Max wins, pushed all the way by Lando

Imola, 19 May 2024 | 19:14 Europe/Amsterdam Max wins, pushed all the way by Lando Featured-Race-ITi24 Conditions-Sunday-ITi24--EN Another victory for Max Verstappen, but Lando Norris came very close to repeating his Miami win from a fortnight ago: between qualifying and the race, the gap between the Red Bull driver and his McLaren rival was only 816 thousandths of a second (91 in qualifying and 725 in the race). Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc made it to the third step of the podium, the trio covered by less than eight seconds or 7”916 to be precise.This was win number 59 for Verstappen, his third in a row at Imola (2021, 2022 and 2024) equalling Michael Schumacher’s achievement from 2002 to 2004. It was Red Bull’s 118th win.  THE DAY ON TRACK   15 drivers lined up for the start on the Medium tyre. Three, Perez, Sargeant and Zhou, opted for the Hard, while Alonso, starting from pit lane and Gasly, took a gamble on the Soft. As widely predicted it was a one-stop race, with Medium and Hard the favourite choices. Starting on the Softs simply did not pay off, both the above mentioned drivers having to make an additional stop. With three laps to go, Aston Martin’s Spanish driver fitted another set of Softs, probably with the aim of setting the fastest race lap, but this actually went to George Russell who also made an extra stop on lap 52 with this in mind, thus bringing Mercedes the extra point. The prize for the longest stint of all goes to Valtteri Bottas (Sauber) who is no stranger to this exercise. He completed 54 of his 62 laps on the C3, while Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) topped the laps on the C4, extending the first stint to lap 37. MARIO ISOLA – PIRELLI DIRECTOR OF MOTORSPORT   “A very close race, for the most part without any particularly exciting moments, but it livened up towards the end as Norris closed on Verstappen. On an old style track like Imola, overtaking has always been difficult and this year was no exception. A strategy based on a single stop was, as predicted, the quickest and was adopted by the majority, with the first stint run on the Medium and the second with the Hard. Both compounds worked quite well despite the fact that, especially at the front of the field, the drivers pushed practically all race long, with track temperatures oscillating between 43 and 50 °C, even if there were a few clouds overhead.The predicted pit stop window proved to be accurate: in fact, those who stopped very early then found themselves struggling towards the end. Actually, degradation was not very high because there were few signs of graining.Finally, I must congratulate the wonderful crowd at Imola who were as passionate as ever, once again putting on a great show in the grandstands which I’m sure the drivers and teams enjoyed.” 07-IT24-Race3-EN 07-IT24-PitStop-EN 07-IT24-Temperatures--EN FORMULA 2Isack Hadjar (Campos Racing) won the Feature Race at Imola, his second victory of the season, at the end of pretty close race. In the closing stages, the Frenchman had to defend in fine style from the advances of Brazil’s Gabriel Bortoleto (Invicta Racing). Germany’s Joshua Durksen (AIX Racing) was third, thus standing on a Formula 2 podium for the very first time. The Drivers’ championship is hotting up as Zane Maloney failed to score today, but he still leads with 68 points, although now only five ahead of Paul Aron (63) with Hadjar up to third on 59.Most of the drivers, 16 of the 22, opted to start on the Supersoft because given the high chance of a Safety Car, they preferred not to attempt a very long first stint. As things turned out, the Safety Car never left the FIA pit garage… As predicted, the softest compound was already showing a high level of degradation after only five or six laps, compelling all those who had gone for it to make a pit stop as soon as allowed in the regulations, while the Medium performed best over a longer distance.FORMULA 3France’s Sami Meguetounif (Trident) was first past the flag in the Feature Race in Imola to secure his maiden FIA Formula 3 win, after starting from third on the grid. Oliver Goethe led the middle part of the race but the Campos Racing driver was unable to repeat his win in yesterday’s Sprint. By finishing third today, Leonardo Fornaroli (Trident) now leads the Drivers’ Championship: the Italian has 52 points, three more than Luke Browning and seven more than Dino Beganovic and Gabriele Minì. As for the way the tyres performed, as expected high degradation was a factor in the race, with graining starting to manifest itself before half-distance. The key to success for the front runners was in fact their ability to manage tyre performance in the opening laps so as to still be able to push and fight in the closing stages. COMING UP NEXT FOR OUR TYRESThe European leg of the Formula 1 season is back in action immediately next week with another classic event, the Monac