@Max33Verstappen cruises to dominant #EmiliaRomagnaGP victory. #F1

Verstappen Emilia Romagna GP victory – Reigning champion Max Verstappen cruised to a dominant Emilia Romagna GP victory leading home Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez with McLaren’s Lando Norris completing the top three as Ferrari’s championship leader Charles Leclerc spun but recovered to sixth.

 

 

Verstappen got a great run off the line in slippery conditions following a pre-race rain band at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari to jump title-rival Leclerc and then controlled the Grand Prix with a string of fastest laps.

 

With Leclerc also losing a place to Perez into the opening few corners, Saturday’s F1 Sprint winner Verstappen did not have any threat as he reached the chequered flag by 16.527 seconds.

 

Ferrari took a chance with a late pit-stop for a fresh set of the faster C4 red side-walled softs before Red Bull followed suit, but as Leclerc pushed to reel in the leaders, he spun to sixth.

 

 

The full grid began on the green-marked intermediates, all running a fresh set of rubber except for Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton, who opted for a scrub set of the grooved tyre.

 

When the 63-lap Emilia Romagna GP began, pole-sitter Verstappen overcame yesterday’s wheel-spin issues by getting a brilliant launch off his grid slot and pulled from the left-side to cover off any threat.

 

However, Leclerc was much slower off the line, allowing Perez to get the jump on the F1-75 for second place and then had to defend from the MCL36 of Norris, who squeezed the Ferrari into fourth at the Tamburello Chicane.

 

There, Carlos Sainz’s horrible bad luck continued as his F1-75 ended up stuck in the gravel after tangling with McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo through the second part of the chicane.

 

It looked as though Ricciardo touched the kerb and slipped wide to tap Sainz into a spin – the investigation ended with no action. Ricciardo forced to pit and continued on in 18^th.

 

Sainz was then stuck in the gravel trap and retired as Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher fell from 10^th to 17^th after suffering a half-spin, as his rear-axle slid as he touched the sidepod of Fernando Alonso’s Alpine A522 entry.

 

The safety car was deployed at the end of the opening tour to pick-up race leader Verstappen, with Perez second over Norris, Leclerc and Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen.

 

Mercedes’ George Russell, meanwhile, got a solid start to jump from 11^th to sixth, as the Aston Martin duo of Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll made similar progress to climb up four positions.

 

Verstappen opted not to follow the Red Bull pit-walls suggestion to dive in for slick tyres and the rest of the field remained on intermediates despite reports of the circuit drying.

 

The safety car came in on the fourth tour, and the Red Bull’s charged away at the restart by 1.5 seconds from Norris, who covered off Leclerc into the Tamburello Chicane.

 

It took until the eighth lap for Leclerc to pass Norris with the latter oversteering out of Ravazza to allow the former to get into the slipstream of the McLaren and fly by on the inside into Tamburello.

 

From there, Leclerc was 6.2 seconds behind title-rival Verstappen and 3.3 adrift of Perez.

 

Over the next seven laps, those gaps dropped a bit as Verstappen lead by 5.5 seconds over his Red Bull team-mate Perez with Leclerc 1.9 seconds behind the Mexican.

 

Verstappen reported over the team radio that he was ready for slicker rubber if the safety car was deployed again, but the Dutchman remained on circuit for the time being as Ricciardo dived in to take a chance on the mediums.

 

Ricciardo instantly started a string of personal best efforts to indicate the crossover from the inters to the yellow-branded C3 mediums.

 

Although Ferrari’s pit crew emerged in the pit-lane, Verstappen and Leclerc stayed out as Perez and Russell – who eventually made their way past Magnussen at the Variante Alta after running deep into the Tamburello Chicane – were the leading drivers to stop.

 

Leclerc had clear air to cut the eight second gap to Verstappen until the following tour, on lap 19, as the leading two dived into the pits.

 

Leclerc rejoined in-front of Perez but with the new 2022 tyre temperature regulations, struggled on the cooler tyres and dropped back to third.

 

Perez, having overtaken at Villeneuve Chicane, again provided the buffer to Red Bull team-mate Verstappen who pulled out a lead of 7.5 seconds.

 

Leclerc, now with his rubber up to optimal temperature, could have passed Perez for second place after the Red Bull driver locked his front-left into Variante Alta and missed the chicane to cut the grass.

 

But whilst Leclerc could close, with DRS still disabled despite the whole field on mediums, he was unable to pass again and settled behind the Mexican.

 

Leclerc struggled, unlike Verstappen, to manage the front-right tyre graining in the F1 Sprint.

 

Verstappen looked to have retained his solid pace as the Red Bull driver’s lead exceed by ten seconds on the 32^nd tour.

 

The reigning world champion started lapping into the low 1:20’s each tour, running 0.3 seconds faster than team-mate Perez, and even lapped the Mercedes W13 of Hamilton on the 40^th lap.

 

With Leclerc’s chase of Perez evaporating, Ferrari called the Monegasque driver in for a fresh set of red-side walled C4 compounds on the 50^th tour and only took one DRS zone to breeze past Norris into third place.

 

Red Bull reacted over the following two laps to pit both it’s drivers by stopping Perez first and then Verstappen for the softs.

 

Leclerc had a seven-second gap to Perez, but on the 53^rd tour, he jumped the kerbs at the Variante Alta Chicane and spun to the outside wall.

 

The Monegasque-driver broke an endplate although he hit the wall side-on to avoid suspension damage, continuing on to pit for a new front wing and another set of softs and emerged back down in ninth place.

 

This eased the pressure on Verstappen, who despite reported drops of rain in the final couple of tours, reached the chequered flag to claim the Emilia Romagna GP victory, his second win of the campaign.

 

The Dutchman also posted the fastest lap for good measure.

 

Perez came home in second for a Red Bull one-two, with Norris rounding out the top three.

 

Mercedes’ Russell was fourth, despite the Silver Arrows not adjusting his front-wing aero balance during his pit-stop, but the Briton still edged out on top in a thrilling late-battle with Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas.

 

Leclerc salvaged a sixth place after a late damage limitation recovery to fight by Vettel and Tsunoda, whilst Magnussen and Stroll completed the top ten.

 

Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon took 11^th place in the classification and ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly who was 12^th, whilst Hamilton was unable to overtake the Frenchman despite a hard battle, settling for 13^th.

 

BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon finished the Grand Prix in 14^th after being hit with a five-second penalty due to an unsafe release when swapping his inters for mediums, which forced Hamilton to lift off in the pits and fell a position.

 

Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s Zhou Guanyu ended the race 15^th and in-front of Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi and Haas F1 Team’s Schumacher who were 16^th and 17^th respectively.

 

Ricciardo stopped for a set of the white-marked C2 harder tyres and wound up a low-18^th.

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2022 Emilia Romagna GP – The Top Three

 

 

 

2022 Emilia Romagna GP Winner – Max Verstappen, #1, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“Already yesterday and the day before, we were on it, and it was looking like a strong weekend. As a team we did everything well, and this 1-2 is well deserved. Start was important but also judging conditions, when to swap to the slicks. Everything was well managed.”

 

2^nd Place – Sergio Perez, #11, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“It was really intense, the fight [with Leclerc]. I think the most important thing was not making mistakes, in these conditions, it was so tricky. We have been so unlucky; it’s been a difficult start for us [this year] but we deserved this.”

 

3^rd Place – Lando Norris, #4, McLaren-Racing-Mercedes, MCL36:

“An amazing race, an amazing weekend to be honest. The team deserve it, from where we were in race one to a podium, it’s amazing. I like these conditions, same as last year!”

 

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Formula 1 Rolex Gran Premio Del Made In Italy E Dell’Emilia Romagna 2022 Race Results Classification (63 Laps)

 

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	63	1:32:07.986	26
2	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	63	+16.527s	18
3	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	63	+34.834s	15
4	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	63	+42.506s	12
5	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	63	+43.181s	10
6	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	63	+56.072s	8
7	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	63	+61.110s	6
8	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	63	+70.892s	4
9	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	63	+75.260s	2
10	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	62	+1 lap	1
11	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	62	+1 lap	0
12	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	62	+1 lap	0
13	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	62	+1 lap	0
14	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	62	+1 lap	0
15	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	62	+1 lap	0
16	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	62	+1 lap	0
17	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	62	+1 lap	0
18	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	62	+1 lap	0
NC	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	6	DNF	0
NC	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	0	DNF	0

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1109/italy/race-result.html

 

Click here for the 2022 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

 

Round five of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship heads to the streets of Miami in Florida, the United States of America for the inaugural Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix 2022 from Friday May 7-Sunday May 9.

 

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