A 1-2 finish at Imola continues the domination of Mercedes in Formula 1.
Mercedes-AMG Petronas has clinched their 7th consecutive World Constructor’s Championship title at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Thus continuing the team’s utter dominance in the motorsport which began from its inception at the start of the decade.
A week after Mercedes star driver Lewis Hamilton clinches a record-breaking 92 race wins in Formula 1, the German motorsports outfit has followed up that achievement this race weekend by becoming the team with the most number of consecutive world constructor titles to its name. Winning the title every year to date since 2014, thus beating out the previous record set during Ferrari’s dominant era of six consecutive constructor titles from 1999 to 2004.
While the title practically had Mercedes’ name all over it coming into this grand prix weekend, having only needed 11 points to take home the trophy, both drivers still drove a magnificent race and coming in for a 1-2 finish at the Tifosi home turf at Imola, Italy where the race took place. Lewish Hamilton took the chequered flag ahead of his team mate Valtteri Bottas, while Daniel Ricciardo of Renault finished the race third on what was an eventful race, especially on the final few laps.
The race started off uneventful enough with the only major incident in the first few laps being a spin from Kevin Magnussen of Haas, and an early retirement from Pierre Gasly of Alpha Tauri who was running P5 at the time when he lost water pressure.
Mid-way through though, Esteban Ocon of Renault also retired from the race due to a clutch failure, which lead to Hamilton getting lucky with a free pit-stop under the virtual safety car which signalled the beginnings of the now-normal HAM BOT VER formation for the top 3 drivers up front.
This formation did not last long however as Max Verstappen’s Red Bull had an instant puncture on the rear right tire, causing him to spin into the gravel trap on lap 51. Thus taking him out of the contention of a podium place within the race, and more importantly the driver’s championship fight which is now solely between the two Mercedes drivers.
Due to this incident, the safety car was called out for the following 5 laps. It was during the safety car period then that George Russell of the Williams team, who was running in the points at the time, had a bizarre off on track which caused him to hit the wall, causing him to retire too.
Carnage continued on the safety car restart as while the two Mercedes cruised to a safe 1-2 victory, the mid-field battle was still very much in contention. Daniil Kyvat of Alpha Tauri though came out as the star of the last few laps, jumping from 7th to 4th in a series of stunning overtakes, and was hunting Ricciardo in the Renault down until the very last corner. Who didn’t come out so well from the tussle on the last laps however was the second Red Bull driver, Alex Albon who spun on the safety car restart and ended up finishing P15 when the chequered flag dropped on lap 63.
Congratulations to the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 team for this momentous achievement! While some Formula 1 enthusiasts may lament the boringness of the motorsport due to the continued Mercedes domination, we as Malaysians can at least be proud to see our national petroleum company mentioned in the same breath with one of the greatest F1 teams of all time.
Photos courtesy of Formula 1
