So, shall we just have all the races in Italy then?..
Lewis Hamilton extended his championship lead with a hard-earned victory at the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix, ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas and Alexander Albon, who earned his – and Thailand’s – first ever F1 podium.
Whilst it was Bottas who had looked on top for much of the weekend, Hamilton snatched pole position by a few hundredths of a second on Saturday. He got off the line badly, however, and was easily beaten to the first corner by Bottas. He may well have fallen further back in the pack but for Max Verstappen’s engine issues – the Red Bull driver pulled alongside Hamilton but suddenly lost power and caused those behind him to get off the gas.
Things went from bad to worse for Verstappen as – now back in the midfield – he was caught up in one of two crashes at Turn Two. Pierre Gasly found himself sandwiched between Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean and the now interlocked cars collected the Dutchman with only Räikkönen avoiding the gravel trap. Grosjean somehow escaped back to the circuit, but the race was over for Verstappen – his second successive retirement – and Gasly – from first at Monza to last at Mugello.
Meanwhile, just ahead of that crash, slight contact between Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz had seen the McLaren spin round and collect the hapless Sebastian Vettel. The pair would at least make it back to the pits whilst the safety car had been deployed.
Mugello’s set of crashes was far from over though.
Barely seconds after the safety car had peeled in, there was a massive, multi-car pile-up before most had even crossed the start/finish line. Bottas had not put the pedal to the metal until the last minute – to minimise the slipstream effect for those behind – but confusion reigned behind as drivers saw some in front accelerating. The concertina effect, from drivers realising they had gone too early and braking, led to Antonio Giovinazzi and Sainz slamming into those ahead of them at terrifying speeds.
Fortunately, nobody was hurt, but Giovinazzi, Sainz, Kevin Magnussen and Nicholas Latifi were all out the race. Inevitably, this brought out a red flag.
When the drivers lined up for the restart, there were just 13 cars remaining as Esteban Ocon’s Renault had also been forced into retirement with irreparably damaged brakes which had literally been on fire during the safety car period.
As the lights went out for the second time, the Mercedes switched places again, Hamilton getting into the slipstream of his teammate and completing a crucial move around the outside of Turn One. Behind them, Charles Leclerc had got himself up into an unlikely third but would fall back steadily as the Ferrari’s lack of pace became evident at what was turning into a predictably tainted 1000th race for the Scuderia.
Renault successfully executed an undercut at the first stops to get Daniel Ricciardo past Stroll into third place, whilst Albon had recovered from a poor restart and was back up to fifth, behind the Canadian. As the trio navigated the high-speed Arrabbiata corners, Stroll suffered a left-rear failure and crashed heavily, completing the rare event where all three podium finishers from the previous race fail to complete the next. Once again, the driver escaped unscathed and, once again, the red flag was shown.
No red flag for three years and then suddenly three in the space of seven days.
And so, the drivers lined up for their third start of the day, Bottas knowing he just had to repeat his feat from the original start to all but wrap up the race win. He didn’t manage it, though – possibly hampered by the tyre marbles that now adorned the left side of the circuit – and, in fact, fell behind Ricciardo.
He was soon back ahead but could do nothing to close down his teammate, who rubbed salt into the wound with an unerring fastest lap on the penultimate tour. The world champion is now just one win short of Michael Schumacher’s record and seemed quite overwhelmed by the proposition of matching it. “It just doesn’t seem real,” he said, “it’s ultimately a privilege to be in a position and have such a great team and a car to be able to deliver weekend in, weekend out. But I never thought that I would be here, that’s for sure.”
It was once again so near and yet so far for Ricciardo and Renault as Albon banished memories of his former podium near-misses and passed the Australian around the outside of Turn One to finally claim that elusive trip to the rostrum.
Hopefully the amiable 24-year-old can use this as a stepping stone to get his season back on track. We’ve seen how good he can be on a Sunday – two instinctive, brave moves earned him this podium finish – but he must improve in qualifying to help cement his position within the team. Red Bull want their second driver to at least be within the pit window of the Mercedes cars and there are rumours beginning to swirl of them considering Pérez or Nico Hülkenberg for next year.
Pérez himself came home a solid fifth – at his first race since discovering he would be replaced at Racing Point by Vettel in 2021 – ahead of Lando Norris, on a surprisingly uncompetitive weekend for McLaren, and Daniil Kvyat.
The Ferraris did at least salvage a double-points finish at their celebratory weekend, but that is not much of an achievement when only 12 cars reach the chequered flag, one of them being a Williams and the other a wounded Haas. They were, at least spared the ignominy of being passed by George Russell for the final point.
Russell was distraught to have missed out on his first F1 points. He had been running a strong ninth when the final red flag was shown and lost out on the restart, but the team are making progress and Russell’s time will come.
Dissecting That Crash
Post-race, 12 drivers were summoned to the stewards and given warnings for their “inconsistent application of throttle and brake, from the final corner along the pit straight”. But when you punish more than half of the grid, surely the rules have to be looked at too.
In the immediate aftermath, Hamilton blamed the incident on the safety car turning its lights off too late. Apparently this is a concern that Mercedes had raised about the restart procedure before the race, given Mugello’s layout, but Bottas claims that “they said basically they’re going to keep doing it because it’s better for the show, I think that was the reply”.
Bottas may well have controlled the pack similarly anyway – it was an approach taken by drivers in the junior formulae – but the fact that the safety car only turned its lights off as it entered the final corner clearly left him with no alternative. Once that was the case, the concertina effect was always likely given the lack of visibility and the astonishing closing speeds in these cars.
The onboard footage from Giovinazzi and Sainz was disturbingly reminiscent of horrific accidents in the past, such as the one that sadly cost Billy Monger his legs, and we were lucky that seemingly the only injury was a bruised hand for the Spaniard. Clearly, none of the drivers are predominantly to blame – here is an excellent step-by-step breakdown of exactly what happened – and, whilst Michael Masi claims that “safety is paramount”, the fact that he refuses even to review the restart procedures has a stench of arrogance.
This absolutely needs to be addressed by the FIA and the GDPA. Whether it be a case of returning to the safety car lights going out earlier or even a mandatory VSC period immediately after the safety car comes in, there must be a better solution than the one we saw at Mugello.
The Tuscan Grand Prix in 90 Seconds (It Needs the Extra 30)
Answering the Burning Questions
How do you follow the last grand prix?! Well, like that, actually.
Will the drivers manage any overtaking around the Mugello track? Quite a bit, yes. The headwind helped make the DRS zone very effective.
Can Mercedes bounce back from their messy weekend? Of course they can.
Can Ferrari produce anything worthy of the occasion on their 1000th race? Of course they can’t.
