🇮🇹 F1 2022 R4: Ghosts

The Imola Grand Prix helped settle some scores and allow some drivers to kill the lingering demons on their shoulders, but perhaps added some new baggage to others as the fourth race of the season came to an end, putting the score at Max Verstappen 2-2 Charles Leclerc, with Red Bull and Ferrari sharing two wins apiece. 

But that is only one part of the story. Imola was the first sprint of the season, and Verstappen took maximum points with a win in the shortened format AND added a fastest lap in Sunday’s race, giving the world champion 34 points for a weekend’s work. After a DNF in Australia, it would not have been possible to have bounced back any better. 

And that can be bolstered by Sergio Perez, who finished third on Saturday and upgraded that to second in the race, giving the team another 24 points in total and their first 1-2 since Malaysia 2016.

It is perhaps easier to control a difficult and awkward race from the front, with a drying track and the possibility of more rain to fall (it didn’t) but it also means there are 18 cars looking to force your hand and react. Ferrari tried that, but showed that chasing one extra point can sometimes not pay off as you might want. Late in the race, Leclerc made a pitstop from third, looking to go onto soft tyres. He got past Lando Norris and chased down Perez, who also stopped. Suddenly, second place was back on the table. Until disaster at the chicane. 

Flying round the kerbs and putting it into the wall could have ended the championship leader’s race, but he was lucky, going on to pit and recover from ninth to sixth. In chasing down one extra point for fastest lap, Leclerc lost out today in his team’s home race, but sixth remains better than a DNF… unlike his unlucky teammate. 

Carlos Sainz failed to score points in the second consecutive race after being tagged by Daniel Ricciardo on the first lap, ending the Spanish driver’s race. With his fourth place in the sprint, Sainz actually started this race as Leclerc’s closest rival in the standings, but he finishes it in fifth and now it must surely be time for Ferrari to officially go all in with Leclerc and have an extremely talented but annoyed second driver to try and back him up. Sainz’s biggest strength is his consistency, finishing all but two races outside the points in 2021. It’s easy to forget he out-pointed Leclerc last season, but his teammate has made taken a leap forward, perhaps unlike Lewis Hamilton. 

Let’s go back to Portugal 2021… 

The seven-time champion asked his engineer why Perez wasn’t moving out the way. Perez was going longer and was in the lead, but Hamilton wasn’t to know that, asking why blue flags weren’t being shown. 

Fast forward back to today and Verstappen lapped a frustrated Hamilton, who struggled behind Pierre Gasly in a DRS train with Alex Albon, all this for 13th place. He was also on the wrong side of an Alpine infraction, suffering for Esteban Ocon’s unsafe release. But it was also interesting to hear Mercedes’ team radio as he crossed the line. 

It can’t be fun being lapped by the guy you fought with tooth and nail in 2021 while you’re trying your hardest to get the most out of the car. There have been reports from Sky about the possibility of Lewis Hamilton walking away from the sport if this continues. This is his worst set of results after four races since he has been the centrepiece of the Mercedes team, with just 28. 

At McLaren, when Brawn were winning in 2009, Hamilton had just 26 points, following up that with five non-points finishes in a row. 

This batch of results for Hamilton also tells us two things. One, Hamilton has been superb in getting the most out of what he has and two, some credit needs to be given to George Russell for the results he has been getting, bringing home another fourth-placed finish with a rival chasing him down as the race was reaching its end. Last season at the same track in similar conditions, Russell in a Williams was chasing down Valtteri Bottas in his Mercedes. Mistakes were made, creating a red flag with debris across the track and a heated confrontation between the two drivers.

This time, they were fighting for P4 - not meaningless for either driver or team and Russell held Bottas at arm's length, preventing the Alfa Romeo driver from getting past him, even with DRS down the twisted Imola start-finish straight. Russell has settled into his new role really well - perhaps because he is used to getting the most out of an underperforming car, but his defensive performance in those final few laps seemed to exorcise a few demons for both drivers. Although Bottas wasn’t successful in his chase, fifth place in an Alfa Romeo is a great result, regardless of what else is happening around the track. 

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Slightly ahead of them was McLaren’s Lando Norris, fighting alone for McLaren with Ricciardo’s race compromised by his incident with Sainz. Norris, flying high, on a damp track? I imagine he was not the only one thinking back to Sochi 2021, where he could have taken that elusive first win had he pitted in the rain. 

That race was complete heartbreak for him, but a podium in these conditions, like for Russell and Bottas, might have given him some redemption as his season continues. 

The final score to be settled is for Aston Martin. After their disastrous Melbourne race, I wrote that I found it difficult to see where the first points of their season would come. It took one race with mistake-free driving, consistency and keeping their head when others were losing theirs to score a double-points finish. 

They’re off the mark, and off the bottom of the Constructor’s Championship, taking their first points from the first European race of the season. With more familiar tracks coming up in the form of Barcelona and Monaco, this could be the start of Aston Martin’s season proper. 

There’s a complete unknown for the new cars next time out, with the Miami Grand Prix being the only brand new track on the calendar. A primetime slot in the UK, and a Sunday afternoon for the US in the first of three visits to North America this season. Another street track will test the drivers and their machinery, which they’re still getting used to. It will be fascinating, with one thing for certain - this title fight looks decidedly to be Verstappen defending against Leclerc.

Further reading:

Just how wrong I could be about Aston MartinMax Verstappen also won 2021's Imola race, his first positive result in ItalyWhat if Lewis Hamilton had walked away at the start of the season?