RACE REVIEW IMOLA
A heartbreaking race for the Honda-powered teams, with hopes of a second place finish dashed in the closing stages, was brightened by an excellent drive from Daniil to pick up a fourth place for Scuderia AlphaTauri at Imola. Max made an excellent start to run second behind Valtteri Bottas, while Pierre was attacking Lewis Hamilton for third but had to back out and dropped behind Daniel Ricciardo at Turn 2. Running fifth, unfortunately a coolant issue meant we had to retire Pierre’s car early on. After the race, the AlphaTauri team traced the fault to a crack in a radiator. Alex dropped to seventh at the start and was back up to sixth after Pierre’s retirement, but was forced into an early pit stop after Charles Leclerc went for an undercut. Stopping on lap 14 for hard tyres - with Daniil doing the same right behind him - Alex held position in a net sixth. Max stopped for hard tyres on lap 18 in an attempt to undercut Bottas who was struggling with a damaged car, but Mercedes responded a lap later and just stayed ahead. Hamilton then ran long and a fortunately-timed Virtual Safety Car when Esteban Ocon retired meant he could make his pit stop and retain the lead. Despite the difficulty of overtaking at Imola, Max kept the pressure up on Bottas and eventually forced him into a mistake, passing around the outside into Tamburello on lap 43 to take second place. While Max was able to match Hamilton’s pace, he was over ten seconds adrift by that point and looked to be cruising home in second place when a sudden right rear tyre failure took him out of the race. That caused the Safety Car to be deployed, and Red Bull opted to leave Alex out while AlphaTauri stopped Daniil for fresh softs. The race restarted with six laps remaining and Daniil was sensational on the restart on soft tyres, passing both Sergio Perez - who had also stopped for softs - and Alex immediately to run fifth. Unfortunately Alex then spun on cold tyres and dropped to the back of the field, finishing 15th as the incident happened so late on. Ahead, Daniil then pulled a stunning move around the outside of Leclerc for fourth at Turn 9 to make it three places gained in one lap before putting pressure on Ricciardo, finishing 0.8s adrift of the podium at the chequered flag.
TOYOHARU TANABE
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, HONDA F1
Overall, this was a disappointing race for us, although there were some positive aspects, with Daniil making the most of the opportunity provided by the Safety Car period at the end to give AlphaTauri an excellent fourth place at their home race. In addition, both our teams were competitive all weekend, Max running second before his retirement caused by a tyre problem and Pierre qualifying fourth yesterday. However, losing second place right at the end is very frustrating as was having to retire Pierre with a failed radiator. Finally, congratulations to Mercedes on a seventh consecutive title. They are a very strong team but we continue to work hard with the aim of catching and passing them. Now we focus on the next round in Turkey, at the Istanbul Park circuit, which is a great track for Formula 1 cars.
Word from the drivers:
https://en.hondaracingf1.com/races/2020 ... racereview
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