The Pirelli analysis of the 2024 Emilia Romagna GP follows
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Another victory for Max Verstappen but Lando Norris came very close to repeating the success obtained in Miami fifteen days ago: between qualifying and the race, the gap between the Red Bull driver and the McLaren driver is only 816 thousandths of a second (91 in qualifying, 725 in the race). Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc took the third step of the podium, with the first three drivers less than eight seconds behind (7″916).
This was the 59th victory for Verstappen, the third consecutive (2021, 2022 and 2024) at Imola thus equaling Michael Schumacher’s record (2002-2004), and the 118th for Red Bull.
THE DAY ON THE TRACK
At the start, fifteen drivers chose Medium as the compound for the first stint. Three – Perez, Sargeant and Zhou – opted for the Hard while Alonso, who started from the pit lane, and Gasly risked the Soft. As widely expected, it was a one pit stop race, with Medium and Hard the absolute protagonists. The choice to start with the Soft did not pay off in any way, forcing both drivers mentioned above to make an additional stop. At the end – there were three laps to go – the Aston Martin Spaniard remounted a set of Softs, probably to take advantage of the fastest lap of the race, but was unable to snatch it from George Russell who, in turn, had made an additional stop on lap 52 with precisely this objective, thus managing to give Mercedes an extra championship point.
The record for the longest single stint ever goes to Valtteri Bottas (Sauber), no stranger to these feats, who covered 54 of the 62 total laps (he finished the race lapped) with the C3 while Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) set the record in the C4, extending their first stint to lap 37.
INFOGRAPHICS
MARIO ISOLA SPEAKS
“A very close race, without peaks of emotion for the most part but which heated up at the end thanks to Norris’ comeback on Verstappen. On an old-style track like Imola, overtaking has always been difficult and the 2024 edition was no exception. The one-stop strategy was predicted to be the fastest and most used, with the first stint completed on Medium and the second on Hard. Both compounds performed rather well, despite the fact that – especially in the top positions – the riders pushed for practically the entire race, with asphalt temperatures which, despite the presence of some clouds, fluctuated between 43 and 50°C.
The progress of the race confirmed that the window foreseen for the pit stop was the right one: in fact, those who anticipated a lot then found themselves in difficulty at the end. In fact, the degradation was not very high because little graining was seen.
Finally, let me congratulate the wonderful Imola crowd who, with their passion, once again offered an extraordinary show in the stands which, I’m sure, thrilled the drivers and teams.”
Source images and texts: Pirelli Motorsport
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