After a Friday in which Formula 1 teams learned next to nothing about how their cars would perform around the Imola circuit in the dry, Saturday gave them a 21-lap dress rehearsal for the fourth round of the 2022 season.
The first sprint race of the year may have ended with the same front row confirmed for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix that had lined up on Saturday afternoon, but now both Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc have clear ideas about the strengths of their cars and the kind of race they can expect to have on Sunday.Having never been separated by more than 1.7 seconds over the 16 green flag laps prior to Verstappen’s sprint-winning overtake at Tamburello, it seems the pair are as closely matched around Imola as they have been at any of the opening three rounds up to this point. That was demonstrated after the Safety Car restart, where the pair both clocked up 14 consecutive racing laps in the 1’19s before Verstappen caught and challenged the Ferrari for the lead.
Leclerc’s race pace was a touch faster than Verstappen’s initially, but not as consistent as the Red Bull could manage. Verstappen stuck to his pace, logging lap after lap within the 1’19.2s, until he eventually began to reel in the Ferrari. In pushing Leclerc to keep him out of his DRS range, Verstappen managed to manifest some painful right-front tyre graining on the leader’s car.
“I think the pace is quite similar,” Leclerc said after the sprint race. “I tried to push at the beginning to get a bit of a gap and for Max not being the DRS zone, because I knew that I will have been vulnerable if it was the case. But I paid the price a little bit later on in the race and had some graining and really struggled in the last two, three laps.”
“If we managed to cure that for tomorrow, I’m pretty sure that we’re in the fight for the win,” Leclerc said. “If not, it’s going to be a bit more difficult. But anything is possible for tomorrow, I think.”
Having caught and passed the Ferrari once already this weekend, Verstappen will be confident that he can do the same on Sunday if he finds himself behind Leclerc once more. However, the best way Verstappen can position himself for a second win of the season is by getting a much better start than he did in the sprint race, and here Red Bull have something to learn.
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“My start was very, very poor,” Verstappen admitted. “Terrible. When I let the clutch go, just a lot of wheel spin and no traction.”
“I think there is some fine-tuning we can do for tomorrow and hopefully we are able to do it to be in the mix for the win, which is the target,” Perez said. “I got really close to Charles today near the end but it was just a sprint, so let’s what we can do over a race distance.”
But sprint racing on a single set of tyres is a vastly different scenario to a full 300km grand prix distance where more strategy comes into play. Pirelli predict that a one-stop strategy would be the most desirable approach, most likely starting on the medium tyres, in large part due to the 28-second time loss for pitting along the fast main Imola straight.
However, Saturday’s race showed that DRS is especially potent on the pit straight and overtaking may well now be easier at the Italian circuit than it has ever been for modern Formula 1 before. That could well open up the option for a two-stop, as track position can be gained back by using the superior grip to tuck up behind a rival before sailing past them in the DRS zone. And with the soft tyres showing that they will last one-third of the race distance, there may be many teams considering multiple stops more viably than they had prior to the weekend.
Behind the leaders, McLaren’s solid sprint race performance will have given the team a boost in confidence. But after Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris both had minimal running in second practice after mechanical problems, they are heading into somewhat of an unknown on Sunday.
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“We’re still going into tomorrow probably not as prepared as some others,” Ricciardo admitted after the sprint race. “Maybe there’s still a little bit of a compromise tomorrow, but I think we learnt enough today to have confidence coming into the race tomorrow without any real hesitation or question marks”
“Strategy is going to be key tomorrow,” said George Russell. “We’ll have to do something different to our competition that will give us opportunities to fight and move up the grid.
“It’s been a difficult weekend so far for us, tyre warm-up has been difficult, we need to get on top of things and capitalise on what is possible tomorrow.”
The only wildcard that may take everything the teams learned on Saturday and throw it directly into the nearby Santerno river is the weather. After a soaking wet Friday, Sunday was expected to be another dry day. However, the risk of rain over the circuit at its 3pm race start time has risen slightly.
While it’s still unlikely that the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix will be the first rain-affected race of 2022, there is every chance that Red Bull and Ferrari will be locked together in their tightest battle of the new season so far over 63 laps of the Imola circuit.
Over to you
Who will come out on top in Sunday’s grand prix? Will the Mercedes drivers make it into the points?
Share your views on the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in the comments.
Kribana (@krichelle)
23rd April 2022, 23:04
Mercedes only struggled because they had low top speed. Everyone else did not have that much trouble overtaking. I was interested when Leclerc had graining on the front right tyre. Now, in both counter clockwise circuits this season, Red Bull have beaten Ferrari. But it was only this race where Leclerc struggled with the tyres. In fact, Verstappen and Leclerc were struggling with tyres at the end, but the latter suffered the most. Verstappen will be feeling confident to not lose the lead into turn 1 later since he reovertook Leclerc. I also hope that this race gets on without any stoppage. The red flags this weekend have been ruining the sessions. These drivers need to go on easy really.
PeterG
23rd April 2022, 23:46
The silly sprint gimmick race showing us all yesterday how boringly easy drs is going to be makes me far less interested going into the real race than i otherwise would be as i know we aren’t going to see a lot of real racing without overtaking been far too easy with the flappy wing gimmick.
But quantity over quality is all they care about now i guess. Why bother with real racjng when you can produce a hundred push of a button highway passes to pad the statistics. More is automatically better to the netflix crowd i guess. Overtaking quality is long dead.
Albo94
24th April 2022, 10:11
Don’t watch it then. From 95 to 2006, I think I could count on two hands the number of overtakes in imola.
I agree that they could strike a better balance with DRS, but between zero overtakes and 50 (fake?), I prefer the latter
If I'm not wery much mistaken (@ifiamnotwerymuchmistaken)
23rd April 2022, 23:49
I wonder if Ferrari will try starting on mediums, at least with one car, since their pace almost guarantees they will stay in the top four. Maybe there is some merit in trying that tactic, since it is obvious RB are kinder toward the soft tires.
Srdjan Mandic (@srga91)
24th April 2022, 0:37
@ifiamnotwerymuchmistaken
I assume most of the field will prefer the medium at the start, because the softs tend to develop graining (McLaren and Alpine seemed to suffer quite a bit during the sprint).
If it doesn’t rain, then the prefered strategy should be medium-hard.
It’s not certain that RB are kinder on its tyres, not even on the soft, given Sainz set his fastest lap on the same lap as Pérez and Verstappen. Carlos also didn’t have any major drop-off during the final few laps like Charles.
The latest weather updates now predict rain between 3 and 5 pm, so for the whole race. This could mix up the order once again.
Gusmaia
23rd April 2022, 23:58
I am not sure who lost more today: Zhou, who had to have his car rebuilt, of verstappen, who couldve seen Leclerc run out of tyres during the Sunday Race and not on Saturday, giving Ferrari a day to find a new strategy.
Srdjan Mandic (@srga91)
24th April 2022, 0:52
Really surprising to see Leclerc’s pace drop of massively in the final few laps. I doubt it was down to general wear, because Sainz was lapping in the 1:19s also on the final lap. Maybe Charles picked up some graining, like the McLarens and Alonso did. Really strange, because Ferrari didn’t have tyre problems so far this season (except for rear tyre graining during the FP2 long runs in Melbourne).
The actual race could offer a different picture, given the soft will likely not be used by the majority of the field (or at least not by RB and Ferrari) and they generally start with about 70 kg more fuel in the car. Throw in some rain, which is getting increasingly more likely for the race, and everything you thought you knew about pace and strategy could be thrown out of the window completely.
This could be a cracking race tomorrow, if the rain arrives at the right time (hopefully midway through the race).
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
24th April 2022, 1:02
Seemed reasonably clear to me that the Red Bulls were ahead of Ferrari on race pace, and I don’t expect that to change tomorrow.
Ajaya
24th April 2022, 5:14
I have a feeling max is going to go I to the distance.. rbr is just too good here..
I hope not..
Jere (@jerejj)
24th April 2022, 6:32
Who will come out on top in Sunday’s Grand Prix? – Either top-2 starter.
Will the Mercedes drivers make it into the points? – Possibly no unless rain or DNFs further ahead occur.
G
24th April 2022, 11:53
I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m enjoying the clean and competitive racing at the front. I don’t think they need to change too much with how the cars are performing. Maybe reduce the power of DRS by 10%?