This sequence gave us three very distinct circuit characteristics to further piece together the competitive jigsaw of how the 2025 cars compare.

Miami confirmed with more certainty two things suggested in earlier races: that if the circuit layout doesn’t punish the Red Bull’s narrow balance window too much, Max Verstappen can spoil McLaren’s party – in qualifying. Secondly, the higher the rear tyre demand, the bigger McLaren’s race advantage becomes.

But around the faster Imola, when the tyre challenge changed from core temperatures to those of the surface, we saw that the Red Bull party pooping could extend to the race. One more piece of the jigsaw.

Then came Monaco where the combination of slow corners and a low-grip bumpy surface took the Red Bull out of the competitive picture but allowed for a dramatic return to form for Ferrari.

The Miami International Circuit’s layout asks a lot of the rear tyres with several key traction zones just after heavy braking from high speeds. Combine that with the highest track temperatures of the season to date – and McLaren was able to finish over half-a-minute clear of the opposition on its way to an Oscar Piastri–Lando Norris 1-2. This despite it taking 14 laps for the first of them to find a way around pole-sitter Verstappen.

Both Sprint winner Norris and Sprint pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli were in reach of pole for the Grand Prix – right up to the final corner of their final laps. But it was Verstappen who actually sealed the deal, for the third time this season. With Norris alongside him on the front row, Verstappen blocked the inside line down to Turn 1 but, braking late, he locked the inside front wheel, taking him out wide over the exit kerbs, giving Norris better momentum as they accelerated up towards the quick left-hander of T2. What followed was an illustration of how drivers are interpreting the new-for-’25 driving guidelines (see panel, right). Verstappen – legitimately, under those guidelines – left Norris no room on the exit, obliging the McLaren to take to the run-off, the lost momentum as Norris rejoined losing him three places. So it was briefly Antonelli who took up chase of the Red Bull before Piastri passed the Mercedes on the fourth lap and set off after Verstappen.

“Verstappen – legitimately – left Norris no room on the exit”

The world champion hung on for the next 10 laps against a barrage of Piastri attacks, the pair frequently side by side into Turns 11 and 17 at the end of the two DRS zones, but Verstappen always forcing his rival to go the long way round. But here’s where the McLaren’s superior control of its rear tyre temperatures was telling; Verstappen steadily lost grip as his rear temperatures crept up and, struggling for traction out of the final turn, he was pincered to the inside by Piastri into Turn 1 on lap 14. Verstappen braked late but from such an acute angle ran wide on the exit, allowing Piastri to make a clinically easy pass. From there he simply disappeared up the road.

Meanwhile Norris was having a busy race from his compromised opening lap, but was chasing Verstappen down by the time Piastri took the lead. With the Red Bull’s resources largely spent, it took Norris only four more laps to find a way by at the end of the back straight. In those four laps Piastri had sprinted 8s clear, the back of his victory task essentially broken.

A VSC (for Oliver Bearman’s broken-down Haas) came just after Verstappen (and Antonelli) had pitted but before the McLarens and George Russell had. This increased the McLaren advantage by around 10s and allowed Russell to leapfrog past Antonelli and Verstappen to go third. Verstappen was no faster than the Mercedes on the hard tyre used for their second stints and Russell was able to maintain his position.

Norris meanwhile was much happier with the McLaren’s balance on the hard tyre than Piastri and managed to close half of that 8s deficit down. But that wasn’t enough to prevent Piastri recording his third consecutive victory.

That run came to an end as Verstappen triumphed in F1’s final visit to Imola. Although he’d lost out on pole by three-hundredths to Piastri, he was able to correct that with a stunningly committed move into the Tamburello chicane on the first lap. Piastri was covering Russell’s Mercedes on the inside and braked early – which opened up the opportunity for a late-braking Verstappen on the outside to vault from third to first in one move. But although this replicated the Verstappen-Piastri order of the early laps of Miami, that’s where any similarity ended.

The tyre challenge here was very different to that of Miami. There it had been all about how the McLaren uniquely maintains the core of its rear tyres in the ideal temperature window, probably largely to do with its ingenious brake duct design. Around the faster curves of Imola the challenge was all about keeping the surfaces adequately cool, a function largely of limiting high-speed sliding. The Red Bull with its excellent high-speed corner performance was able to do that very well and it was Piastri’s right-front which began to give out long before Verstappen’s.

“Regardless of the VSC and safety car, his victory was emphatic”

Red Bull had also put a significant upgrade on its car here, focussed specifically at opening up its set-up window to achieve good balance across a wider range of corner speeds. With that great high-speed grip limiting the sliding and the benign balance spreading the loads nicely, the Red Bull around Imola was at least as fast as the McLaren – and on race day perhaps even slightly faster for the first time this season.

Piastri chose to pit as early as lap 13, confirming him to be on a two-stop strategy. Verstappen and most of the others stayed out. This was the crucial strategic parting point. The front-right was the limiting tyre and the practices had suggested that although a one-stop was feasible, if that tyre became too hot it would be impossible to bring it back without a massive loss of pace. In which case a two-stop would be required. Piastri, fearing the onset of that as he’d given chase in the turbulence zone to that quick clear-air Red Bull, surrendered any hold on this race as he made that first stop. Because it entailed horrific traffic delays as a lot of slower cars stayed out.

Norris had under-qualified and spent the early laps finding a way by Russell’s Mercedes. He moved up to second as team-mate Piastri pitted. His tyres were fine, good for a one-stop, he believed. But he was already 10sec behind Verstappen. Every time he tried to cut into that gap, Verstappen could respond. Driving no faster than needed, the Red Bull ace could maintain that margin over an aggressively-pushed McLaren. Regardless of the VSC and safety car which would subsequently mix things up, Verstappen’s victory was emphatic.

In fact the VSC only increased his lead, as he was able to pit under it whereas Norris had pitted a lap before it had appeared.

Piastri was briefly the lead McLaren again but, wedded now to the two-stop, needed to come in for his second set of hard compound tyres and so fell back behind not only Norris but also Alex Albon’s Williams. Although Piastri caught and passed Albon, by the time he did so he was 14sec behind Norris who in turn trailed Verstappen by 18sec after 43 laps, with just 20 to go.

A safety car to clear Antonelli’s broken-down Mercedes allowed Verstappen to harmlessly move to a two-stop so as to be on fresh tyres for the restart. Norris did the same, so putting him back behind Piastri. Verstappen on new tyres vs Piastri on used was no contest on the restart and the latter’s focus switched to defending from Norris who on his newer rubber forced his way back into second with a committed move around the outside of the Tamburello chicane. Thus were the top three places decided.

At the safety car, fourth placed Albon had pitted, as Leclerc stayed out (as he had no suitable tyres left) and Hamilton pitted. So upon the restart Leclerc on very old tyres was defending hard from the new-tyred Albon, with Hamilton close behind. After several attempts, Albon tried to go around Leclerc’s outside at the Tamburello chicane and, under the new driving guidelines, Leclerc raced him to the apex, running Albon out of road, with the Williams obliged to run through the gravel – allowing him to be passed by Hamilton, who then put a DRS pass on his team-mate to go fourth. With the stewards investigating the Tamburello incident, Leclerc reluctantly handed the place back to Albon, as advised by his team. Fourth and sixth place for Ferrari was a rescue of sorts on home ground after they’d failed to make it out of Q2 the day before.

But prospects for the Scuderia were way brighter at Monaco – the unique demands of which allowed yet another piece of the jigsaw to be placed. Leclerc was his usual dynamite self around his home streets, a venue which has favoured something in Ferrari’s DNA for the past five years. But after setting the track alight through the practices he was pipped to pole in the dying seconds of qualifying by Norris’ McLaren.

“On a track where there’s only low speed corners the car is good”

In recent years this hasn’t been a great track for McLaren and Norris’ pole represented something of a breakthrough. The MCL39 was better on the brakes than the Ferrari which in turn was better on acceleration out of the slow turns. It also handled the kerbs better and Leclerc was mighty in his fifth gear commitment through Tabac. But by the end of the lap its rear tyres were running hotter, giving the McLaren better traction out of Rascasse and Noghes.

Leclerc was visibly crestfallen at missing out on pole by just over 0.1s on what was probably going to be one of the very few opportunities to win with the car in its current state. “On a track like this, where there’s only low speed – basically no high-speed corners – the car is good. On most tracks, we have to take compromises in order to not lose too much in high-speed corners. Here we don’t have to set up the car in a way where we compromise because we just focus on the low speed. And when we are on these kinds of tracks, it seems that there’s some performance in the low speed from the car. But we are a little bit stuck at the moment on other tracks, so I don’t think we can apply it to any other tracks other than Monaco.”

Piastri looked a little more ragged than his team-mate in the final session, nudging the wall a couple of times on his way to third on the grid, with Hamilton fourth fastest, 0.3sec adrift of Leclerc but taking a three-place grid penalty for impeding Verstappen. The Red Bull driver was the first beneficiary of the Hamilton penalty, lining up fourth, struggling to get the temperatures of the front and rear tyres equalised on the tricky C6 compound. Also benefitting from the Hamilton grid drop was the Racing Bull of impressive rookie Isack Hadjar and the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso.

The stipulation of a two-stop minimum made little difference at the front on race day as the McLaren drivers engaged Leclerc in a close contest, with Norris always ahead and Piastri unable to pass the Ferrari. Unable to compare on performance, Red Bull offset its strategy instead, starting Verstappen on hards to the mediums of the others. This allowed him to lead for a few laps after the McLarens and Leclerc had pitted, hoping for a safety car to leapfrog him to the front. The medium compound tyres which were fitted at this first stop would then do 50 laps, to the penultimate lap of the race. The lead trio were right on his tail for the last few laps, having made up their pit stop loss but Norris looked reluctant to get too close to the Red Bull, knowing it would have to pit out of his way, releasing him to victory, McLaren’s first around these streets since 2008.