HAMILTON WINS EMILIA ROMAGNA GP – MERCEDES CLAIM SEVENTH CONSTRUCTORS’ TITLE IN A ROW

Full race results for the Emilia Romagna GP at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, Imola, round 13 of the 2020 F1 world championship season.

Hamilton Wins Emilia Romagna Gp – Mercedes sealed its record seventh consecutive Formula 1 constructors’ championship as Lewis Hamilton led Valtteri Bottas home in what became a highly dramatic Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola.

Hamilton had made a slow getaway from second on the grid, immediately dropping behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and having to work hard to fend off Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri and Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault for third.

Poleman Bottas then led Verstappen and Hamilton in a relatively close top three for the opening stint, but picked up substantial debris on the second lap.

The piece of another car remained lodged in Bottas’s Mercedes and damaged the floor.

Verstappen was first of the trio to pit, with Mercedes immediately covering him off by pitting Bottas.

But Hamilton extended his first stint for a further dozen laps, and would’ve gone further still had an extremely brief virtual safety car caused by Esteban Ocon’s Renault parking from 15th with a suspected gearbox problem not given him a neat pit window.

2020 F1 EMILIA ROMAGNA GRAND PRIX – RACE RESULTS

POS	DRIVER	NAT.	TEAM	TIME
1	Lewis Hamilton	GBR	Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team	63 laps
2	Valtteri Bottas	FIN	Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team	5.783
3	Daniel Ricciardo	AUS	Renault F1 Team	14.320
4	Daniil Kvyat	RUS	Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda	15.141
5	Charles Leclerc	MON	Scuderia Ferrari	19.111
6	Sergio Perez	MEX	BWT Racing Point F1 Team	19.652
7	Carlos Sainz	ESP	McLaren F1 Team	20.230
8	Lando Norris	GBR	McLaren F1 Team	21.131
9	Kimi Raikkonen	FIN	Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen	22.224
10	Antonio Giovinazzi	ITA	Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen	26.398
11	Nicholas Latifi	CAN	Williams Racing	27.135
12	Sebastian Vettel	GBR	Scuderia Ferrari	28.453
13	Lance Stroll	CAN	BWT Racing Point F1 Team	29.163
14	Romain Grosjean	FRA	Haas F1 Team	32.935
15	Alexander Albon	THA	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing	57.284
DNF	George Russell	GBR	Williams Racing	52 laps
DNF	Max Verstappen	NED	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing	51 laps
DNF	Kevin Magnussen	DEN	Haas F1 Team	49 laps
DNF	Esteban Ocon	FRA	Renault F1 Team	30 laps
DNF	Pierre Gasly	FRA	Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda	8 laps

While the VSC helped Hamilton’s cause, he had already done enough to extend a sufficient lead to have pitted and rejoined ahead of Bottas and Verstappen anyway.

With Bottas struggling for pace, Hamilton then pulled away as his team-mate came under increasing pressure from Verstappen.

When Bottas locked up into Rivazza with 20 laps to go and briefly went into the gravel, Verstappen was given a run on him and capitalised by passing down the outside into Tamburello.

But seven laps later Verstappen’s race ended abruptly with a sudden tyre failure as he braked for the Villeneuve chicane.

That sent the Red Bull flying off the road and prompted a safety car that turned the race behind Mercedes inside out.

Hamilton’s initial pit call under the safety car was slightly too late for him to get into the pitlane, but he stopped for fresh tyres one lap later and still came out ahead of Bottas.

They had no dramas at the restart and pulled clear for another 1-2, clinching the constructors’ title and giving Hamilton a shot at sealing his drivers’ crown in the next race in Turkey.

In their wake, Daniel Ricciardo gave Renault its second podium in three races, but had to fend off a shock charge from Daniil Kvyat’s AlphaTauri to do so.

Sergio Perez had looked set for the best of the rest slot, having pulled off a mighty first stint.

Only 12th in the opening laps, he stayed out until lap 28 before pitting, and with Ricciardo and other early-stoppers getting caught behind Kevin Magnussen – who’d been tagged into a spin by Sebastian Vettel at Tosa on lap one and then ran long – Perez was able to leapfrog the ‘Class B’ pack and appear in fourth.

But Racing Point brought him in for fresh tyres under the safety car, whereas Ricciardo, Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon stayed out and moved up to third, fourth and fifth. Perez, Kvyat and the McLarens led the queue of cars on fresh tyres behind them.

Kvyat made a stunning restart to immediately pass Perez and Albon, then went around the outside of Leclerc at Piratella into fourth.

He couldn’t separate Ricciardo from the podium, but fourth still provided a reward for AlphaTauri after its qualifying hero Gasly dropped out of fifth early on with an apparent coolant leak.

Leclerc stayed ahead of Perez for fifth, while Albon spun on the exit of Villeneuve just after Perez overtook him. That consigned the remaining Red Bull to 15th and last.

Carlos Sainz Jr and Lando Norris were seventh and eighth for McLaren, followed by the Alfa Romeos of Kimi Raikkonen – whose mammoth 48-lap opening stint meant he ran fourth for much of the race – and Antonio Giovinazzi taking a valuable double points finish for their team.

Williams had looked like it had a great shot at points as George Russell was elevated to 10th by Verstappen’s exit. Russell would’ve been vulnerable to Raikkonen’s new soft tyres at the restart, but he didn’t get that far – crashing on the approach to Acque Minerali as he tried to warm his tyres under the safety car in an embarrassing and costly incident.

Vettel ran a similar strategy to Raikkonen but his race was wrecked by a painfully long 13-second pitstop in which Ferrari appeared to have problems fitting two wheels. He finished 13th.

Lance Stroll also had a miserable race in 14th. He broke his front wing on Ocon on lap one and then knocked over a member of his pit crew – who got up unaided – when he came in too fast for his final pitstop.

hamilton wins emilia romagna hamilton wins emilia romagna

F1 QUALIFYING EMILIA ROMAGNA GP – BOTTAS BAGS POLE POSITION

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