Everything was going as per schedule in the high adrenaline world of Formula 1. Pre-Season testing had just ended and the motorsports enthusiasts were waiting for the Australian GP in March. But before that could happen the world sunk into a terrible pandemic of Coronavirus resulting in the cancellation of the season opener along with several other races, delaying the whole season. As the cases started declining a green flag was given to races behind closed doors and a new schedule with new tracks was released. To compensate for the races lost some tracks were hosting multiple events. This led to a doubleheader in the season opener at Red Bull Ring in Austria. In Italy, a triple header was announced which consisted of Monza, and 2 tracks that hadn’t hosted an F1 race for quite a few years. Imola, the track which took the life of the driver said to be the greatest of all time, and Mugello, the track which hosted the race this weekend.
Nestled in the foothills of Tuscan mountains, it’s a sight to behold when seen from the air. The 5.254 km swooping circuit consists of 15 extremely fast and flowy turns with drivers pulling 4-5 Gs, while some like Arrabiata 1 and 2, Casanova and Savelli pulling stomach-turning 5 and has a 1.141 km straight. Although MotoGP is a regular here, this was the first time it hosted a Formula 1 race. No other driver has driven on this circuit except Kimi Raikkonen’s famous first outing with Sauber for testing. This historic track is owned by Scuderia Ferrari who also celebrated their 1000th GP this weekend by launching a burgundy red livery for car and racing suits of the drivers to revisit their history. This was the first race of the season which was not behind closed doors allowing 3000 fans.
Just one practice session later the track became a love for most of the drivers due to its nature with Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes topping all the 3.The qualifying results were as following
Before the race, Max Verstappen had an engine issue which the mechanics did rectify although in vain, which was evident at the start. At the race start, Bottas shot into the lead from the second and took the first from Hamilton while Verstappen had an engine problem which caused him to slow down. Along with Bottas, Stroll, Leclerc and even Albon got a terrific start. But when they reached turn 2 chaos reigned which included Vettel losing his front wing due to contact with Sainz, who was already spun around by a racing point and Grosjean taking a quick spinning trip into gravel. Also, Gasly shunted into the rear of Raikkonen which caused him to go into Verstappen leading him to have a gearbox failure, resulting in DNF of both Gasly and Verstappen. This chain of events led to a safety car during which all the teams tried to repair the damages caused by the crash. The safety car went in at the ending of lap 6, which made Bottas the de facto safety car according to the rules, which means the race will start when he starts accelerating. Bottas cleverly slowed down and then instantly started accelerating right before the turn. But before he had even started accelerating, once more there was a crash at the back. Russell created a gap between him and the others at the front and went right. This made the drivers behind George think Bottas had already started and they started accelerated resulting in Giovinazzi going into the back of Nicholas Latifi starting a chain that also took the toll of Kevin Magnussen and Carlos Sainz retiring all 4.This was the second safety car, which turned into the race being red-flagged in lap 9. During the red flag, Ocon's brakes were found to be burning which lead him to retire too, taking the total DNF count to 7 and promoting Russell to 10th, shining a little ray of hope for him finishing in points for the first time. At the 3rd start, which was a standing one, Lewis took the lead over Bottas and raced away. The laps that followed saw Leclerc being overtaken easily by Stroll, Ricciardo, and Albon. On lap 44 Stroll had a major accident as he lost the rear on the curbs and shunted hard into the tyre barriers, fortunately coming out unscathed. This also led to the second red flag of the race, which lasted longer as the tyre barriers had to be repaired. The fourth start too saw Lewis having a fantastic start and leading the race. We saw Daniel Ricciardo in podium places for a while, but his hopes ended soon as Albon beautifully overtook him at a corner which gave the youngster his first podium ever and Thailand became the 29th different country to be represented on the F1 podium. From there on the race was pretty much decided as Mercedes took another 1-2 with Lewis winning his 90th race and Bottas finishing second. Raikkonen finished inside points despite getting a time penalty for crossing the pit line. Hamilton also took the point for the fastest lap of the race.
One more interesting fact about this race was that all the 3 podium finishers from the previous race retired. The last time this happened was in 2001 Italian GP when Juan Pablo Montoya, Rubens Barrichello and Ralf Schumacher retired from the US GP. All in all, this was one of the most eventful races of the season so far and probably the nature of the track contributes in this too which saw many fans demanding Mugello to be added as a season regular. Will it happen? We sure hope it does, until then we have to wait 2 weeks for the Russian GP at the Sochi Aerodrome which is one track that suits Valtteri Bottas. Ciao.