Vote for your 2021 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend

2021 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix

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Which Formula 1 driver made the most of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix weekend?

It’s time to give your verdict on which driver did the best with the equipment at their disposal over the last three days.

Review how each driver got on below and vote for who impressed you the most at Imola.

Driver performance summary

DriverStartedGap to team mate (Q)Laps leading team matePittedFinishedGap to team mate (R)
Lewis Hamilton1st-0.487s30/3042nd
Valtteri Bottas8th+0.487s0/301
Max Verstappen3rd+0.052s63/6321st-67.151s
Sergio Perez2nd-0.052s0/63211th+67.151s
Lando Norris7th+0.049s47/6323rd-27.518s
Daniel Ricciardo6th-0.049s16/6326th+27.518s
Lance Stroll10th-0.256s61/6138thNot on same lap
Sebastian Vettel13th+0.256s0/61515thNot on same lap
Esteban Ocon9th-0.476s44/6359th-0.857s
Fernando Alonso15th+0.476s19/63310th+0.857s
Charles Leclerc4th-0.391s63/6324th-1.457s
Carlos Sainz Jnr11th+0.391s0/6325th+1.457s
Pierre Gasly5th41/6347th-20.366s
Yuki Tsunoda20th22/63312th+20.366s
Kimi Raikkonen16th-0.148s61/62313thNot on same lap
Antonio Giovinazzi17th+0.148s1/62414thNot on same lap
Mick Schumacher18th-0.518s52/61416th-68.228s
Nikita Mazepin19th+0.518s9/61417th+68.228s
George Russell12th-0.332s0/01
Nicholas Latifi14th+0.332s0/00

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Vote for your driver of the weekend

Which driver do you think did the best job throughout the race weekend?

Who got the most out of their car in qualifying and the race? Who put their team mate in the shade?

Cast your vote below and explain why you chose the driver you picked in the comments.

Who was the best driver of the 2021 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix weekend?

  • No opinion (0%)
  • Nicholas Latifi (0%)
  • George Russell (1%)
  • Nikita Mazepin (0%)
  • Mick Schumacher (0%)
  • Antonio Giovinazzi (0%)
  • Kimi Raikkonen (0%)
  • Yuki Tsunoda (0%)
  • Pierre Gasly (1%)
  • Carlos Sainz Jnr (0%)
  • Charles Leclerc (4%)
  • Fernando Alonso (0%)
  • Esteban Ocon (0%)
  • Sebastian Vettel (0%)
  • Lance Stroll (1%)
  • Daniel Ricciardo (0%)
  • Lando Norris (70%)
  • Sergio Perez (0%)
  • Max Verstappen (16%)
  • Valtteri Bottas (0%)
  • Lewis Hamilton (6%)

Total Voters: 250

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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71 comments on “Vote for your 2021 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend”

  1. I think Many driver were candidate Max, Lando, Lance, Pierre and even Lewis untill his crash
    So i went for Max as he was the only one overtook Lewis without DRS (or being in the gravel)

    1. I don’t vote for the driver who lost on Saturday from his teammate, notwithstanding hope much Max and Lando deserved it on Sunday.

      Hamilton came close and had a very solid race like in Turkey last year. But he made a similar mistake like Max did in Turkey; being too eager. I’d vote for him if there weren’t a few candidates besides him. Also (but not his fault) his overtakes were too easy with the DRS.

      Leclerc beat his teammate on both days. I’m surprised though how closely Sainz was sticking to him.

      Stroll is a real candidate and as often before he performed very strongly in the damp conditions. And he did best a multi WDC in the same car. Although we can claim the same for Ocon.

      Gasly was very impressive again on Saturday and recovered well on Sunday after the compound mistake. Didn’t see him enough though to judge how DotW-worthy his drive was.

      Ocon I didn’t see at all. But as he just finished ahead of Alonso who had a Bottas weekend, I can’t consider him.

      Overall, I guess I have to go for Stroll.

      1. @coldfly Max underperformed in qualifying, but sometimes we have to look at qualifying for what it really is: a session to determine grid order for Sunday’s race. You don’t get any points on a Saturday, and someone’s qualifying performance should be judged based on the context of how it allowed them to maximise their result on a Sunday. So Max’s poor qualifying was basically rectified within a few seconds of the race start, and there was literally no more for him to gain on Sunday. Perez did well on Saturday but left Sunday with a big fat zero in the points tally, so the qualifying 2nd, although impressive, ultimately did nothing for him. I’m also often guilty of putting too much weight into qualifying, but as long as a driver ends up maximising his result on a Sunday anyways, I don’t think it should matter all that much.

  2. LOL at whomever voted for Stroll. I like your cheek!

    1. Stroll did a great job this weekend. Not DOTW for me, but certainly top 5.

      1. And in my opinion some of those top 5 drivers disqualified themselves by losing on Saturday or being too eager when lapping junior teammates, @f1frog.

        1. By losing on Saturday? You mean Norris and Max had a slight not 100% perfect lap on Saturday. The bar is freaking high then

          1. I define the weekend as: “It’s Friday then Saturday Sunday (What!)”

  3. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    19th April 2021, 0:14

    I’m not sure how I could vote for anyone other than Verstappen. Norris & Leclerc were particularly excellent too.

    1. Because it’s driver of the weekend, not driver of the day, and he qualified third in the fastest car. If it was driver of the day, I’d have gone for Max definitely, but as it’s driver of the weekend, I chose Lando.

      1. Lando qualified 7th

        1. Yeah, that does feels a bit awkward with the argument @harrydymond makes for choosing Lando over Max, right @rvg013!

          I did also choose Lando by the way, since Max DID make his race a lot harder when he did not get that pole his car clearly had in it. Lando did make a mistake in Q3 (and Max made another mistake in the race, had Leclerc pushed past, it might have not even been the win for Max, he got a tad lucky with that), but I do think if he had qualified there it would have been a superb effort, while Max getting pole would have been great, but more or less “just doing the job” just like Hamilton getting pole does not normally get him voted driver of the weekend anymore since it is what the car/driver are more or less expected to be doing.

          1. just like Hamilton getting pole does not normally get him voted driver of the weekend anymore

            Unfortunately, there is always automatically a big DotW votes bonus for the winner of the race, irrespective of how he got there or how much was due to the car, @bascb.

      2. So because one driver made a mistake In qualifying, you chose another one that also made a mistake in qualifying?

        1. Lando’s mistake in qualifying was much smaller than Max’s. Max failed to get the most out of the fastest car – his lap was slower than it should have been. In contrast, Lando set a blistering lap but lost the time due to just a few centimetres misplaced. Don’t get me wrong, it’s right that the time was deleted, but he didn’t gain that much time by going too wide at that corner. So, I feel he did a great job in qualifying but was unlucky, as opposed to Max who properly dropped the ball in qualifying. And they both (Max and Lando) performed great in the race.

          1. wait a minute…
            Max lost 0,08 to pole
            Lando lost his time because he got outside the lines… thus losing his time… his mistake was therefore much bigger than the the mistake Max made, or at least the consequences were, but he knew the consequences.
            Max lost 2 positions, Lando 5 or 6?
            How many centimetres doesn’t count (don’t tell my wife ;-) )

          2. @johnever, Max lost 0.087 to pole yes. But I think that the Red Bull was capable of getting a time 0.3 – 0.5 seconds faster than pole. Yes, the consequences of Lando’s mistake were larger, but I still view it as Lando got more out of his car on Saturday than Max got out of his.

      3. petebaldwin (@)
        19th April 2021, 14:27

        It’s driver of the weekend but it’s heavily skewed towards the race for me because that’s the only session that matters. If you make a mistake in quali (like Max did) but you’ve already recovered from that mistake by the 1st corner of the race, it’s not really worth factoring in IMO.

  4. Tricky one because it’s the weekend and he messed up qualifying but I went for Verstappen, jumping from 3rd to 1st and (near) faultless after that. The other option was Lando, but the same applies, scrubbing his own brilliant quali lap. Hamilton excellent in quali, but not a good grid start, picked up damage, responded well but made a fairly bad mistake that he was lucky he was able to rectify excellently by driving past a third of the field (in the same car Bottas had been using to go nowhere).

    1. @david-br LOL, a “Die Hard” and hardcοre HAM, and “pretending to be fair”, fan voted for VER? We have to check the IP in order to be sure for this. LOL. Anyway, I voted for NOR. Brits yesterday AROUND EVERY SINGLE SITE ON INTERNET were “gutted” for him and I was really critical towards everybody. But today he proved that it wasn’t just the track limits. It was him and his determination. This is what an openminded person does. Let’s wait for others, like @f1oMrBean (saurus), @freelittleclowns (birds) and other jokers on this site.

      1. I’m still at a loss to understand why his lap time was deleted. Go watch the qualifying highlights – cars going off the track all the time and no track limit violations. Why are some corners penalized and some not?

        1. @nick101 His lap time was deleted because he exceeded track limits at that corner. The limit for Turn 9 was the white line, not the red one as it was for other corners, mainly as you can gain quite a bit from going off there.

      2. @f1-fan Nothing about that comment makes any sense.

  5. Can’t see past Norris for this weekend.

    Great qualy and drive yesterday, well deserved.

  6. I luv chicken
    19th April 2021, 1:02

    Don’t know who should be driver of the race, but embarrassment of the weekend, ONCE AGAIN, were the stewards. For crying out loud, can they all get together and get the story line straight, about dropping wheels off track. All was fine.Th
    en they relaxed it for Aqua Minerale, a pass off track happens very early in the race, and they can’t get a decision immediately? Not until everyone went home and was having dinner. Then what seemed like hours after the race, they start rearranging the finishing order for a number of drivers. Why are they sitting in that office, looking at their screens, in the first place. Make a decision, so that viewers can have a definitive result when the chequered flag falls. Enough with, “ the incident to be examined after the race”!

  7. Has to be Lando. I feel for Max because apart from that issue before the start, he had a pretty flawless weekend. But Lando almost started on the second row and drove a really good race after a difficult start.

  8. Easy Lando Norris. Apart from the few centimeters he overshot in Q3, he didn’t put a foot wrong all weekend. A weekend where almost every other driver made lot of mistakes!

    I am very interested to see the winners and losers part of this weekend. The losers list is quite long this time – Bottas, Perez, Ricciardo, Tsunoda, Mazepin will comfotably make it to this list. May be a few more names too? Sainz, Schumacher. Will be interesting to read that list.

    1. Easy Lando Norris. Apart from the few centimeters he overshot in Q3, he didn’t put a foot wrong all weekend.

      Russell was less outside the track when overtaking Bottas than Norris in Q3.
      But fans fans are more forgiving than wet grass.

      1. Russell was having a very strong race until then. True that. But his slight error got him retired. Hence, difficult to consider him for a DOTW.

        1. Indeed, Russell doesn’t even qualify for being considered to be a candidate for the qualifications of DotW, @sumedh.

          I was was merely pointing out that the ‘few centimeters’ Norris missed are easily ignored by fans because it is just a white line.
          When the track judges and penalises these mistakes (by having grass) then the consequences are much more severe. Had Norris crashed in Q3 on a grass run off by running the same few centimeters wide then nobody would have considered him for DotW.

          1. exactly this!

          2. That’s true.

          3. Well, might as well make it parody-style: that’s true, it’s very true, even extremely true, hence it’s true!

  9. Easily Norris

  10. Quite a difficult one as no driver was absolutely perfect this entire weekend. They all slipped up or missed opportunities at some point in time over the weekend. For me, it was a really close one between Max, Lando, Charles and Lewis.

    Max – Was brilliant on Sunday. Flawless start, great pace and great under pressure even though he had a small off during the restart. His Saturday wasn’t all that special though as he had the car to put it on pole, but just fluffed his Q3 run.

    Lando – Was brilliant all weekend, and was punching way above the car’s weight up until he get a little over ambitious on his last Q3 run. In the race though he showed some incredible pace and drove error free at a pace significantly higher than his highly rated teammate. He looked like he was going to bag that P2 after holding off Lewis for a few laps. Overall, he punched above the car’s weight and drove a perfect race on Sunday.

    Charles – Was stellar in qualifying and raceday. Incredible job to put it on P4 and quite a stellar job to almost finish on the podium on a race weekend where Ferrari was probably the 4th or 5th fastest car. The only disappointment was his pace dropped slightly when on the mediums for the last 20 laps, and that he was unable to pressure Norris in the closing stages

    Lewis – Had a brilliant Saturday and put it on pole. Was doing great on Sunday up until he went off and went nearly a lap down. He still had a brilliant recovery drive, but was a little lucky with the red flag, or else he would have probably finished a lap down on Max.

    In the end I had to give it to Lando.. followed closely by a tied Max / Charles.

    1. @todfod I very much agree with the first three, disagree with Lewis. He thought he was a kangaroo in the first corner and then made a race-crushing mistake. It was the red flag that saved his race. I agree his recovery was very good.

      1. I also disagree with Charles. Finishing 1.5 seconds ahead of your teammate who started 7 places behind is hardly a cap in your feather.

        But just saw the radio uploaded on F1’s youtube channel. It seems Charles did not have radio for the 2nd half of the race. Poor guy even thought it was going to be a standing start!! He may have changed his engine settings for the rolling start too late as well.
        Then may be, he deserves to be in this list.

        On the other hand, Ferrari’s operations still are a mess. How can a car which was in the garage for 45 mins go out with a radio problem!

        1. Leclerc would have had an easy second place without the red flag, so the 1.5 second gap to Sainz wasn’t entirely representative.

          1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
            19th April 2021, 10:07

            Yea Sainz went off 2 or 3 times, enough for the team to tell him to slow and calm down. Sainz only looked remotely close to Leclerc in the final stint, which was after a restart that bunched them up. Sainz’s race before that was a mess. leclerc can be considered a stand out and Sainz overall was a bit of a mess and like you say, his result isn’t representative.

  11. Lando, quite amazing, but offcorse I will vote for Max, who provided us with a close Championship race.

    He did quite well under terrible conditions, to essentially never loosing the initiative. Taking P1 on the start and stamped his authority on Lewis right away. That pass cemented driver of the weekend in my book.

  12. Miltiadis (@miltosgreekfan)
    19th April 2021, 7:36

    I think Lando has done enough throughout the weekend to claim the DOTW award. The only mistake he did was during his last lap in Q3, but with the expection of this mistake, he was flawless. He was 0.041 behind the pole sitter, stood on the podium despite the tricky conditions and had a huge gap over Ricciardo at every weather condition.

  13. NOR for both DOTD and DOTW despite the small error in Q3.
    I don’t quite get the ‘not on the same lap’ part as the Alfa Romeo drivers were on the same lap compared to each other. Gio didn’t finish on the lead lap but the same as the drivers ahead.

  14. I don’t think there was a single driver that was completely flawless this weekend, but given the conditions, the nature of the track, and the policing of certain track limits, that’s to be expected and nothing major.

    Any of the podium guys could be considered driver of the weekend.
    Lewis did great to put it on pole, but ultimately got pipped at the start and had a major off in the race, so overall I’d put him last, without that red flag it would’ve been a much worse weekend for him.
    Lando had a great race and he’s definitely the driver of the race for me, but overall in the weekend I feel he messed it up a bit by abusing track limits just too many times. Great salvage though and a well deserved podium. He’s really showing his worth now that he’s got a few seasons of experience under him.
    Max just drove a great race, from P3 to P1 before the first corner was even done and then just easily pulled out a gap and maintained it. I don’t think Lewis would’ve gotten him on the pitstops even without the extra few seconds spent there. He made a small error in Q3, but considering he lost all of FP2, I think it would be unfair to judge him too harshly for that.

    Further standouts:
    Carlos Sainz did a great job going from 11th to 4th in the race considering the conditions and an unfamiliar car, he did very well in the race. The field was so tight that the 11th in qualifying looks worse than it actually was. I think Leclerc is gonna really have a tough fight on his end as the season progresses and Carlos gets settled.
    Charles Leclerc himself also did good, getting 4th in qualifying and then just staying out of trouble while still getting 4th in the race is a great result, considering where Ferrari was last year especially. Hoping either Ferrari boys gets a race win at some point this season. With Lewis and Max fighting over positions twice in two races now, it’s not unfeasible they’ll inevitably have a coming together that could create some opportunities for one of the other teams.

    In the end, I flipped a virtual coin between Lando and Max, it ended up Max, but really, either of them can get a pat on the back for this one.

    1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
      19th April 2021, 10:21

      Really don’t understand how you can consider Sainz as a stand out. Not sure if you missed that it was the red flag that brought him up close to Leclerc. His qualifying was a bit unlucky, but it still was pretty poor that he didn’t make it through.

      His start was pretty good, but overall, the stage of the race before the red flag was pretty awful. He nearly crashed twice then went off at least once more. Enough for the team to tell him to slow and calm down. Before the red flags came out, he was over 30 seconds behind Leclerc. At the restart, Leclerc again looked slightly quicker and was catching Norris. Sainz was too, but didn’t get as close to Leclerc as Leclerc did to Norris which suggests he didn’t quite have the same pace.

      To be more realistic, without the red flag, I think Leclerc will have beaten Sainz by anything between 30 – 45 seconds. Sainz’s position at the end was lucky and it made him look significantly better than he was. Sainz was one of the many drivers that struggled I’d say.

  15. Zach (@zakspeedf1team)
    19th April 2021, 8:27

    I think Max’ qualifying mistake was less serious than Norris’ or Hamiltons race mistake, so I think he just about gets it. I don’t think anyone had a “perfect” weekend, but I think Max was the most complete. Norris a close second and driver of the race for me.

  16. Lando Norris gets my vote. Made one mistake, going ‘centremetres’ off the track, but overall a brilliant weekend where he totally outclassed his teammate. Verstappen and Leclerc very close behind. Leclerc would probably have finished second without the red flag, but he did spin on the formation lap. Verstappen also had a half spin and was outqualified by his teammate. Honourable mentions also to Stroll and Ocon for dominating their world champion teammates. The best I’ve seen from Ocon for some time.

    1. Honourable mentions also to Stroll and Ocon for dominating their world champion teammates. The best I’ve seen from Ocon for some time.

      Ocon was hardly ‘dominating’ Alonso! And whilst I did not see Ocon, the glimpses of Alonso were very painful to watch, @f1frog.
      But of course this can still be considered ‘the best we’ve seen from him for some time’ ;)

      PS – I still struggle with the argument that Norris ‘only’ went centimetres off. As argued above, if those centimetres were grass then he would’ve end up like Russell.

      1. @coldfly I actually think Ocon did dominate Alonso. He was a long way ahead in qualifying, and then only dropped to the back because Alpine had put him on wet tyres. Despite this, he repassed Alonso, before losing the place again (due to the timing of the pitstop, I think), then repassed him again. Although Alonso finished less than a second behind, Ocon was the far superior Alpine driver this weekend, and the final gap wasn’t entirely representative. Similarly, the gap between the Ferraris was unrepresentative, as Leclerc was on for an easy second place before the red flag.

        Yes, Norris could have been on the grass when he went ‘centimetres’ off the track (Norris’ words), but I doubt he would have crashed due to that grass; probably he would have just lost a few tenths recovering. The difference is that the grass was wet for Russell. But of course, he might have crashed, and then he would not be DOTW. Similarly, Lance Stroll might have spun and crashed if there was grass where he overtook Gasly off the track. There is always a bit of luck involved in these votes. Verstappen was arguably lucky not to spin at the restart, and would not be a contender if he had spun. Hamilton and Schumacher aren’t contenders for DOTW anyway, but both would have been rated lower if their crashes into the wall had ended their races, which was entirely possible and required some luck. These DOTW votes are very difficult, and that is why there is no right answer. For me, it was between Norris, Verstappen and Leclerc, but with Stroll not far behind them.

        1. Solid argument @f1frog, have to agree @coldfly you seem a bit too dismissive of Ocon to me. What counts for me are two things: he was faster and ahead of Alonso the whole weekend, and he never looked out of sorts, ie. what he needs to be doing more often. Anyway, I do agree we saw a bit little from him to decide whether it was a solid or great drive. Stroll indeed also did a good job the whole weekend (but even though Vettel seemed less lost at sea, he doesn’t really give Stroll a proper reference to know whether he was really good or not in qualifying).

          1. Not disagreeing there, @bosyber.
            But as I didn’t see a lot (or anything) of Ocon the whole weekend it is tough to rate his performance.

  17. Tricky one. No perfect weekend for anybody.

    Except from his Q3 lap(s) Verstappen had a very strong weekend. But given the car he’s in that was not quite as surprising.

    Hamilton shone on Saturday and drove well to keep Verstappen honest until his, sorry to say it, Vettel-like mistake. Good but also lucky recovery than.

    Norris was super fast all weekend but didn’t get his lap in in qualifying either.

    Leclerc once again great on Saturday and Sunday but to win DOW he should have beaten Norris. Although he was unlucky with the red flag.

    Sainz was fast the whole race but not quite as good as Leckerc and Saturday cost him dearly.

    Riccardo was only mediocre, especially if compared to Sainz who is also trying to adjust to a new PU and chassis.

    On Saturday Gaslys was great but his gamble on wets didn’t pay off. His pace in the dry was excellent though and thanks to that and the red flag he scored good points.

    Last potential candidate was Stroll. He didn’t do much wrong all weekend and probably got everything out of the car.

    In the end I voted for Norris. With honourable mentions to Leclerc, Verstappen and Stroll

    1. Hamilton shone on Saturday and drove well to keep Verstappen honest until his, sorry to say it, Vettel-like mistake.

      I wouldn’t be too harsh on Lewis for his ‘too eager’ mistake on Sunday, @roadrunner.

      Rather than compare it to Vettel, I’d compare it to Verstappen in Turkey last year. Until catching up with (respectively) Perez and Russel they drove a great race but were just a bit too hasty in closing the gap to the leader.

      1. Max in Turkey was not an overtaking attempt as stated by him. He lost too much front wing downforce. But yeah, the do make minor mistakes, all of them do

      2. Yeah I don’t want to be too hard on him. Apart from this incident he drove a fine race and things like that happened.
        But when comparing incidents, Vettels has a tendency to make them look a bit more clumsy while Verstappens’ tend to be more spectacular. And going off at low speed and then straight into the barrier with a final application of power did look clumsy.
        Maybe not a Vettel-Vettel mistake of recent but a Vettel-Hockenheim 2018 mistake. Looks silly but it’s easy to do

        1. Hockenheim 2018 is exactly the incident it reminded me of, just with less disastrous consequences. It was only a small mistake, but it was enough to disqualify him from DOTW, in my opinion.

          1. Yes, it was similar to hockenheim 2018, and I think hamilton made the difference by managing to get out, because vettel’s car seemed fine even in 2018, as in not excessive damage that would’ve ended the race.

  18. I have no hesitation in going for Lewis…. for the laughs he gave us in the gravel trap.
    God knows we need a laugh or two in these days of Covid and economic downturn.

  19. I went for Norris simply for being human. Late in the race he complained that his clutch was disengaging in the middle of the corners. Came back the reply from the pit wall. “Take your finger off the clutch button” Apparently on the McLaren, the gear shift paddle is close to the clutch disengage button and an errant Norris finger would slide across it at odd times with just enough pressure to momentarily activate the clutch. He still kept Hamilton behind him though (for a while).

    1. It was actually the kneepads that were hitting the clutch I think (he mentioned that himself after the race) Gerrit, but really, I agree with what you are saying.

  20. I can see that Norris is going to walk this and can understand why, but for me it has to be Leclerc.

    He put the lap together in Quali whereas Norris made an error in the faster car. Leclerc then had incredible pace at the start of the race, partly due to the adjusted set up where Ferrari sacrificed pure performance for a better wet set up (making his quali even more impressive). He pulled half a minute on Norris, partly because Norris was suffering from his quali mistake and bad start. When the Bottas/Russell incident happened they were running 2nd and 3rd, and Leclerc had a 27 second advantage….he was taking the 4th/5th fastest car to an easy 2nd place.

    Then we have the red flag, and Leclerc loses a spot to Norris at the restart. Understandable in normal circumstances considering his wet set up and Norris’ incredible straight line speed…but these weren’t normal circumstances. Leclerc had no inbound radio, and as a result, was unaware that it was a rolling restart until Verstappen bolted. In hindsight, it was a miracle he only lost the one place.

    Ultimately after that, he was never going to be able to pass the Mclaren with his straight line disadvantage. Perhaps he could have pressured a bit more, but lets not forget that the Mclaren was the quicker car.

    1. @j4k3 was the team radio really broken for Leclerc? Because I’ve rewatched his onboard just now and his race engineer does tell him it’s a rolling start. So in that case we can hear it on the feed but he couldn’t?

      For those interested, F1 TV, Leclerc onboard cam, timecode 1:31:53

      Honestly, looking at that onboard I think Leclerc knew what was up. He was pulling very close to Max from the moment Max took over pace control from the SC and was as close to him as possible, responding to each change in Max’s speed and attitude. You don’t act like that if you think it’s going to be a standing start, because what would be the point of that?

      1. From what I heard of Binotto post race, he couldn’t hear the radio. I don’t have access to F1 TV though, so you may be right. He did seem to let a large gap go though. Maybe that was just an error! Not enough to change my vote though.

        1. Absolutely, leclerc did well, I think for some, at least for me, this is more of a surprise vote: leclerc is a proven top driver by now, performances like these are expected from him, norris is still emerging, I think this race (but there was some indication before as well ofc) adds him to the top current drivers.

  21. Honourable mention: Kimi’s two points were a big deal for a team like Alfa. The equivalent of a win at the very least.
    They were snatched away by a breakdown in stewarding, and handed to Ocon who for half a race could not overtake in a faster car. The other beneficiary was Alonso, the wooden spoon of Imola, who gained a point for nothing.
    Apparently Alfa did ask the advice of the stewards and actively sought to comply with that advice yet still got penalised by bloody-minded vindictive policing.

    1. Indeed, was a good race from raikkonen as well.

  22. Until he touched the grass, Russell was a candidate.

    * Qualified 12th
    * Spent most of his race running in 10th
    * Was overtaking a Mercedes for 9th position

    Without that crash we could easily have seen him finish 9th out of 15. When was the last time we saw 6 cars behind a Williams? Such small margins between zero and hero.

    I voted for Norris, because his mistake only cost him a deleted lap time. If he’d ended up like Tsunoda (I think his crash was on the same corner) then I doubt he’d be winning DotW either.

    1. Yes, russel was great, it’s absolutely ridiculous that bottas was fighting with him at that point, and wolff ofc rather than commenting about bottas’ slow race criticized russel.

  23. I went with norris, verstappen seems like the obvious choice but norris was competitive all weekend with a mclaren that, as ricciardo showed, isn’t yet at the level of red bull and mercedes and deserved 2nd place (even though ferrari got unlucky with the red flag).

  24. Norris is the easy winner for me this weekend. Unlucky to have arguably the best lap of the weekend deleted for cm’s past the track limit. His pace all weekend seemed a step above Ricciardo and the Ferrari’s.

  25. Lewis, for that magic minute which reminded me of F1’s most hallowed ground: The Shanghai gravel trap

  26. shout out for leclerc.

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