The first Sprint of the 2022 Formula 1 season took place today at the Imola circuit in dry conditions as opposed to the wet qualifying session on Friday.
A perfect start for Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc (with soft tyres) who got the better of Max Verstappen and overtook the Red Bull driver before they reach the first corner. The Italian crowd loved it and the Ferrari led! But that was all the action we got at the start, as the Alfa Romeo car of Zhou Guanyu was out of the Sprint after a clash with Pierre Gasly. The Frenchman went to the pits and made some big changes after that contact.
It was a good start for the other Ferrari too as Carlos Sainz jumped two positions to eighth. Not such good news for Mercedes, George Russell dropped back a place to P12, while Lewis Hamilton lost two places and was 15th when the safety car was deployed
The Safety Car came in and we resumed on lap five of 21 with Cahrles Leclerc in front of Max Verstappen: the Monegasque did a great job of dropping Verstappen and immediately established a bit of space to his Red Bull rival. Carlos Sainz took Fernando Alonso and moved up into seventh position – he emerged out of the Tamburello chicane ahead and the Tifosi roar was incredible! As Charles Leclerc set the fastest lap with a 1.19.044, Carlos Sainz continued his recovery with a nice pass on Kevin Magnussen. Two laps later, the Spanish driver got past Daniel Ricciardo in the DRS zone and had only Lando Norris between himself and the Red Bull cars.
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Charles Leclerc tried to hold off Max Verstappen in the final laps of the Sprint, but the F1-75 struggled with graining issues. Max Verstappen went round the outside of the Ferrari driver into Turn 1 at the end of the DRS zone and led with one lap to go. On a more positive note, Carlos Sainz made up six places in this sprint race as he also passed Lando Norris for fourth.
The 2021 F1 world champions thus wins after a late pass, with Charles Leclerc second, Sergio Perez third, and Carlos Sainz who completed a fine recovery job to rise from P10 to fourth.
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