Sprint race Sainz shakes off bad blood with a powerful comeback
Emilia Romagna GP Starting grid
Hamilton and Chelsea "It's a great opportunity"
Sainz, until 2024 "You don't know how I laughed in recent weeks"
World Cup 2022 Leclerc, outstanding leader
We have learned that his sister
Sam
instilled in him, at the tender age of five, a passion for Arsenal.
And that his uncle
About him Terry
about him, perhaps because of diversity, always supported Chelsea, the club that precisely he now wants to buy.
We have seen him enduring the football bravado of
Max Verstappen
, a PSV fanatic who would never do anything for Ajax, and smiling like any other weekend, with his dog Roscoe in the
paddock
.
We've heard his vague plans to sign another contract with Mercedes and sensed some of his yelling in the garage with his boss,
Toto Wolff
.
But, above any other eventuality, in Imola we have felt sorry for the neck of
Lewis Hamilton
, victim of a very violent nod in his Mercedes.
Far from the positions of privilege, his aura of invincibility lost, Sir Lewis suffers this year the rigors of mortal pilots.
For the first time since the 2012 Japanese GP, Mercedes has not fielded a car in Q3.
No less than 187 races, spread over a decade.
The angry discussion on Friday between Wolff and Hamilton, camouflaged with the helmet, gave rise to numerous speculations, although none wanted to clarify what happened.
"It's an internal matter and I'm not going to share it. There are things we should have done that we didn't do," Hamilton slipped.
"Our grip literally drops to zero. And this points to the tyres," added Wolff.
The Silver Arrows boss was referring to the difficulty in getting the tires into an optimal operating window.
An inheritance from the past World Cup, in which the FIA already banned DAS, that controversial system with which they had set the standard in 2020. The hot asphalt in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia had concealed these shortcomings, but in Australia everything began to go wrong.
McLaren and Aston Martin
Friday's landing in Imola, with less than 15ºC at the foot of the runway and the rain cooling the floor even more, exacerbated the hardships.
During the chaotic qualifying, with all eyes on the sky and even more rush to set the lap, it was literally impossible for the tires to perform immediately.
So far, in the long race runs, the W13 had still managed to hold its own as the third car on the grid.
At one lap, however, this weekend has been seen behind McLaren, Haas, Alpine, Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin.
To this affront we must add that the two British teams have a Mercedes engine, in theory not as tuned as the one distributed by the Stuttgart giant.
Today there are those who see Hamilton in the same situation as in the 2009 World Cup, when substantial regulatory changes were also introduced.
Then, McLaren did not know how to adapt to the slick tires or the change in width in the wings.
Sir Lewis was coming off his first title but he was out of the points in six of the first nine races.
At least he was able to close the year with two wins and five podium finishes.
In the current situation, that balance could serve as a reference.
nerves in the factory
For this minimum objective, an immediate reaction will be essential in the factories of Brackley and Brixworth.
For two months, the brightest minds in the aerodynamics department have been searching, almost desperately, for a remedy to the devilish
porpoising
.
And although few trust in a panacea, the truth is that the internal environment is far from ideal.
Because the relentless brain drain, which began last spring, not only strengthens the competition, but also undermines the morale of those who decided to stay.
Enduring that pressure overload, typical of the great tyrant of F1 during the last eight seasons, becomes increasingly complicated.
The situation seems critical, but if someone can reverse it, that team is called Mercedes.
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Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes GP
Max Verstappen
McLaren F1