Max Verstappen Leads Imperial 1–2 for Red Bull as Charles Leclerc Is Denied Ferrari Glory at Imola GP

The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix has just concluded, and it is none other than Max Verstappen who clinched the victory in Italy. After yesterday’s brilliant sprint race win, the Dutchman proved his talent again as he’s picked up the second win of this season.

In P2 it was Red Bull’s, Sergio Perez. Red Bull absolutely smashed it coming to Ferrari’s home race. Meanwhile, it was a painful day for Ferrari and Championship leader Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque spun on lap 55 which saw him to go down in P7 while Carlos Sainz had yet another DNF.

READ MORE: Max Verstappen Robs Charles Leclerc of F1 Glory in Final Moments of Nail-Biting Imola GP Sprint Race

Dramatic Race start at the Emilia Romagna GP

The start of the home race for Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz has been a disaster. After yesterday’s brilliant sprint race performance, the Spaniard got knocked out by McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo as they sprinted to the chicane. This has been the second back-to-back DNF for him; the previous being the Australian Grand Prix.

Ricciardo moved down from P6 to P19 as he went for the pit stop right after the collision. As for the other McLaren, Lando’s fight with Charles Leclerc didn’t last long as the Ferrari driver lunged down the inside to overtake for P3. However, in the end, Lando stayed back to take home the desired P3.

Thrilling mid-field battle at Imola

Fernando Alonso suffered massive damage to the right side of his car on lap 6, which forced him to go to the garage. In doing so, the Alpine driver lost invaluable position points. Mick Schumacher hit Alonso in turn 1 just after the race start, which gave Fernando the second DNF this season.

The first half of the race has seen one of the best battles for P5 between Mercedes’s George Russell and Haas’s Kevin Magnussen. Interestingly, Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas joined the fight soon after. Magnussen failed to keep both the cars behind as Russell and Bottas passed the Danish international one after the other.

As there was a forecast of rain, the drivers rushed in for pits to change their tires. The pit lane saw Lewis Hamilton come agonizingly close to Esteban Ocon. Ocon, on the other hand, had to give way to Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel. Esteban received a 5 second time penalty for the unsafe release by the stewards. However, things went south as Valtteri Bottas lost 12 seconds at the pit stop.

Late-race nightmare for Charles Leclerc

The Mercedes AMG F1 had a bitter-sweet outing in Italy. As a new recruit, Russell finished in P4 while their old friend Lewis Hamilton finished in P14. Daniel Ricciardo took four pit stops to have some improvement in his race, however, couldn’t do much as he finished in P18.

Charles Leclerc spun as he was pushing for P2 against Sergio Perez. Leclerc hit the barrier and then went for pits. When he came out, it was already too late as he took P9. Even though Charles fought back to reach up to P6.

This has been a great race for AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda. The young Japanese put strong resistance against the likes of Sebastian Vettel and Kevin Magnussen to hold himself in P7 till the end.

With this race, Max Verstappen moved into P2 and reduced the gap to the race leader Charles Leclerc. The Red Bulls and Ferraris fought out once again for the fourth consecutive race this season. As F1 goes to the United States next, it’ll be interesting to see who comes out as the winner next.

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Max Verstappen leads the pack

P1 – Max Verstappen

P2 – Sergio Perez

P3 – Lando Norris

P4 – George Russell

P5 – Valtteri Bottas

P6 – Charles Leclerc

P7 – Yuki Tsunoda

P8 – Sebastian Vettel

P9 – Kevin Magnussen

P10 – Lance Stroll

P11 – Alex Albon

P12- Pierre Gasly

P13 – Lewis Hamilton

P14 – Esteban Ocon

P15 – Guanyu Zhou

P16 – Nicholas Latifi

P17 – Mick Schumacher

P18 – Daniel Ricciardo

DNF – Fernando Alonso

DNF – Carlos Sainz