Champagne flowed everywhere for McLaren as the fun-loving Aussie, Daniel Ricciardo forced team mate Lando Norris to ‘do-a-shoey’, by drinking from his racing boot on the podium!
The ‘shoey’ and a Ricciardo-win were last experienced in 2018 for Red Bull Racing, as the man from Perth, switched teams to Renault and now, McLaren. It was his eighth career victory and the first in Italy. On the radio he reminded everyone, “I never left. Just moved aside for a while.”
Formula 1’s Managing Director Ross Brawn, was full of praise for Ricciardo. “He is a real asset to Formula 1. He’s a great driver and a great personality. It’s wonderful to see him win. And it was deserved — as he didn’t put a foot wrong all weekend.”
Unbelievably, it was the first one-two finish by any team this season. That shows this year will definitely go down as a hotly contested one, not only between Mercedes and Red Bull but by McLaren and Ferrari too. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr came home in P4 and P6 respectively although the Italian marque struggled against McLaren’s impressive form.
McLaren were so solid in Monza that they even covered off the top two championship contenders convincingly. Lewis Hamilton ultimately passed Lando Norris on track, but his slow pit stop saw the papaya-orange cars overcut his strategy to regain position. While Formula 1 hailed its fifth different winner of 2021, it also witnessed another controversial and dramatic race-ending clash between the title rivals. The race stewards deemed that Verstappen was predominantly at fault this time, for causing a collision and penalised him with a three-place grid drop in Russia, up next.
The incident was the result of two fiercely competitive drivers, fighting for the same narrow piece of tarmac between Turn 1 and Turn 2 at Autodromo Nazionale Monza. That tangle left us with an unforgettable image of Verstappen’s RBR16B perched over the halo of Hamilton’s W12 in the gravel!
But the image of a one-two victory was McLaren’s to savour. The Russian Grand Prix at Sochi favours Valtteri Bottas. Will the quiet Finn become the sixth different winner of 2021?
Round 15 | Russia | Sunday, 26 September
5.30 pm | LIVE on Disney+ Hotstar
(The writer, an F1 enthusiast covers the 2021 FIA Formula One Championship exclusively for Indulge.)