Max Verstappen holds off Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to take his 4th consecutive win at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix from the Imola circuit. Max took the lead at turn one and never looked back while the McLaren’s struggled to reel him in for a sniff at the top step.
Sometimes it takes luck and Max certainly got that with a free pit stop during the Virtual Safety Car period and then later, he benefitted from a late Safety Car to put on fresh tires to take the win.
While the race might suggest that the Max’s Red Bull finally had good long-run race pace and far less tire issues than we’ve see in the past, I still think the McLaren’s had better race pace but with the timing of the VSC and SC, Max had fortune smiling upon him.
To counter my assertion, one might consider that McLaren’s race pace in Miami was comprehensibly better than Red Bull’s and I may be correct assuming that Red Bull has solved it’s tire heat issues over the race but I’d also argue that what we might be seeing is simply the effect of the difference a circuit can have on the performance of the car.
That’s not to take anything away from what the Red Bull team achieved in car setup over the weekend, however, and for their sake, I do hope they have found much better long-run pace to keep this season spicy.
Win
A big win for Red Bull and Max as they were spanked in Miami so coming back to Europe and taking a win at Imola is a massive achievement. They had no help from Yuki Tsunoda on Saturday but he did managed to claw his way from a pit lane start to P10 for a point.
A win for Ferrari who managed to salvage their miserable qualifying to claim P4 and P6 for Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc respectively. They needed some results to keep the throng of Tifosi calm and they managed it thanks to the VSC and SC. Although Charles lost our on the VSC session.
A win for Williams with both cars in the points for Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz delivering a P5 and P8 finish respectively. It was great to see Alex battle Charles and it brought back memories of the Williams v Ferrari days.
Also a win for Isack Hadjar and Racing Bulls for a tidy P9 finish in the points. The reality is, maybe Red Bull should be giving Hadjar a call to have a go in the second seat alongside Max.
Fail
Fail might be a bit harsh due to the luck of the SC for Max but it wasn’t a win for McLaren and you have to think they discussed Max’s move into T1 and reckoned they had the race pace to let him force his way into the lead and then play the long game relying on their race pace to eventually take the win. This would be a lesson learned from Miami. However, it didn’t play out that way and Max had pace that McLaren probably weren’t banking on. Nor were they banking on Max getting two free pit stops. There will be some questions as to why they didn’t stack the cars for the final SC period as this allowed Lando to get past Oscar.
A fail for Mercedes with Kimi Antonelli struggling all weekend and then ending his race with a DNF. Also, George Russell struggled all day losing places to finish in P7. He didn’t benefit from the SC sessions as much as others and was struggling with something that wasn’t feeling right in the rear suspension of his car. Clearly Toto can’t skip races. 😉
A fail for Aston Martin who had a great qualifying only to drift backwards and miss out on some of the luck the SC sessions afforded others. Fernando Alonso sunk to P11 with Lance Stroll down in P15. A shame because their upgrades seemed like they were helping quite a bit.
Also a fail for both Alpine and Haas with both teams sinking to the back and Esteban Ocon suffering a DNF in his Haas car. It was also not a great debut for Franco Colapinto’s return to F1.
WTH
Not sure about Ferrari telling Charles Leclerc to give back a position to Alex Albon as the stewards reviewed and issued no penalty but then he had let Alex through so maybe that’s why there was no penalty.
Unfortunately I am not sure what Liam Lawson is struggling with but he is comprehensively being outshone by Hadjar and this doesn’t bode well for his F1 career.
MARIO ISOLA – PIRELLI DIRECTOR OF MOTORSPORT“An exciting incident-packed race brought a very busy weekend to a close, which for us featured the outright debut of the new C6 compound. Now, it will be important to analyse all the data from these three days thoroughly, as it should provide useful insights for coming races, especially in terms of tyre compound allocation for races in the second half of the season. “What we can say right now is that the decision to go with a trio of compounds one step softer than last year proved to be the right one. If we look at the first part of the race, as the second was affected by neutralisations, we saw that in a situation where all the drivers were managing their pace in the opening stint, it only required one of them to make an unexpected move – in this case Leclerc pitting early on lap 10 – to trigger changes in strategy. Some chose to extend the first stint as much as possible, obviously going for a one-stop race, while others realised that the Ferrari driver’s undercut worked very well and were forced to react. In fact, on fresh tyres and with a clear track ahead of him, Leclerc made up a lot of places. “Of course, what happened in the second part of the race makes it hard to know for certain to what extent such an early pit stop would have paid off, or if the move would have forced those who did so into switching to a two-stop strategy. It means that, in general, the decision to go with softer tyres still opened the door to more choices, both in terms of the number of stops and the length of the stints.” |
Imola GP Results:
|
Pos |
No |
Driver |
Car |
Laps |
Time/retired |
Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
1 |
Max Verstappen |
Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT |
63 |
1:31:33.199 |
25 |
|
2 |
4 |
Lando Norris |
McLaren Mercedes |
63 |
+6.109s |
18 |
|
3 |
81 |
Oscar Piastri |
McLaren Mercedes |
63 |
+12.956s |
15 |
|
4 |
44 |
Lewis Hamilton |
Ferrari |
63 |
+14.356s |
12 |
|
5 |
23 |
Alexander Albon |
Williams Mercedes |
63 |
+17.945s |
10 |
|
6 |
16 |
Charles Leclerc |
Ferrari |
63 |
+20.774s |
8 |
|
7 |
63 |
George Russell |
Mercedes |
63 |
+22.034s |
6 |
|
8 |
55 |
Carlos Sainz |
Williams Mercedes |
63 |
+22.898s |
4 |
|
9 |
6 |
Isack Hadjar |
Racing Bulls Honda RBPT |
63 |
+23.586s |
2 |
|
10 |
22 |
Yuki Tsunoda |
Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT |
63 |
+26.446s |
1 |
|
11 |
14 |
Fernando Alonso |
Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes |
63 |
+27.250s |
0 |
|
12 |
27 |
Nico Hulkenberg |
Kick Sauber Ferrari |
63 |
+30.296s |
0 |
|
13 |
10 |
Pierre Gasly |
Alpine Renault |
63 |
+31.424s |
0 |
|
14 |
30 |
Liam Lawson |
Racing Bulls Honda RBPT |
63 |
+32.511s |
0 |
|
15 |
18 |
Lance Stroll |
Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes |
63 |
+32.993s |
0 |
|
16 |
43 |
Franco Colapinto |
Alpine Renault |
63 |
+33.411s |
0 |
|
17 |
87 |
Oliver Bearman |
Haas Ferrari |
63 |
+33.808s |
0 |
|
18 |
5 |
Gabriel Bortoleto |
Kick Sauber Ferrari |
63 |
+38.572s |
0 |
|
NC |
12 |
Kimi Antonelli |
Mercedes |
44 |
DNF |
0 |
|
NC |
31 |
Esteban Ocon |
Haas Ferrari |
27 |
DNF |
0 |
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