IMOLA GRAND PRIX 2021

Biggest points of the weekend: in FP1, there was an incident between Perez in the Red Bull and Ocon in the Alpine that wasn't caught on camera, so that reminded everyone of old drama of when they were both at Force India. Mazepin literally could not stay on track the entire weekend again. Charles crashed at the end of FP2. Couple of red flags in the free practices but nothing too big.

Quali was totally unpredictable, with Hamilton getting pole, but Perez getting second, then Max and Charles in fourth. Lando put an amazing time on in Q3 but got it deleted for track limits so he wasn't in the top !

The biggest moment of the race was when Bottas, who was having a horrifying race, collided with George Russell and they both had a terrifying high speed crash which took both of them out of the race. George got out of the car and walked up to Bottas in his cockpit still and blamed him asking fi he was trying to get them both killed and then Bottas gave George the finger. It was the craziest crash between the two Mercedes numbers two drivers. Huge drama.

And suspiciously, all of this happened to pull a convenient red flag after Hamilton had just crashed into the gravel and was two laps down, but then the red flag meant he was a able to unlap himself so he finished in second. It was horrible.

Max won the race fabulously, though, and we were so happy! Awesome to have Lando on the podium too after he almost put his car up on pole in qualifying. It would have been a perfect podium with Max, Lando and Charles if it weren't for Hamilton getting a leg up by the Bottas and Russell red flag. SO CLOSE.

Here are my notes:

Free Practice 1

• FIRST THING that happens before the commentary on the F1 tv channel even starts is MAZEPIN IS IN THE GRAVEL. Like it’s not even five minutes in. First thing that happens the whole weekend. Unbelievable!! And now there’s gravel all around the track which he dragged back on the track from this

• Natalie is back on commentary for FP1 again with Damon and Antony

• Still gonna be a process of getting used to these one hour practice sessions instead of an hour and a half

• Gonna be looking at track limits this weekend which makes me upset because last race there was enforced track limits for ONLY SOME PEOPLE. And someone put together a video online of the 29 times Lewis went over track limits at the same corner and the Max does it once to pass Lewis at the end and of course THAT isn’t allowed but Lewis can do that the rest of the race no problem.....

• Yuki has a little off into the gravel

• Max has an off into the gravel but it went straight though a corner and didn’t even stop so not a big deal

• Hamilton goes off into the grass

• RED FLAG because of some kind of collision between Ocon and Perez. All we see first is that Perez is off and has lost his whole back left tire and then shows Ocon off a ways ahead on the track and lost suspension? There have been some technical issues with the picture for the coverage so we can’t see what happened and the only video we have of it is right when it’s going through the turn after the incident already happened so there’s a lot of guessing but it’s really likely that they collided and also really drama because it’s Ocon and Perez incident like back in the Force India days when they did not get along. Not sure if we will see what happened.

• Clock still ticking with the red flag and can go back out with ten minutes left

• Sainz clips the gravel but gets away with it

• Latifi going through the gravel

• At the end of the session Mazepin spins AGAIN on the last turn and puts it into the wall RIGHT on the pit entrance so that every driver goes past his crashed Haas on the way to the pit and it’s the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever seen OH MY GOSH

FP2

• both Perez and Ocon went to the stewards to explain what happened and they came together and it was like a racing incident just because the major issues with technical stuff made it so that we couldn’t see what was happening and also there was no radio for many cars so overall no one knows what happened and it’s just a racing incident

Free Practice 2

• Max was on a fast lap and 15 min into the hour session and suddenly Max’s car lost drive and he had to park it and virtual safety car and they had to tow it away and it has not been a good start for Red Bull since the first session had the Perez and Ocon incident and this session has started with Max losing drive and losing out on the info from the rest of this session

• Alo has a rocky ride over a curb and they were talking about how he still has metal in his jaw from his bicycle crash a couple months ago

• Oh NO Charles has a crash into the wall from losing the rear and it looked bad at first but then he was okay and they red flagged it because there were only 2 min left of the session and he was right in trajectory line of a car going off and couldn’t go get him without it so session wasn’t restarted but probably not as much damage as it initially seemed

FP3

• people are getting lap times deleted left and right for track limits

• Really talking up Charles having amazing pace yesterday

• Red flag for Latifi losing the car into a turn and it slid really fast through the gravel and ended up only hitting the wall lightly though and was able to get the car going and out of the gravel again and back to the pit so the red flag was very short and running again almost immediately

• This is gonna be another one of those track limits eye roll track situations again and we all feel quali is going to be nuts with the track limits

• Max went over a yellow sausage curb and it looked really bad because he was like airborne for a split second and then he had to go back to the garage but it was apparently fine

• Wow all of these times are super close for the fast laps and I have no idea what’s going to happen in quali

• Kimi has a big trip through the gravel but keeps it going and minimal damage

• Gio has a spin into the gravel and yellow flags it but gets it going again

Qualifying

• it’s cold again, only 53 degrees like it was in FP3 earlier today

• About 15 min into Q1, they do an homage au fromage like reserve drivers!

• Red flag in Q1 with 12 min left because Yuki Tsunoda has a slide into a wall and hits the back of the car and they think it did a huge amount of damage to the car and is going to already need a new gearbox or start from pit lane and brings out the medical car. Now need to clean up a lot of debris on the track

• Out in Q1: Kimi, Gio, Mick Schumacher, Mazepin and Tsunoda because he crashed out without a time

• So its the first time Latifi outqualified George in Q1. But both George and Latifi are in Q2

• Out in Q2: Sainz, Russell, Vettel, Latifi, and Alonso

• So everyone is shocked that Sainz is out because Charles was up near the top of the times

• Lots of track limits issues that made this stressful

• Seb is just not performing right now in the Aston Martin

• Lando put it in 2nd but then had time deleted for track limits at the end of Q3!!

• Ugh Hamilton gets lucky and gets pole, Perez is in second tho!! And then Max, then charles and then Bottas, who was having problems, and Lando will be the dark horse

• First interviews after quali without anyone wearing a mask during their interview

Race

• OH MY GOSH ITS COLD AND RAINY, THIS IS SO UNEXPECTED

• Rain is still coming down lightly and someone mentioned this could happen but it was so unexpected and when we turned on the pre race show and it was cold and rainy, it was like a jaw drop moment

• Seb is starting from the pit lane because something broke or burned off the back of the pack

• Parts of the track are dry and parts are wet OH MY GOSH

• Some people are on full wets and some are on intermediates

• It’s cold so track not going to dry out quickly and there’s a lot of spray

• No one knows how much grip there is because no one has wet conditions on practice or qualifying

• CHARLES SPINS ON FORMATION LAP

• COMPLETELY WILD FIRST LAP OF SPRAY AND PEOPLE GOING WIDE OR SPINNING

• Max gets into first off the line and beats Lewis and Perez keeps third and Charles keeps fourth

• Latifi goes off and gets it back together but then collides with Mazepin and then has a big crash at high speed but still of course it involved Mazepin

• Lil Schumacher has a crash in the pit exit under safety car but he was trying to warm the tires and it just went right into the pit exit wall

• Just waiting for them to clean up the LATIFI and Schumacher crash

• Early in the race Charles overtook Perez for third when Perez went over

• Perez got out of shape under of safety car then regained places but and now they think that might now have been allowed

• Wild passes in the rain wet track in the midfield

• Charles is right behind Hamilton and looking really racey

• Perez says the steering wheel is moving by itself??? And they are looking into it

• This is just going to be one of those races where it’s impossible to report every single event because it’s so wild

• Sainz has an off but doesn’t lose any places and keeps going

• Gasly on the wet tires which turns out to be wrong and holding up many behind him in 9th who are on inters

• Perez is under investigation for overtaking behind the safety car

• Bottas is having a horrible race and on 12/63 he is only

• 10 second penalty for overtaking under the safety car and that is BRUTAL because this is the longest pit lane of any

• Originally reported it was a stop go penalty but it isn’t, it’s a ten second time penalty

• Carlos Sainz is having “huge adventures so far” off into the gravel

• 16/63 Gasly finally gets rid of the bad wet tires

• 16/63 Max reports it could be getting ready for not wet tires

• Apparently the tires are only just getting up to temperature on lap 16

• They ask Daniel to swap so they can see Lando’s pace in clear air which makes sense because he was so fast in quali with that one good lap deleted so they do swap

• Happy that they were able to keep Mick Schumacher still in the race with just a nose change from his pit wall crash so he is even still ahead of Mazepin

• 20/53 Charles reports the front tires are fine

• 22/63 Seb is first to stop and put on slicks

• Then immediately after he stops for slicks, Seb gets a 10 second stop go penalty for not having the wheels fitted at the 5 min interval before race start which still hasn’t been totally explained yet but was apparently a team wide brake by wire failure so they were trying to fix the rear breaks and had to do it quickly

• Bottas is really struggling in 9th and still stuck behind Stroll

• 28/63 MAX PITS FIRST and Mercedes hope they can go fast and beat Max back out of the pits but they’re slow with a 4 second stop and Max keeps the lead, also seemed to be an Alfa Romeo in the mix Hamilton May have had to wait for thankfully

• They pit Sainz first for Ferrari

• 31/63 Bottas is lapped by Max wowwww this is unusual

• 32/63 HAMILTON GOES OFF AND CRASHES AND GOES OFF INTO THE GRAVEL AND GETS LAPPED. He stays in the race unfortunately but it’s an embarrassing mistake and thank heaven for this

• 32/63 RUSSELL AND BOTTAS HAVE A HUGE CRASH and both hit the wall and then it looked like George went over to see if Bot was alright but then Bot flipped him off and it turned out that GR was actually yelling at him probably and they were both blaming each other and there’s so much debris that it’s a RED FLAG

• Thank goodness that they missed collecting Kimi and Mick Schumacher in the Bot/GR crash

• Red flag over and now they’re doing a rolling start instead of a standing start like they thought

• Kimi has a spin before restart

• MAXY ALMOST SPINS Before restart but saves it, WOW

• NORRIS PASSES CHARLES INTO 2nd at the restart

• Yuki Tsunoda has a slow spin on the restart but he does get it going again and no safety car again just yellow flag thank goodness so Yuki keeps going

• NOOOO Perez goes off and loses places all the way to 14th

• Lace on the radio “what’s happening with the shifts?!” And they have an issue but keeping going

• Making a big deal of Hamilton making back places but it’s moments like this that I feel like this sport is the worst because as long as Hamilton is in it, then the gets the advantage somehow in that unfair car and I wish he had just been stuck in the gravel and out but noooo that would be too easy and like what happens to all the other cars in the field

• Vettel and Stroll are both dealing with gear problems, another problem like the brake thing early before the race that is affecting both Aston Martins

• Tsunoda gets a black and white flag for track limits

• Ugh since Perez’s off, he’s in 13th now instead of out front where he should be

• Hamilton fails are his first attempt to get past Sainz into 4th and has to pull out

• Charles keeps Hamilton back as long as he can beautifully

• 54/63 Hamilton passes Charles into third and I hate this sport

• Tsunoda gets a five second time penalty for track limits

• 60/63 Hamilton gets past Lando for second SHOOOOOT

• 61/63 Mazepin JUST has another spin for good measure, just had to get one more in before the end of the race I guess

• On the last few laps Vettel has to retire for gearbox issues wowwwww

• MAX WINS IN ITALY!!!!!! First time winning in Italy

• Hamilton in second and LANDO IN THIRD WOOOOOOOOO YESSSSSS a fantastic drive from Norris

• AND CHARLES IN FOURTH WOOOOOOOOOOO and then Sainz

• In Lando’s interview they said he was voted driver of the day and he said “they did? I didn’t think I had any fans but thank you very much”

• Lewis was just lucky ie this whole sport is a joke

• But also I love celebrating Max and Lando on the podium