2024 Emilia-Romagna F1 Grand Prix Review: Late Battle For Victory

Emilia-Romagna Circuit at Imola this year is mourning the 30th anniversary of the death of F1 Legend Ayrton Senna. Max Verstappen matching Senna’s consecutive pole streak with eight at the place where Senna lost his life in a horrific crash in turn 7. Verstappen is looking to right the ship and get back to the podium, Lando Norris is aiming for his second career victory, and Ferrari is bringing upgrades in hopes of closing the gap with Red Bull.

An F1 Legend Pays Tribute to Senna

Before the race, F1 paid tribute to the fallen hero with four-time Champion  Sebastian Vettel. Vettel took a lap in Senna’s 1993 McLaren MP4/8 wearing a special helmet paying tribute to Senna and Roland Ratzenberger who was killed in a crash in qualifying the day before Senna’s death, Half the helmet with the iconic Senna’s design and the other half Ratzenberger’s helmet with the colors of Vettel’s home country’s flag Germany separating the contrasting designs.

Vettel in the closing stages of the tribute lap holding up the Brazilian and Austrian flags. After the tribute lap, Vettel emerged from the car holding the Brazilian and Austrian flags the home countries of the fallen drivers that fateful weekend. The older members of the media who worked with Senna had tears filling their eyes eyes as the Mclaren made its way around the track. The lasting impact of Senna is still felt to this day three decades later.

Alpine Driver Pierre Gasley wore a replica of Senna’s helmet. All the drivers wore a Senna teeshirt during the tribute. Vettel said after the lap:

 An incredible moment. A very dark moment in time 30 years ago when there was this horrible weekend. So to be here 30 years on, to drive Ayrton’s car, remembering both Ayrton but also Roland, it’s certainly very emotional

Lights Are Out and Away Max Goes

All weekend Max Verstappen struggled with handling of the car similar to a couple of weeks ago in Miami. Ferrari F1 brought upgrades and looked fast through FP1 and FP2. Mclaren was also fast in the aftermath of Norris’s victory in Miami. As most fans are hoping someone goes up and challenges Verstappen and are licking their chops like a dog staring at your steak dinner.

Despite the the struggles in practice, the Red Bull crew was able to get the car well enough in qualifying Verstappen was able to grab the pole and tie Senna’s consecutive pole streak with eight consecutive poles. Maclaren’s Oscar Piastri qualified second but received a three-place grid penalty for impeding HAAS Driver Kevin Magnussen. Lando Norris would start second instead.

Verstappen was able to run off a fairly quick 22 laps and he garnered a six-and-a-half second lead before he came to pit for a harder compound tire on lap 24, two laps later than Lando Norris. The Ferrari drivers were the last of the leaders pit with Charles LeClerc pitting on lap 25 and Carlos Sainz pitting on lap 27. The poor pit strategy from Ferrari allowed Piastri to jump Sainz through the F1 Grand Prix’s lone pit cycle.

Lando Runs Down Max

F1 cars are very interesting within themselves in how they act when a different compound tire goes on, or even when it begins to wear the car will at times come to a driver mid-stint. For Norris, this happened. Verstappen had opened up a seven-second lead and suddenly the car came to Norris and away from Verstappen.

Norris slowly and surely began to close the gap enough that would create an incredible fight to finish. The race was relatively dull for the first 45 laps, Norris simply went off. Consistently putting up better lap times than the 3-time defending world champion. The TV broadcast and fans recognized the newfound speed in the McLaren.

Norris closed the gap to roughly 1.5 seconds pushing as hard as he can. Norris went wide in the chicanes on two separate occasions allowing Verstappen to stay at least a second ahead denying Norris the aid of the drag reduction system. Verstappen was able to go on to win the race by just over three-quarters of a second. Although a second-place finish for Norris, it’s safe to say McLaren is the next rival to Red Bull throughout the rest of the F1 season.