the Philistines into disarray. Of course if he just made a bitch, he made it really big. Mercedes had monopolized the front row of the grid for one of those phenomena that happen in today’s F1, so when the track gets rubber, or the temperature drops or rises, suddenly one car starts to go faster and another slower. (the blaze of the black stars had coincided, in fact, with the dark moment of the Red Bulls, due precisely to the circumstances and aggravated by the troubles on the rear wing). But he did not know how to exploit the advantage. Obviously, on a track with such a long straight, as in Sochi, starting from the post is not a guarantee, but certainly Valtteri would have simplified things for his teammate by keeping more to the left. He didn’t, he didn’t even try to attack Hamilton, he just braked early and saw Lewis shot off one side and Max the other. The umpteenth episode of a controversial season, which accelerates the closing of the Mercedes chapter, for a thirty-two year old driver. With relief, I think, now on both sides.
At this point, I believe Max Verstappen really should dedicate onself to lose the world championship. In Mexico he has always been very strong, but he is not joking at Interlagos. Hamilton’s radio team in the race, “I think these are too strong for us”, it was not a coded message but a clear sign of surrender. Even the weapon that has always been sported by the W12, that is the long ‘stint’ on the hardest tires, turned out to be blunt. All Ham was able to do was keep up with Perez who, it seemed to me, played poorly in passing the lapped traffic, losing a good second and the chance to try another assault. But in the end it is okay even so, with a panorama in which the figures of the two protagonists now stand out more and more alone. And the others to serve as a side dish.
Contour was also done by Ferrari, this time, beaten by Gasly and at the finish line with one car doubled and the other almost. Honestly, I expected more from the “cold” power unit, on a track that puts cooling to a severe test due to the rarefaction of the air (the less there is, the less it enters the radiators). Equally honestly, I had the impression that the Ferrari drivers were also expecting more; but the difficulties had appeared quite evident from the beginning of the weekend, with Leclerc busy looking for the limit of a clearly ‘light’ car at the rear and not able, this time, to perform the usual Saturday miracle by driving on eggs. In the race, this time, there was a good reason – to go get the Alpha Tauri – to pick up the pace, but the SF21 just didn’t have more; nor did the (logical) move of sending Sainz forward to see how far he would go. Of consolation – let’s put it this way – is the fact that McLaren has done even worse and now the Red is again third in the Constructors’ World Championship: a placement that five years ago would not have been considered sufficient, but now it can be the basis for the famous relaunch. 2022. In the meantime, however, the Ferrari that wins is already there, it is that of GT competitions, and they tell me that the Presidency is studying carefully this red with covered wheels who, with a fraction of the budget used by the F1 cousins, manages to take home the titles. Not the ones in the newspapers, but the ones that really matter.
#Valtter #Ego #FormulaPassionit