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Tyres NorthamptonMax Verstappen and Sergio Perez broke the hearts of a packed Italian crowd as Red Bull took their first 1-2 finish of the season while Ferrari had a home race to forget. The result sees Charles Leclerc's championship lead sliced down to a still-sizeable 27 points, but the weekend belonged to the new man in P2, Max Verstappen. Pole position, a sprint race win, the fastest lap, and the Grand Prix victory meant that the Dutchman left Imola with 34 points.
The Italian springtime weather was a significant factor in the race for a second successive year. Although Sprint was dry, qualifying and the Grand Prix saw the drivers using Pirelli's intermediate tyres to clear the standing water on the track. With the low air temperature meaning the surface didn't dry out over the race distance, the cars were reduced to running on a single dry line for much of the 66 laps.
Leclerc's front-row start came on the damper side of the grid, meaning he couldn't get any grip off the line and lost places to Perez and Lando Norris while Verstappen comfortably retained the lead. With rain and 20 cars looking to find any advantage, there was little wonder it didn't take long for the safety car to appear.
Carlos Sainz was a driver beached in the gravel for the second consecutive race as a difficult weekend for the Spaniard ended prematurely. At Turn 2, Daniel Ricciardo understeered into the innocent SF-75, putting Sainz out of the race and the Ricciardo's McLaren down to last place after pitting for repairs.
After suffering heavy bodywork damage following contact with a spinning Mick Schumacher, Fernando Alonso joined his compatriot as an early-race retiree. Schumacher's spin ripped off the Alpine's sidepod cover, leaving the two-time champion's team unable to make any repairs. A messy first lap for both of F1's Spanish contingent.
When the safety car returned to the pits, Leclerc made short work of getting back on the tail of the Red Bull duo by breezing past Lando Norris on the drying track. The Brit was powerless to stop the Ferrari's progress with the power difference between the engines, but his team urged him to keep the faith by letting him know his intermediate tyres could be good again as more rain was forecast.
It was a contradictory message for the sister McLaren as Ricciardo pitted on Lap 18 to be the F1 canary and strap on some slick Pirelli rubber to see if his tyres could find grip. The answer was a resounding "yes", and every other driver jumped in to fit mediums within two laps of the Aussie's gamble.
Leclerc's decision to wait for an extra lap before pitting for his white-walled Pirellis initially looked to have given him track position ahead of Perez. However, the Red Bull driver had an extra lap to warm his new tyres up, and he immediately retook P2 from the Monegasque, who desperately tried to get heat into his wheels to mount another fightback.
With the track dry enough for slicks and the stewards re-enabling DRS, the race settled down, and even the new 2022 cars couldn't turn the narrow Imola track into an overtaking playground. With nothing to lose, Ferrari tried something different by pitting Leclerc and fitting him with soft tyres to eat into the Red Bulls' lead. However, Perez and Verstappen simply copied the championship leader to nullify any benefits that Leclerc's new Pirrelli's would bring.
Now, Charles had to throw everything he had to close in on Perez to make the tyre switch work, including re-passing Norris again after he fell behind the young Brit during his pit stop. But, unfortunately for Charles and the Tifosi watching on, he pushed too hard at the Variante Alta chicane and spun his Ferrari into the barriers. And, although he could continue, he needed to pit once again for another set of Pirelli softs.
His mistake guaranteed a 1-2 finish for Red Bull, with Lando Norris taking a second unlikely podium at Imola after his P3 in 2021. Leclerc had dropped to ninth place but used the remaining laps to limp back to P6 and salvaged eight points from a Sunday to forget for the Scuderia.
Red Bull's perfect weekend means they're only 11 points behind Ferrari as the teams prepare for a new flyaway street race in Miami in two weeks. Although Leclerc will remain the championship leader no matter how the race unfolds in the USA, this weekend in Emilia Romagna will remind him how quickly anyone's luck can change in Formula One.
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