First day

The Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, which appeared last season due to the coronavirus pandemic, re-entered the Formula 1 calendar, only now as the second stage of the World Cup. A year ago, the competition on the track in Imola was held in a two-day format due to logistics problems. Now, the teams did not stop in three weeks from moving from Bahrain, where the first race took place, and calmly prepare for the next.

Shortly before the start of the racing weekend, there was a rumor that Daniil Kvyat would return to the wheel of the car. Alpine, the Alpine team was infected with a coronavirus, and because of this, the Russian was urgently summoned to Italy. The appearance of Kvyat at this particular Grand Prix would be a very interesting event - after all, last time he finished fourth, and Daniel Riccardo, who then represented his current team, was in front of him. But the information about positive tests was never confirmed, so the help of the Russian pilot was not needed.

The Enzo and Dino Ferrari circuit is renowned for its complexity and demanding pilots. The fact that inexperienced riders can be hard on it was confirmed by the very first session of free races. Nikita Mazepin from Haas and Yuki Tsunoda from AlphaTauri made a mistake almost immediately and flew to gravel. For the Russian, this incident was not the only one - at the end of the training session, he again made a mistake in the same place and now seriously damaged the car. He even had to change the gearbox, which made him late for the next session.

Friday showed that Mercedes drivers Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton, who took two first places a year ago, are best prepared for the race.

Finn managed to show the best time in both training sessions, but the world champion was less than one tenth of a second behind him.

Besides Hamilton, Max Verstappen at Red Bull and Pierre Gasly at AlphaTauri were also close to Bottas.

However, there was still hope that other pilots had not yet been able to fully unleash the potential of their new machines and find the necessary settings.

Second day

Success in Imola is largely dependent on how the riders show themselves on Saturday in qualifying.

Fighting on the Italian track is extremely difficult, and even last year the fans saw only six overtakes.

So the first segment had barely started when the pilots began to fight for every spot on the starting grid.

For Tsunoda, this fight ended ahead of schedule. He made a mistake when trying to start a fast circle and flew into the protective barrier, thereby stopping the entire session. The rest of the pilots lost a lot of time because of this, and at the end of the segment there was a real traffic jam of those who would like to improve their seconds at the last moment. Mazepin, who had the worst result at that time, was also in this queue.

In such situations, the riders avoid overtaking so as not to interfere with each other, but the Haas driver, being behind Antonio Giovinazzi of Alfa Romeo, violated this tacit agreement. He started the circle at the same time as the Italian and even entered the first corner earlier, thereby ruining the opponent's attempt. Giovinazzi remained 17th and, after qualifying, attacked the Russian with criticism. He justified himself by the fact that the engineers had given him the command to overtake him, and he had almost no time to start his attempt. Mazepin himself did not receive any benefit from this attack - he remained the slowest in the peloton and got 19th place on the starting grid only because of Tsunoda's accident.

If in the first session Hamilton and Bottas confidently showed the best seconds, then in the second the intrigue in qualifying has intensified.

Now both Mercedes drivers were outside the top three, behind Sergio Perez from Red Bull, Lando Norris from McLaren and Charles Leclair from Ferrari.

But in the third segment, when it was already possible to ride on the fastest tires, Hamilton took his toll.

He won his 99th career pole, beating Perez and Verstappen in less than a tenth of a second.

Bottas, on the other hand, could not add up and fell back to eighth place.

Race

On Sunday, all the pilots' plans for the race were upset by the weather. Half an hour before the start, it rained heavily, which quickly ended, but left behind a wet track. Fernando Alonso immediately became her victim - the Spaniard, during the familiarization circle, damaged his front wing. Before the start, Leclair also managed to fly into gravel, and the brakes of Aston Martin pilots Nicholas Latifi and Sebastian Vettel began to smoke. They didn't manage to help the German quickly, and he had to start the race from the pit lane.

Nevertheless, the start of the race was given, and Verstappen managed to immediately remove Hamilton from the first place. The Briton did not have time to answer because of the safety car called on the track - Latifi first flew off the track, and when he continued the race, he crashed into Mazepin and finally crashed his car. While the track was being put in order, the Russian's partner Mick Schumacher also got into an accident - he pulled the steering wheel in a straight line and broke the wing, but was able to stay at a distance. Perez also visited the gravel, and because of this, for some reason he decided that he could return to fourth place in safety car mode, overtaking more accurate rivals. In the future, he received a 10-second penalty for this.

After the restart, Hamilton was never able to regain the lead in the race, and the rain that had started again did not allow hoping for this in the near future.

Leclair quickly fell behind the two of them, but could well be happy with his third place, for which Perez could hardly claim.

Mazepin was driving 18th, but after a long pit stop he let Schumacher go ahead and lagged behind him by as much as 23 seconds.

By the end of the first hour of the race, the weather improved and the drivers began to change their shoes to racing tires.

Before a series of pit stops, Hamilton was able to approach Verstappen at a distance of two seconds, but the Dutchman's team worked better in the pits, and he continued to lead.

Hamilton was getting used to the new tires for a while, when suddenly he flew to the side of the road and got stuck in wet gravel.

With difficulty backing back, he returned to the race, but dropped to seventh position.

While the world champion was driving to the pits for the new front wing, a serious accident occurred on another section of the track. Valtteri Bottas and George Russell of Williams, claiming to be the Finn in Mercedes, caught up on a straight line when the Briton suddenly hit the grass with a wheel, lost control and crashed into Bottas. Together they flew into the barrier and littered the track with the wreckage of their cars. The race had to be stopped, and the riders, dissatisfied with each other, went on foot to the pits.

When the red flags were removed, Verstappen remained first, but behind him was an active fight for the podium. Leclerc was removed from the second line by McLaren pilot Lando Norris, and Perez joined behind the Monegasque. Hamilton was driving eighth and no longer tried to find a loophole for overtaking - in those places where it was possible to attack, the track was still wet. But soon he still climbed a line higher - Perez lost control of the car and flew to the side of the road. He did not damage the car, but instead of the podium he began to fight only for points.

Over time, Hamilton became bolder and consistently bypassed Lance Stroll in Aston Martin and Daniel Riccardo in McLaren. The Briton again joined the fight for the podium, to which he had just over five seconds. 15 laps to the finish was enough for him not only to climb into the top three, but also to return to where he was before his accident. The world champion achieved his goal - having made three more overtakes, he rose to second place. It was too late to fight with Verstappen - the Red Bull pilot was 20 seconds ahead.

As a result, Verstappen won his first victory of the season and 11th in his career. Hamilton, who almost lost everything due to departure from the track, was content with second place and maintaining the leadership in the world championship. Norris moved up to the third place, for whom this podium became the second during his performances in Formula 1. Mazepin was the last to ride the whole race and only thanks to other people's gatherings he was 17th.