@LewisHamilton claims #EmiliaRomagnaGP victory as @MercedesAMGF1 secures Constructors title. #F1

Lewis Hamilton beat team-mate Valtteri Bottas to victory at the Emilia Romagna GP, where Mercedes clinched it’s seventh consecutive-Constructors Championship, as Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen suffered a puncture.

Hamilton survived a five-lap dash to the chequered flag following Verstappen’s dramatic puncture spinning retirement, pulling away from Bottas, who lead the early proceedings before losing ground due to floor damage as he ran in-front of the Red Bull.

When the 63-lap Emilia Romagna GP began, pole-sitter Bottas got a brilliant getaway on the rundown to the Tamburello Chicane, but although Hamilton he made a great reaction, the Briton lost ground to Verstappen as they charged away from the line.

Verstappen was wheel-to-wheel alongside the Mercedes by the time they reached the braking zone for the left first part of Tamburello, and easily moved into second place, with Hamilton also forced to defend momentarily against Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo, who jumped up to fourth when AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was caught out by the other Mercedes in-front on the approach to the Grand Prix’s real first turn.

The top three runners pulled clear, as they have done for the majority of the 2020 season, with Hamilton following Verstappen within a second in the earlier stages, before dropping out of DRS range after reporting he could not run behind the Red Bull.

By the eighth lap, Ricciardo was already ten seconds adrift of Bottas, as the top three laps in the 1:19’s – more than a second faster than the field.

Bottas increased his gap up to two seconds by the beginning of the 16^th tour, where he was told to push as the runners who started on the C4 softer compounds began to pit to swap their degrading rubber.

The Finn posted a series of quickest laps in the 1:18’s, with Verstappen only to reach that pace a couple of laps later, with the Dutchman stopping at the end of lap 18 to put on the C2 white side-walled hard tyres.

Bottas reacted putting on the same rubber, easily emerging ahead, while Hamilton remained on-track as the Brackley-based squad told the Briton he would be extending his initial stint in an attempt to jump Verstappen.

Hamilton was almost two seconds behind the Honda-powered RB16 before it stopped, and the Black Arrows focused on how to get their reigning world champion back into second place.

The Briton strung together a series of quicker laps, momentarily reaching the 1:17’s, before Mercedes asked if he could run much longer as he closed up to the rear of the backmarkers to overlap them.

Bottas, who was notified that he sustained damage to his floor on the left-hand side of his F1 W11 EQ Power+ racer on the second tour, picked up by striking debris from the Ferrari, was narrowly keeping Verstappen out of DRS range, but the Finn was lapping slower than his race-leading team-mate, before being told he was “one second unsafe” from Hamilton on the 30^th lap.

A lap earlier, Renault’s Esteban Ocon pulled off circuit on the rundown to Variante Alta due to a gearbox issue, and as the R.S.20 was being recovered, race control deployed the Virtual Safety Car.

This gave Hamilton the opportunity to pit and rejoined comfortably in the lead, with a four second gap to his team-mate.

In the second half of the Grand Prix, Hamilton rapidly increased his lead over Bottas as he ran in the low 1:18’s, reach a ten second gap at the end of the 40^th lap.

As Hamilton was comfortably ahead, Bottas’ challenge was fending off Verstappen with his damaged car.

The Finn was able to remain in-front despite dipping his wheels into the gravel trap on the outside of the two Rivazza corners on the 36^th tour, but when Bottas went deeper into the gravel at the same spot six laps later, Verstappen had the chance to reclaim second.

He activated DRS on the damaged Mercedes and flew ahead around the outside on the rundown to Tamburello at the beginning of the next tour.

Verstappen quickly reached Hamilton’s pace, but was unable to bring down his 13 second lead before the Dutchman spectacularly retired on lap 51, when a sudden right-rear puncture spun off into the gravel at the Villeneuve chicane, coming to a halt with his right-rear destroyed.

Bottas stopped for a used set of C4 softs immediately as the Safety Car was deployed, but Hamilton had to wait an extra lap to pit, and emerged ahead of his team-mate, also being warned to stick to the delta time to avoid a penalty.

The Grand Prix resumed on the 58^th lap – extended a little longer due to Williams Racing’s George Russell crashed while behind the safety car on the rundown to the first segment of the Acqua Minerali double-right hander, spearing into the wall on the outside of the circuit and retiring from P10.

Hamilton pulled clear to a 0.6 second lead when the race went back to green, lowering the fastest lap benchmark in the closing stages, and getting the bonus point on the final lap, to claim the Emilia Romagna GP victory by 5.783 seconds ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas as Mercedes wrapped up their seventh-consecutive Constructor’s Championship.

In the field behind, Renault’s Ricciardo looked at one stage unlikely to claim the final podium place.

The Australian jumped up to P3 by not pitting under the safety car, while Racing Point’s Sergio Perez, who rose ahead of Ricciardo from 11^th place on the grid, starting on the C3 mediums and ran a longer first stint did stop.

This relegated Perez behind Ricciardo, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Red Bull Racing’s Alexander Albon, with AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat and McLaren pairing Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris also taking on a fresh set of C4 softer compounds during the caution.

Kvyat ran well with it, moving up to fourth when the race restarted – including a hard pass around the outside up the hill to Piratella corner – but could eat into Ricciardo’s gap and wound up 0.8 seconds adrift of the Australian at the chequered flag.

Leclerc came home fifth, with Perez taking sixth place after overtaking Albon at the Villeneuve Chicane and the Red Bull dropping down to last on the exit.

Sainz finished ahead of McLaren team-mate Norris, with Alfa Romeo Racing duo Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi coming up from 18^th and the rear respectively to reach the chequered flag in ninth and tenth.

Raikkonen ran the longest than anyone before pitting, reaching the points positions after the two late crashes, with the safety car assisting Giovinazzi who ran the alternate strategy compared to his team-mate, stopping early after starting the race on softs.

Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi was 0.7 seconds adrift of scoring his first-career points in Formula One taking 11^th place, and ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel (12^th), Racing Point’s Lance Stroll (13^th) and Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean (14^th) – who all pitted under the safety car while the Williams remained on track (Stroll knocked over his Racing Point jack-man as he ran into his pit-box with cold brakes).

The other retirees were Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen, who parked it in the garage after reporting his VF-20 racers upshifts were giving him a headache, and AlphaTauri’s Gasly, who also came in to retire – the Frenchman’s case on lap seven.

The Top Three

Emilia Romagna GP Winner – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+: “It was an exhausting race, the speed we were having to go. It’s just very overwhelming right now. No team has done this, but we have a great leader. It’s unbelievable, to come back year on year – it’s not easy to deliver weekend in, weekend out.”

2^nd – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+: “I saw the debris and couldn’t avoid it. I aimed for it with the middle of the car to save the tyres.”

3^rd – Daniel Ricciardo, #3, Renault DP World F1 Team, R.S.20: “It was a bizarre one! I got into fourth at the start and thought that was the best we could do. I don’t know, Kvyat came out of nowhere on the last few laps but it was good fun. Today I won’t forget the shoey!”

Formula 1 Emirates Gran Premio Dell’emilia Romagna 2020 Race Results Classification (63 Laps)

* Provisional results. Note – Hamilton scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race. Grosjean received a 5-second time penalty for exceeding track limits.

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2020/races/1057/italy.html

Click here for the 2020 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

Round 14 of the 2020 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to Intercity Istanbul Park in Istanbul, Turkey for the Formula 1 DHL Turkish Grand Prix 2020 from Friday November 13-Sunday November 15.

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