You had long odds of beating Max Verstappen out of pole position at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix after Red Bull's horrific Friday practice.
The RB20 was out of sorts on the bumpy Imola circuit as simulator driver Sébastien Buemi laid out the tough sections overnight into Saturday to turn the car around, with performance improving in FP3 and then in qualifying, where Verstappen snatched one of his best 39 poles.
In what was an uneventful race, the Dutchman almost fended off a late attack from Lando Norris to preserve victory to record his 59th career victory and equal Michael Schumacher's three consecutive victories in Ferrari's backyard.
As for the Scuderia, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz only finished third and fifth on a weekend that slowly faded away.
But we start winners and losers with the winner of the race.
Winner – Max Verstappen
Longtime readers of this article will know this writer's reluctance to place Verstappen as the winner when he simply pinned him on the pole and drove away – but this was one of the best weekends of Verstappen's career.
Red Bull was virtually nowhere to be seen on Friday, but bounced back with a stunning lap from the front, then after setting off in the first stint, Verstappen was bumped by Norris in the closing laps.
Lap time data shows that from lap 49 of lap 63, Norris began to chip away at chunks of time from the Red Bull, going nearly half a second faster per lap at times to close the gap.
This was because Verstappen was struggling with heat retention on the hard tires and was also facing the threat of a track limits penalty after three offences.
But he stopped the flow of losing lap time for Norris and was able to hold on by less than a second at the end.
If the RB20 had taken Verstappen to victories earlier in the season, this time he has managed to pull a result out of it and his 59th win is considered one of his best.
Loser – George Russell
George Russell refused to be “bothered” after the race after finishing seventh, one point behind Lewis Hamilton, despite being the best of the Mercedes drivers over the weekend.
In fact, after overtaking qualifying Hamilton and taking the lead into the first stint, Russell was pulled over in a second surprise pit stop on lap 52, leaving him with 11 laps to make up more than 20 seconds on Hamilton.
He closed the gap to 12.050 seconds and also took the fastest lap, with the team hinting that a safety call was behind the decision.
On the bright side, Russell felt it wasn't worth getting worked up about as the result wasn't for a podium or a win, but just another blow of frustration for a driver trying to make a Mercedes. for him a team.
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Winner – McLaren
The two McLarens were finally armed with the full Miami upgrade package at Imola, and Oscar Piastri and Norris made good use of it to qualify second and third on the road, before Piastri's penalty.
That marked the end of Piastri's challenge as he started from fifth place, and also the end of McLaren's challenge as he was unable to play any strategy games with Verstappen with his two cars.
But Norris' late pace in catching Verstappen was eye-catching on a weekend in which Ferrari found themselves in disarray.
The McLaren is arguably the second fastest car now as the third massive update in 12 months has achieved exactly what it intended.
As Norris said, the team must now “get used” to fighting to win.
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Loser – Aston Martin / Fernando Alonso
Another team to make a big upgrade to Imola was Aston Martin – but it turned into a terrible weekend for Fernando Alonso.
It was probably his worst weekend since his return to Formula 1 in 2021, as he crashed in FP3 and eliminated the first section of the race, after setting the 20th and slowest time after exiting with full fuel tanks.
He started from the pit lane after setting changes, but the 63 laps effectively turned into a testing session for the team whose early 2023 progress had stalled somewhat, although Lance Stroll put in a good performance to take two points to his name. ninth.
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Winner – Yuki Tsunoda
With each passing race, Daniel Ricciardo's place in the right-back team looks more precarious, and the reason for this is a similar performance by Yuki Tsunoda.
A tenth place finish from seventh on the grid may have been a bit disappointing, but the Japanese rider still claimed points for the fourth time in seven races.
Splitting Mercedes in qualifying with a car that was somewhat slower, in theory, than the W15 was remarkable for a rapidly maturing and consistent driver.
Tsunoda now has 15 points to his name, four more than Stroll, and two more than the other nine drivers from the bottom five teams.
Red Bull may have doubts about Tsunoda, but back in the day, surely he would have gotten his chance in the first team based on a performance like this?
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Loser – Sergio Perez
Then we have Sergio Perez – the driver who is hoping this is just a simple performance.
Coming out of Q2 wasn't good enough, and an early exit at Turn 17 undid some good early work.
It happened around the start of the European season 12 months ago when Perez fell off a cliff, and he must not allow a similar dive to happen this time.
He has had a strong start to the season, and he must take advantage of that so that this does not become the beginning of a career that could end his career with Red Bull.
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