Just another pole and victory for Max Verstappen? Not quite.
Despite the samey on-paper result, the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix stands apart from even
Verstappen’s two other defeats this season.
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In Australia his car retired with brake failure. In Miami his lead was overturned by a safety car.
But in Imola he and Red Bull Racing truly didn’t have the pace to cruise in the way they have for years now.
From Friday practice, through qualifying and into race day, the RB20 lacked its usual edge.
Just consider Sergio Pérez’s results. After an early campaign clinging close to Verstappen, he
slumped to 11th on the grid an a lacklustre eighth at the flag.
The only explanation for Verstappen’s 0.074-second pole margin over Oscar Piastri and slender 0.725-second victory over Lando Norris is pure individual excellence.
It’s why the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix might go down as the weekend the 2024 season finally got going.
This was a weekend on which McLaren was a genuine victory contender. This was a weekend on which Ferrari believed it saw signs of sustainable pace.
This was a weekend on which Red Bull Racing looked meaningfully vulnerable for the first time in years.
“I think naturally McLaren and Ferrari definitely took a big step forward. Now it’s all very close,” Verstappen said.
This was far from another Max Verstappen pole and victory.
IMOLA WRAP: Norris’s epic late charge not enough as Verstappen claims thrilling F1 win; Piastri impresses
MCLAREN CONFIDENT OF WINNING EVERYWHERE
Less than a second split McLaren from Red Bull Racing after 63 laps of racing.
In a grand prix that featured no safety car interruptions and just one pit stop per driver, this was as pure a reflection of race performance as you can get.
Of course Imola is one circuit on a schedule of 24, but it comes after strong McLaren showings in Shanghai and Miami, two radically different layouts.
It’s beginning to look a lot like a trend — and a positive one at that.
“We’re getting there,” Norris said. “I’m not confident enough to say we’re there fighting and
matching [Red Bull Racing] 100 per cent … but we’re closer than we ever have been, and I’m more confident.
“It’s nice to know that were so close and even with their upgrades and with Ferrari’s upgrades we were still better this weekend — a lot of positive signs.”
Piastri, however, was feeling for punchier with his assessment after his first weekend with the full set of McLaren upgrades.
“I’m feeling confident,” he told Sky Sports. “I feel like we should be confident enough to say
wherever we go we can try and fight for a win.
“I think some of the conditions we’ve faced in the last two weekends were the stuff of our
nightmares less than 12 months ago and have now been probably our two strongest races in my time with the team, so personally I think we can be confident wherever we go, which is a very exciting position to be in.
“Of course we’ve got very stiff competition in Red Bull and Ferrari, but we’re well and truly in the mix, and I think we can definitely take the fight to them.”
With 17 races still to go, it bodes well for the season, even if it’s too early to say whether it could affect the championship battle too.
PIASTRI RUES MISSED CHANCE
You have to feel sorry for Piastri.
For the last fortnight teammate Norris has been at the centre of the Formula 1 universe, but there’s a strong case to argue that the Australian has been the better performer.
It was a safety car that propelled Norris ahead and to victory in Miami. In Imola Piastri
comfortably had Norris’s measure but had his front-row start undone by a team error that had him inadvertently block Kevin Magnussen during qualifying. It saw him dropped three places on the grid at a circuit that makes overtaking very difficult.
“We know that Oscar paid the [price for] issue we had yesterday in qualifying, otherwise he
would’ve been on the podium as well,” team boss Andrea Stella told Sky Sports.
In a parallel universe it was Piastri, not Norris, gunning for victory at the weekend. Given he was the faster of the two McLaren drivers — and arguably in Miami too — who’s to say whether the outcome would’ve been different.
“A few ifs leaving this weekend, especially on our side of the garage,” Piastri said
“I think the whole weekend has been really strong for both the team and myself, I think I’ve been confident form the first lap of practice and had a really good qualifying.”
But with so much of the season still to go and with McLaren in fine fettle, the Aussie saw the bright side of the plight that’s left him with a record book unbecoming of his form.
“I think it’s very, very encouraging,” he said. “Miami has been a track we’ve struggled at a lot in the past, and we were incredibly strong. Here we’ve been pretty good at in the past and we were very strong again.
“I think we can be pretty confident wherever we go that we’ll be somewhere towards the front.
“We’ll see if Red Bull find a bit more pace again, but it’s very exciting for the future.”
IS FERRARI RUNNING OUT OF STEAM?
For the second round in a row Charles Leclerc finished a grand prix in third place, and for the
second round in a row that podium result felt a bit flat.
Ferrari started the season as Red Bull Racing’s closest challenger, but then in Miami it was a
McLaren that won the race.
Admittedly the Floridian race was a little odd — it’s a strange track and the result hinged on the timing of the safety car — but in Imola there were fewer places to hide, especially given Ferrari brought a major upgrade package to this race that is clearly attempting to adapt much from Red Bull Racing’s RB20.
The timing of the updates allowed for a direct comparison with McLaren, which had both cars fully upgraded in Italy.
Yet in Imola it was again McLaren taking the fight to Red Bull Racing.
Is Ferrari now the third quickest team?
Leclerc wasn’t buying it, pointing to one key data marker as proof.
“Looking back at the weekend, I’m a bit more optimistic and a bit more positive compared to how I was feeling yesterday,” he said after finishing the race eight seconds off the lead. “Yesterday … we realised it was only on the launch [acceleration] and that McLaren and Red Bull are doing something special with the launch with their engine and they are gaining all of [the time] just there.
“That is giving me optimism, because if we mange to fix that launch, then I think we are in the game for qualifying, and in the race I don’t think there’s much separating us on a day like this.”
He also hinted that Ferrari still had gains to come from the latest upgrade package, which the team has insisted all weekend is targeted more at improving driver confidence than at adding
downforce.
“We need to keep on working, trying and obviously maximise the potential of the car,” he said.
“There is still some to unlock — it’s still relatively new, the upgrade on the car, so there are some things we can do to improve.”
TSUNODA’S IMPRESSIVE RUN CONTINUES HEAPING PRESSURE ON RICCIARDO
This was a good weekend for Daniel Ricciardo. It was also a reality check.
At long last he qualified inside the top 10 for a grand prix for the first time this season, though he couldn’t convert that into his first Sunday score of 2024.
But he was again beaten by teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who not only had his measure but again took home points to bolster RB’s position at the head of the backmarkers on the championship table.
Tsunoda’s excellent 10th place sprung from his superb single-lap pace that split the Mercedes
drivers in seventh on the grid, from where a strong drive despite a 50-lap stint on one set of tyres secured him a precious point.
It brings RB’s tally to 20 points. The team is now 13 points ahead of the next-best Haas in the constructors standings. Remarkably it’s only 24 points behind Aston Martin.
But Ricciardo has scored only five of those points, and his scoreless 13th in Imola did nothing to redress that ratio.
“Obviously from my side I’m sure there’s still a bit to find, but when we had clear air the pace was okay,” he said.
Ricciardo and Tsunoda both had their races compromised by slow starts that cost each of them two positions on the first lap. It’s not the only time the RB car has struggled to get away, and it’s something Ricciardo identified as a key hurdle to him scoring consistently, particularly as it forced him into a strategy that left him stuck behind slower cars at a track around which overtaking is tough.
“In the midfield we’re in it’s now the smaller details,” he said. “Of course it starts with me, but then there are little things, like the start — we work hard for the qualifying position, we need to obviously consolidate that.
“I know there are always what-ifs, but if Yuki and myself took off in positions and stayed in front of [Nico] Hülkenberg — he’s the best example — I feel we could’ve stayed in front the whole race and probably gone a little bit better with the pack.
“I’m not saying we had the pace of the top eight cars, but our race looks completely different. Small details I think make big differences, but we do have a decent package, so it’s now those one percenters.”
There are certainly signs of life in Ricciardo’s season since his China chassis change, but with
Tsunoda yet again rising to the challenge, the Aussie will need to dig deeper still to keep himself in the 2025 conversation.