Back With a Bang

 Simon B

It's been three weeks since the last race in Formula One. Back on March 28th, Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton brought us an awesome battle on the last lap for first place. Hamilton did end up winning but the promise of a competitive season between Red Bull and Mercedes is something I'm sure all F1 fans will welcome. It looks as though Mercedes finally have someone to come challenge their dominance over the past 7 years. 

Round 2 of the 2021 season was in Imola, Italy, for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and it was quite the race! It was a tricky race because the track was wet to start the race so most cars were on the Intermideiate tyres (used in medium wet conditions).

Red Bull

A mega race by Max Verstappen! He had a fantastic start from third place making up 2 spots passing Perez and Hamilton into the first corner and he Dominated from there on. He slipped up a couple times but all in all kept his pace really well. His Red Bull looked really quick and his crew did a good job of switching him to the slick tyres to let him win by a whopping 22 seconds.

Sergio Perez had the best qualifying of his career on Saturday and he started second on the grid ahead of his teammate and behind Lewis. A decent start but he overtook Ferrari's Charles Leclerc during a safety car stint and got a 10 second time penalty for it. However his Red Bull had some good pace and he was able to keep up some really good pace and was able to hold on to fourth until he spun off in tha late stages of the race and ended up 12th. Not the race Checo would've wanted at all.

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton had an uncharacteristic slippy race as he didn't have the greatest of starts from pole position but he did show why he's a 7-time world champion using his incredibly fast pace to keep up with the Red Bulls at the front. Although he did spin off just before the red flag and had to make up places as he fell back to 8th. But some really nice overtakes got him back to the top and he finished in a solid second.

Valtteri Bottas had a difficult qualifying and started eight on the grid. He never really had it today and had lots of trouble trying to overtake cars in the midfield. He had a huge collision with Willams' George Russell and that was the end of his race. Thankfully he's OK

Awesome Norris

Lando Norris had a great drive getting his second podium of his career. He took advantage of the spins and mistakes by other drivers to move up into second place for the majority of the race. For the last 10 laps or so (of a 63-lap race) he and Hamilton had a great battle where he showed some brilliant defensive driving and was able to hold of the Mercedes for a solid 5 or 6 laps but he eventually got overtaken by Lewis. But he was really pleased after the race and I'm sure McLaren are pleased with the way their car performed over the weekend. The second McLaren driver, Daniel Ricciardo, finished a good 6th.

More Drama

This race had a bit of everything. A red flag stopped the session after the Bottas Russell incident, there were at least a dozen spins off the track due to the slippery conditions and the battles between Hamilton, Leclerc and Norris (who finished third after a brilliant drive) were really fun to watch. 

Thankfully, no one got injured in any of the spins or crashes so that's a really good thing to see. But this shows how the cars are so safe and that makes for some really good racing because the drivers can really push their cars to the limit through every since turn.

The Wrap

I'm really happy that we finally have a good battle for the championship. Hamilton and Mercedes have dominated for so long that the adversity is something I'm glad to see. As it stands, one point separates Verstappen from Hamilton at the top of the drivers championship and 7 points between Red Bull and Mercedes in the constructors championship. Next race is is two weeks time in Portugal and I really hope to see some more fighting and battles between the top teams and the midfield teams as well.

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#F1 #LewisHamilton #LandoNorris #MaxVertappen #shootsleftandwrites #slaw #Imola #EmiliaRomagnaGradPrix