After Charles Leclerc and Ferrari utterly dominated the Australian Grand Prix to grab an early advantage in the 2022 Formula 1 season, Max Verstappen and Red Bull repaid the favour at Imola – profiting from both the sprint race format and Leclerc’s late error at the Variante Alta.
F1 returned to Europe for the first time since the tentative days of the opening pre-season test in Barcelona which marked the start of the new rules era, and while the tifosi turned out in numbers for another Ferrari show, it was Red Bull who made all the headlines.
Elsewhere, McLaren demonstrated its early season struggles have been resolved as Lando Norris returned to the podium, but the same cannot be said for Mercedes despite George Russell’s creditable fourth place.
Here are 10 things we learned from the 2022 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Red Bull missed out on taking a maximum haul by just one point, as Verstappen pulled off a Grand Slam
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
1. Red Bull is far from out of title contention
At Imola, Red Bull produced the perfect response to its Australian Grand Prix shocker – where Max Verstappen couldn’t match Charles Leclerc for ultimate pace or in-race tyre management even before his retirement.
In Italy, it was the reverse. Red Bull was able to switch on its tyres better than its red rival, which Verstappen used to grab his first pole of 2022. Then in the sprint and later in the GP, his tyres stayed in better shape while Leclerc’s rubber grained – by that stage in the second race the championship leader was fighting Sergio Perez after his slow wet start on the less grippy side of the grid.
Red Bull also took the risk of running updates even with the reduced practice running on the sprint weekend, which Ferrari did not, and seemed pleased with the results of its new floor keel winglet and revised brake cooling. Critically, no reliability gremlins threatened Verstappen’s masterful run to double victory, while the RB18 is now closer to…
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