What we learned from Friday practice at Imola

They just don't make 'em like Imola anymore. Think of the cornering complexes that have acquired reverence in the world of motorsport - Maggotts/Becketts at Silverstone, perhaps, or the Esses into the Degners at Suzuka. Porsche Curves at Le Mans? Laguna Seca's Corkscrew? Eau Rouge into Raidillon at Spa? For my money, the Piratella descent into Acque Minerali, then up the hill to Variante Alta is a severely underrated combination of corners.

It would be a shame to lose Imola on the Formula 1 calendar, but it would also be wholly unsurprising; it's a circuit out of time, too small for the juggernaut that grand prix racing has inevitably become in the past decade. Perhaps if the cars were a little bit smaller, it'd be a bit more conducive to a good racing experience, but even the car-shrinking aspect of 2026's incoming regs barely touch the sides of what's possible.

Climb out of Tosa. Hit the throttle, get up to seventh gear, and approach the zenith of the hill. Brake - not too much, just enough to shed the speed and squeeze the left-hand paddle once to bring the car into sixth. You're off the throttle a little bit, but layering it back on once you've clipped the apex. There's a tentativeness to it, as the exit kerb sits with its mouth agape waiting to swallow up an overambitious victim. Then you cascade downhill. Your chariot hits the compression at the bottom of the hill, scratches its undercarriage as the dampers contract and, only after you've gone through the first part of Acque Minerali, do you stab the brakes with your wavering left foot. Third gear, then the car complies; it starts to scale the elevation once more.

Of the two McLarens that led the way in FP2, it was Oscar Piastri who got the descent right - but Lando Norris who bounded out of the Acque Minerali double-right with a touch more speed. There was scarcely anything between them at the finish line, just 0.025 seconds as they set their best times on Pirelli's all-new C6, although Piastri had more in reserve had he gathered a slightly better exit (and not been subject to a face full of traffic/dust) from Rivazza.

In hot-lap trim, the McLarens weren't actually all that strong on the straights; third-placed Pierre Gasly's Alpine actually found more speed in the acceleration zones. In the corners, however, McLaren delivered the harder punches to extend the laptime advantage. Had it turned down its Mercedes power unit? Potentially, although Norris revealed that he was expecting his team to have a reduced advantage on Saturday - but that could equally be attributed to the Briton's cautious nature.

Norris was reluctant to get carried away by McLaren topping the timesheets

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"FP2, we always look good," he noted. "We always look much better than everyone. And then we get to qualifying and they catch up. I don't think we're in a comfortable place. We still have work to do.

"Alpine were quick - they've always been quick here. And I'm sure Red Bull will catch up and Mercedes will be on it, you know, just when they turn their engines up. Nothing to be too comfortable with."

McLaren recognises the importance of qualifying well here; otherwise, it exposes itself to a Suzuka-adjacent situation where it fails to capitalise on its roaring race pace. And Norris addressed the main rivals - Red Bull and Mercedes - as they seek to find the one-lap edge that will give it a useful track position advantage on Sunday afternoon.

Logic would dictate that, on race day, Mercedes will present the biggest threat to McLaren

Although George Russell was 0.4s off Piastri's headline effort, he was still somewhere in the ballpark - and, in any case, the Mercedes driver only got one soft-tyre lap in. And Max Verstappen can never be discounted - after all, he was scarcely in the frame for pole on last year's Imola Friday sessions, but continued improvement chez Red Bull ensured he was leading the line once the music stopped.

McLaren might be reticent to invoke the spectre of Suzuka by making a meal of qualifying, but there's one facet that suggests it won't be quite as straightforward as events at the Japanese circuit: the tyres. Pirelli has introduced a new C6 tyre for this year, allowing it to go a step softer than last season's race. This plays into McLaren's hands slightly, as the medium tyre (last year's soft) looks degradation prone and ripe for someone to leverage a tyre offset. The Woking team is pretty good in that particular arena.

McLaren's tyre preservation mastery may be needed again to keep rivals at bay

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Long run analysis: McLaren ahead, short runs mask drop-off

Many of the longer runs were curtailed by Isack Hadjar's car-beaching spin at Tamburello; the Frenchman got loose on the exit of the chicane, skittered across the gravel, hit the wall (slightly) and just about kept the car going. He did the hard part and got out of strife but, after a long wait to rejoin safely, ended up spinning the wheels up enough to dig himself into a hole.

Nonetheless, there was a smattering of run plans to pick through, as nobody even attempted to see how long a set of C6s could go - all and sundry went onto the medium tyres for their customary race simulations.

Still, the red flag needed to extricate Hadjar's car from the gravel took away an opportunity to note how the C5s dropped off towards the end of the stint - although there were some early signs from those who surpassed the 10-lap mark that there was a very present danger of time slipping away.

Average FP2 medium runs

(*Aston Martin not included, longest stint only four laps)

Unsurprisingly, McLaren led the way; Piastri and Norris lapped very similarly across their stints, although we've chosen to represent the orange cars' pace with the Australian's laps as a) he'd got one more under his belt on the mediums, and b) Norris had the bigger outlier in his array of laps, thanks to the effect of traffic.

Logic would dictate that, on race day, Mercedes will present the biggest threat to McLaren. Andrea Kimi Antonelli was consistently within the low 1m20s, while Russell's run would have been quicker had he not had to deal with the returning Franco Colapinto playing a key role in Lapped Car Simulator 2025. Regardless, the flashes of pace from Russell - traffic notwithstanding - thus lent credence to Mercedes' showing on the long runs.

Russell showed glimpses of good pace and could yet be a factor in the race

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Ferrari appears to be a little bit of an outlier here, in that Charles Leclerc showed good pace on his shorter-than-most long run and logged a couple of laps in the 1m19s. By comparison, his team-mate Lewis Hamilton did a comparable seven-lap stint and set an average of 1m20.723s, so there's quite a wide window for Ferrari to slot into. And it's the same story for Racing Bulls which, thanks to Hadjar, shows up well here.

But the Parisian undid his own efforts to determine the developing situation with Pirelli's C5s, while Liam Lawson only stitched four laps together in his own second-half run plan.

Red Bull is likely running with its engines turned down, but neither driver showed particularly stellar pace in either qualifying or race trim. Yuki Tsunoda was at least close to Verstappen on his timed lap, finishing just under a tenth adrift, although perhaps 0.3s per lap shy over the race laps. For Verstappen, Colapinto's appearance ahead of him also likely did not help his case...

"Both the strategies are possible and this, compared to last year, it's creating a little bit more interesting approach from the teams in terms of strategies, so hopefully we will have a different race compared to previous years" Simone Berra

Williams looks dependable here, although perhaps it shades Alpine for outright pace on the C6s; both Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon were at the sharp end on the C5s, but seem to be losing the performance from the softest tyre earlier around the lap. Yet, its race pace looks relatively consistent, although Sainz's short stint again does not necessarily represent the drop-off.

Gasly's race pace, however, does; he'd fallen into the 1m21s pretty consistently in the final laps of the stint - although traffic (and a stray rabbit) was likely a factor here once more.

Tyre strategy: One-stoppers better for track position, but two stops faster

Pirelli's more aggressive tyre selection could lead to a mix of strategies

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When Pirelli chose to move its tyres to the softest grades available for Imola, it did so with the hope that it might put strategy calls on a bit more of a knife-edge. Chief engineer Simone Berra has suggested that the indications from Friday mean that this will, indeed, be the case.

"It will be tricky because we have brought this season the softer range of the compounds," Berra explained. "Compared to last year, they have to use the C5 in the race and, if they want to do a one-stop race, they have to extend significantly the first stint or the last stint, depending on which compound they are going to start.

"Teams will try the one-stop for sure, because also the position on track is vital here, it's difficult to overtake, you have just one point for overtaking, that is before Turn 2.

"But they have to survive with the C5 for a long stint, or a significantly long stint. So the one-stop will be a possibility, on the paper the two stops are faster, even considering lower degradation with management, the two stops are faster.

"It will be very much dependent on different situations on track, but for the moment both the strategies are possible, and this compared to last year, it's creating a little bit more interesting approach from the teams in terms of strategies, so hopefully we will have a different race compared to previous years."

Extending that C5 stint will be tough and will require early commitment to the strategy; the indicator will be drivers backing off considerably to make the C5 last through the stint. That'll give an opportunity to those stuck behind to try the two-stop, where they'll extract more from the tyres in an effort to garner a track positional advantage, and then attempt to use the offset in the final stint to make progress.

Will someone be able to make alternate strategy pay off?

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