Max Verstappen was back to winning ways this weekend

Finlay McSporran
Published: 21:22, 19th May 2024

However this win wasn’t as commanding as Redbull might have hoped for

Race Start

Verstappen had a good launch off the line and just about beat Norris to turn one. The top 5 remained in the same position with Verstappen leading from Norris, Leclerc, Sainz and Piastry, with Nico Hulkenberg moving up from 10th to 8th in the Haas.

Within a few laps Verstappen was already gone, having broke out of DRS range as the race started to settle down.

Mid Race

On lap 9 there were problems for Alex Albon as he came on the radio to report that his tyre wasn’t on properly after making his pit stop one lap before, forcing him to trundle back to the pits which ruined his race.

Further up the order, Oscar Piastry was now within DRS range of Carlos Sainz and had been for a few laps but couldn’t find a a way past the Ferrari. On lap 24 he came into the pits to try and undercut Sainz which worked perfectly as Ferrari were late to react, pitting Sainz on lap 28 which resulted in him coming out behind Piastry who was now up into 4th.

By lap 42, things had remained pretty much the same as they were 14 laps ago, with the only differences being Sergio Perez who was now clear of Tsunoda and up into 8th, while Kevin Magnussen was steadily making his way up the order having started 18th.

Out in front, the gap between Norris and Verstappen was around 6 seconds, with Norris starting to come under pressure from Leclerc who was now in DRS range of the McLaren.

On lap 47 a mistake from Leclerc saw hm cut the chicane at turn 14 which put him out of DRS range. While this was happening, Verstappen had came on the radio to report that he was struggling with his tyres, saying “my tyres don’t work”.

Verstappens struggles were clear to see, as the gap between himself and Norris plummeted from 6 seconds on lap 42, to just 1.5 seconds on lap 58, as it looked like for the first time in a while we had a race on our hands.

Final Laps

It looked like Norris was going for his second win in a row, with the gap being less than a second on the final lap. But Verstappen just managed to hold onto P1, winning the race by just 7 tenths of a second in one of the closest finishes we’ve seen in a while.

While on paper it might have looked like just another lights to flag victory for Verstappen, this was the first time that he’d had to work for it, and hopefully marks a return to closer, more exciting races.

Behind them, Charles Leclerc came home in 3rd place in front of the adoring Tifosi, which was Ferrari first podium at this circuit since Michael Schumacher won here in 2006.

Elsewhere on the grid, Lance stroll finished 9th for Aston Martin with teammate Alonso retiring on lap 61 to conclude a disappointing weekend for the team.

Yuki Tsunoda finished 10th to bag another point for RB, and finished just 2 places behind Perez in the Redbull, in what was a very disappointing weekend for him as he seems to be back to his 2023 ways of poor qualifying performances and being massively off the pace compared to his teammate.

Finally, the Haas pair of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen finished 11th and 12th respectively, with Magnussen putting in a good recovery drive from 18th and Hulkenberg just missing out on points.

Race Results

POS	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT	63	1:25:25.252	25
2	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	63	+0.725s	18
3	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	63	+7.916s	15
4	Oscar Piastri	MCLAREN MERCEDES	63	+14.132s	12
5	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	63	+22.325s	10
6	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	63	+35.104s	8
7	George Russell	MERCEDES	63	+47.154s	7
8	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT	63	+54.776s	4
9	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	63	+79.556s	2
10	Yuki Tsunoda	RB HONDA RBPT	62	+1 lap	1
11	Nico Hulkenberg	HAAS FERRARI	62	+1 lap	0
12	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	62	+1 lap	0
13	Daniel Ricciardo	RB HONDA RBPT	62	+1 lap	0
14	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	62	+1 lap	0
15	Zhou Guanyu	KICK SAUBER FERRARI	62	+1 lap	0
16	Pierre Gasly	ALPINE RENAULT	62	+1 lap	0
17	Logan Sargeant	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	62	+1 lap	0
18	Valtteri Bottas	KICK SAUBER FERRARI	62	+1 lap	0
19	Fernando Alonso	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	62	+1 lap	0
NC	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	51	DNF	0

Next up

Next week the F1 circus heads to Monaco for round 8 of this years Formula one season, and if this weekends results is anything to go by, it should be a lot closer at the front than we’ve been use to in recent years.