The engineer Luigi Mazzolaregular guest at Race Anatomy (broadcast on Sky Sport)had his say on what happened in F1 Imola GPseventh appointment of World Cup 2024. The victory went, as usual, to the Dutch Max Verstappenbut the success of the three-time world champion was complicated by the speed expressed by McLaren over the weekend.
Lando Norriswinner in Miami, confirmed the quality of the Woking package and the recovery demonstrated with the hard tires was noteworthy and even preceded the Monegasque’s Ferrari Charles Leclerc (third). Mazzola expressed himself in these terms on his social channels.
“Pretty boring race. Max fought much more than usual from FP1 until the last lap of the race. Today he demonstrated all his strength and lived it with much more joy. He knows that there is a lot of credit to him in this success. Norris drove a fantastic race confirming Mc Laren as the second force in the championship. Ferrari lost a position due to a sub-optimal strategy. On white tires McLaren is faster than Red Bull. Ferrari was a bit disappointing even if Leclerc (who isn’t happy) took the podium and the gap to the leaders isn’t that wide. Sainz a little colorless. Mercedes can only be said to be fourth force and nothing else. Perez non-existent. The Italian anthem sung by the children moved me as well as the affection and passion of the fans, extraordinary“.
He added to Sky Sport’s microphones: “We have seen this approach by McLaren in the last two races due to Red Bull’s difficulty in performing. This was also noticed during this Imola GP, where on Friday Verstappen made many mistakes and went off the track many times, making excursions on the gravel. Obviously there is something wrong or some development has not gone in the right direction. I have the feeling that we are in a similar situation to Singapore last year when there were problems at Red Bull. The McLaren presents itself as a car that has a lot of load, manages to reach speed, unlike last year, and has balance. He’ll be a tough nut to crack“.
