A crash on the first lap, a beautiful battle for the win or a solid performance by McLaren: How did Saturday’s sprint go?

Safety car, many overtaking or a beautiful duel for the victory in the penultimate lap of the race – Saturday’s sprint brought an interesting spectacle. Ferrari and Red Bull set a very good pace, but the McLaren team also produced solid results.

Max Verstappen won the first sprint of the season, overtaking Charles Leclerc on the penultimate lap. The latter had started Saturday’s sprint race from second position, but a poor start from Verstappen on the dirt track meant that Leclerc took the top spot immediately after the start.

“Charles had better pace and more speed, but we were very good with the tyres and we were in better condition. Thanks to that, I was closing the gap at the end of the race. Of course I’m happy for today, but we’ll have to wait and see what Sunday’s race brings,” Verstappen said in a post-race interview.

The words of the 24-year-old Red Bull driver were confirmed by Monaco’s Leclerc, who added that his Ferrari had a really solid pace, but the team had not counted on such a big degradation of the tyres. And that’s what made the difference in Saturday’s sprint.

Sergio Pérez will start from third place for Sunday’s main race, with Carlos Sainz on the second row. Both drivers, it must be said, put in an excellent performance. Pérez gained four places from his seventh starting position, while Sainz started from tenth.

The third row on the grid would belong to both McLarens on Sunday, with Lando Norris taking fifth place and Daniel Ricciardo finishing sixth. However, it was the former who made a brilliant start and was already battling with Verstappen for second place after the start.

However, it became clear later in the sprint that despite the resolution of various technical problems, McLaren still could not match the pace of the top two teams.

Valtteri Bottas gave a very nice performance in the Alfa Romeo, crossing the line seventh in the standings. Despite the start, Kevin Magnussen dropped four places and will start the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix from eighth. Fernando Alonso will be breathing down his neck, with Mick Schumacher rounding out the elite ten.

Saturday’s sprint, however, once again showed where the Mercedes team stands in terms of the balance of power. George Russell was even outperformed in the race by Mick Schumacher’s Haas, while Lewis Hamilton gained just one position in twenty-one laps and will start fourteenth.

The Mercedes drivers are separated on the starting grid by Yuki Cunoda in twelfth and Sebastian Vettel in thirteenth. Lance Stroll will start from the fifteenth starting slot on Sunday, with Esteban Ocon sixteenth, Pierre Gasly seventeenth, Alex Albon eighteenth and Nicholas Latifi nineteenth.

From the very tail of the grid, Chinese driver Kuan-yu Zhou will start the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. As you can see in the post above, Zhou retired on the first lap, at Turn 9 in the wall, after contact with Frenchman Gasly.

As a result, yellow flags were immediately waved on the circuit, with race directors calling the safety car to the track. He then pulled back into the pits at the end of the fourth circuit.

We wrote an article earlier about the sprint and the scoring of the top eight drivers at the finish. But in short – Verstappen scored eight points thanks to his sprint win, with eighth-placed Magnussen being the last driver to score points and recording one point.

The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix starts on Sunday 24 April at 15:00 and, given the choice of strategies and the layout of the grid, Sunday’s race promises to be a great spectacle!

Source: F1 TV