How Verstappen went from “not fast enough” to “too quick” in Imola GP triumph

“I think even if we’d started on pole, Max was too quick for us,” mused Lando Norris after finishing second, 6.109s behind Max Verstappen as the world champion romped to victory from second on the grid at Imola. It was a weekend which marked a potential turning point in the established narratives of the 2025 season.

Lando was, as is the wont of racing drivers, using the royal ‘we’ there, since his team-mate Oscar Piastri did start from pole while Norris was fourth on the grid. But Piastri’s lead lasted no further than the first corner and this was not a race which panned out along the lines of Miami, where a McLaren could simply sit back in such a situation and pick off the car ahead at a moment of their choosing.

The signs were there even after Max made up for a slow initial getaway by launching an audacious pass around the outside into Tamburello as Piastri (by his own admission) braked too early. He quickly broke out of DRS range – and yet those conditioned by the order of race pace so far this season might still have thought the McLaren driver was playing the long game, right up until he pitted to get off the medium Pirellis at the end of lap 13.

It wasn’t a quick stop but even if it had been, Piastri would still have emerged in traffic. Meanwhile Norris had taken 11 laps to get past George Russell’s Mercedes, leaving him 8s behind the leader.

Later on Verstappen had some luck with safety cars, real and virtual, but this was never a case of him just clinging on to a lead against the odds.

The reversal from Friday was spectacular. There, Verstappen had complained about being overtaken by the McLarens while they were on their race simulations in practice.

"We tried a lot of bits, some worked better than others but, yeah, overall not fast enough at the moment," was Max’s take.

After a superb first turn overtake on Piastri, Verstappen simply pressed ahead as his Red Bull proved superior to McLaren at Imola

Photo by: Lars Baron / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

In this sentiment he was echoed by Red Bull ‘driver advisor’ Helmut Marko, who described Friday’s performance as “disappointing”, given the team had introduced a new sidepod and engine cover configuration to complement the revised floor added in Miami.

"McLaren is still, from what it looks like, four-tenths ahead. That’s quite a lot on this track," said Marko. "We have made some progress with our updates, but basically we haven’t come much closer. The fact remains that McLaren is absolutely superior."

What a difference a day or two makes. With Piastri consigned to a slog through traffic, Max had clear air and no hovering papaya presence in his rear-view mirrors. By lap 15 Norris was 10.2s behind and not appearing to make any inroads into the lead – still, though, it was difficult to shake the impression that Norris was simply digging in to extend the first stint on Pirelli’s medium tyre, last year’s softest choice at this venue.

"The key for us is free air and going long," race engineer Will Joseph.

Verstappen got an inexpensive pitstop at the end of lap 29, emerging with double the gap to Norris he’d previously enjoyed. But the focus here should not be on Max striking it lucky in terms of pitstop timing, but in the absence of McLaren’s usual advantage in tyre management

And yet Verstappen was – crucially – able to go longer still. Norris pitted at the end of lap 28; moments later, Esteban Ocon’s Haas coughed its last as he exited Tosa, and he lurched to a halt on the grass. Race control opted to cover its removal with a Virtual Safety Car which was to prove the undoing of the majority of the drivers who had pitted in the laps immediately prior.

Verstappen therefore got an inexpensive pitstop at the end of lap 29, emerging with double the gap to Norris he’d previously enjoyed. But the focus here should not be on Max striking it lucky in terms of pitstop timing, but in the absence of McLaren’s usual advantage in tyre management.

Piastri had fought doggedly past the likes of Oliver Bearman, Yuki Tsunoda (running a long first stint on hards having started from the pitlane in a freshly built car after his qualifying crash, and with explicit instructions to hold Piastri up), Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg (also running long first stints on the hards), Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Isack Hadjar, reaching fourth place behind Verstappen, Norris and Alex Albon before the VSC. But the time lost to traffic meant he stayed over 30s off the lead – no chance of undercutting Max even before the course neutralisation.

After an early pitstop, Piastri spent most of his afternoon charging through traffic

Photo by: Peter Fox / Getty Images

McLaren took advantage of the VSC to bring Piastri in for another stop, since he had a second new set of hards available – Norris didn’t – and the drivers he’d recently overtaken had all stopped too so he remained in net fourth place. That became third at the beginning of lap 40 as he breezed past Albon under DRS.

Five laps later Antonelli’s Mercedes died underneath him, also at Tosa, and this required a full Safety Car to be deployed because there is only room for one car in the gap behind the barriers there and that was still occupied by Ocon’s moribund Haas. So while the earlier VSC period had lasted just three laps, here Bernd Maylander controlled the pace for eight.

Red Bull took advantage of the opportunity for another cheap pitstop since Verstappen had enough in hand over Piastri to come out ahead – and Norris was insistent that he pit too, since he felt he would enjoy a tyre offset, certainly to his team-mate. The difference here was that Max had another new set of hards available while the ones Norris swapped to had already since been in service earlier in the weekend.

That set up a fascinating run to the flag and nervy moments for the McLaren pitwall as Verstappen took off into the distance again on the green flag and Piastri and Norris squabbled over second place, Lando having emerged behind his team-mate. With Piastri on 18-lap-old hards and Norris on younger ones it was an unequal battle, but still Piastri defended with all his might for four laps before Norris went round the outside into Tamburello.

Piastri just left him enough room.

At this point the gap between Max and his pursuers was 4.1s and Norris never seriously looked like eroding it over the final nine laps – indeed, it grew by two seconds.

To what extent, then, has Red Bull got over its balance problems and tyre-management deficit to McLaren? In Miami, Verstappen put McLaren on a different plane to all the other teams in the latter regard. Certainly Red Bull has been busy propagating rumours of McLaren using illegal trickery to reduce the core temperature of its rear tyres, none of which have been proven despite extensive FIA checks.

Norris and Piastri just about keep it clean fighting for second

Photo by: Lars Baron / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

Even Red Bull’s technical leadership appeared taken aback by the events of Sunday at Imola.

“I think the update brings something, how we manage the tyre,” said technical director Pierre Wache. “Maybe today was a little bit different from Friday – the tarmac was warmer and affecting others more than us. Difficult to say now. But we were maybe surprised that the others were not better than that.”

Degradation and wear are different but related factors in tyre performance, since wear – the amount of surface rubber left – can accelerate degradation because heat doesn’t dissipate as quickly. Temperature is the key input on degradation because it alters the rubber’s viscoelastic properties: the tyre’s grip characteristics diminish, so it slides more, which in turn generates more heat which exacerbates the problem.

Among the RB21’s problems this year has been the tendency of its balance to migrate from understeer to oversteer mid-corner, damaging the rears in particular. It appears the most recent updates, combined with set-up changes, have enabled Red Bull and Verstappen to make the car slightly more benign and less prone to overworking the rear axle. But the extent to which this is dependent on track configuration and ambient temperatures is, as yet, unknown.

"We were a little surprised – I think I have to be honest here – by the pace of Red Bull, which was very competitive" Andrea Stella

“It looks like clearly the wear and the surface [degradation] of the tyre were completely different than what we saw on Friday,” said Wache. “The set-up improved a lot. And I think the new package gives the opportunity to improve even more. I'm not sure it was a big improvement – but it was an improvement in the right direction. I think opening some set-ups and maybe Max being able to use it more as a car. I cannot say more than that at the moment because we have to analyse the data.”

If Red Bull was slightly taken aback by the turn of events, so too – with caveats – was McLaren.

“After coming from a race like Miami, in which our pace was very strong, we knew that because of the track layout and the slightly different ambient conditions, this race would have been just more balanced from a race pace point of view,” said team principal Andrea Stella.

Red Bull's pace caught McLaren by surprise - and even the team itself

Photo by: Lars Baron / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

“We knew that it would have been very balanced in qualifying, like already we’ve seen in Saudi, in Japan, in this kind of fast-flowing circuit. But I have to say today, we were a little surprised – I think I have to be honest here – by the pace of Red Bull, which was very competitive.

“The race was very much decided by the episode, or just a swap of position, between Oscar and Max in corner one. After that we tried to chase him, but effectively we didn't have enough race pace today to be able to beat Max, taking the lead after lap one.”

Without the full Safety Car this would likely have been a one-stop race, given the 28-second time loss brought on by Imola’s long pitlane. That was how it was shaping up in the opening laps – but it was Verstappen’s pace, combined with the deteriorating performance of Piastri’s tyres, which steered McLaren towards the two-stop strategy it decided to adopt.

“I think at the time Oscar's tyres were going off by a good chunk,” said Stella, “and Oscar was passing some feedback that that was the case. It was unclear entering this event whether it would have been a one or a two. If it was a two, that was the time to go.

“And if the hard tyres had behaved just a little bit better, then the two would have been a very strong strategy, despite having to overtake some other cars. But once he went on hard tyres, actually it wasn't much faster than Lando and Max who stayed out on the used medium.

“So I think the hard tyres were a little less competitive than we thought, but we needed to deviate and create the condition to beat Max today. This is something that you can only judge in hindsight. We attempted to unlock various scenarios to try and beat Max, but at no stage did we have enough race pace. Even with the final Safety Car, Lando could pass Oscar and try to push as much as possible – and pretty much Max was responding to Lando. Here to overtake you need seven, eight tenths of a second [advantage over the car in front]. The main factor remains the swap of position and the outcome of lap one.”

Piastri, then, will rue his conservatism on the brake pedal into Tamburello. That much is known.

What’s yet to be seen is whether Red Bull can find this level of performance elsewhere. Imola’s high-speed corners and flowing layout have some synergies with Suzuka, where Verstappen also won against the run of play since the RB21 seemed to thrive in that kind of environment.

It may not be so in others.

Can Verstappen carry his winning momentum into Monaco next weekend?

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images