Lewis Hamilton WINS Emilia Romagna Grand Prix – and Mercedes takes Constructors’ title

Lewis Hamilton WINS Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola as Mercedes grab the constructors’ title for a record-breaking seventh year in a row.

With a front row start for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, and the headline stating ‘Hamilton Wins’, it sounds like an easy trot round Imola for Hamilton to add to his 2020 tally of wins. But it wasn’t quite like that.

In fact, from second place on the grid, Hamilton was back in third – behind Bottas and Verstappen – in the blink of an eye, and with Imola a tough overtake it looked like it would take something special from Hamilton to take a win.

That ‘something special’ saw Hamilton stay out for 11 more laps as Verstappen and Bottas stopped for tyres on lap 18 and, despite worn tyres, quickly built a 28-second lead by the time he stopped to change tyres, doing so as the virtual safety car was deployed to recover Ocon’s stranded Renault, returning to the track in the lead.

From there Hamilton cruised to victory – controlling the restart from a late safety car after Verstappen crashed out – with Bottas finishing in second – despite a lump of Ferrari bodywork embedded in his car  – and Daniel Ricciardo took the final podium place.

Behind the top three, Kvyat held on to take fourth place, Leclerc fifth, Perez sixth, Sainz and Norris seventh and eight for McLaren, Raikkonen ninth and Giovinazzi securing the final points place for Alfa.

In the process of delivering a Mercedes one-two, Mercedes took the Constructors’ title for a record-breaking seventh year in succession, and Hamilton looks set to secure another Drivers’ title in Turkey in a fortnight.