Why Verstappen was master of Imola's final F1 monster mash

Max Verstappen took his second victory of the season in what was almost certainly F1’s final visit to Imola.

Heavy crashes in qualifying for Yuki Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto underlined the hazards of directing 1,000 horsepower monsters of enormous downforce through the narrow ribbon of parkland tarmac. But it’s for commercial reasons it’s leaving after its pandemic-inspired comeback.

It at least left on a high note of an interesting contest, one in which Verstappen brilliantly exploited a Red Bull which for the first time this season was genuinely faster in a race than the rival McLaren. Oscar Piastri made things easier for Verstappen than they might otherwise have been however, on the run down to Tamburello on the opening lap. His attention seemingly diverted to preventing George Russell’s Mercedes coming down his inside, he left the outside line open to Verstappen, who needed no further invitation.

If Piastri was inwardly cursing in that moment, he was probably thinking he’d still be able to pull off the win – as the McLaren is invariably better on its tyres. Not today. The tyre challenge here was very different to that of Miami where Piastri had been able to catch, pass and pull out half a minute on Verstappen. There it had been all about how the McLaren uniquely maintains the core of its rear tyres in their happy temperature threshold. Around the faster curves of Imola it was all about keeping the surfaces adequately cool, especially of the front-right. The Red Bull was able to do that just fine and it was Piastri’s right-front which began to give out long before Verstappen’s.

Thirteen laps into the race the McLaren was 3sec behind and falling when the time came to make the decision of whether to stop once or twice. If it was going to be twice – which Oscar was suggesting it should be, given how his grip was fading – then it needed to be now. In he came, a lap after Russell had done the same with his fronts absolutely finished as a result of trying to keep Lando Norris’s McLaren behind. Unsuccessfully.

Verstappen, finding his updated Red Bull beautifully balanced after the team’s usual Friday night re-set of set-up, carried serenely on, around 10sec clear of Norris.

The way things played out — there was a virtual safety car at 39 laps and a safety car at 45 — you were far better to have opted for the one-stop, using the timings of the caution periods to convert to a two at very little time loss to the pack. Early stoppers – Piastri, Russell, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz among them – lost a horrendous amount of time to long-running one-stop traffic when they rejoined.

In hindsight you needed to be easy enough on that front-right to run long. Norris missed the VSC by just a lap, pitting on lap 28. Esteban Ocon’s Haas broke down a few seconds later, allowing Verstappen’s subsequent stop to double his previous lead over Norris. Piastri made his second stop at much the same time they were making their first. Dropping him to fourth behind Alex Albon. He found a way past the Williams but he was now 14sec behind Norris who was 18sec adrift of the imperious Verstappen.

That’s how it was set to finish until Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes broke down. There wasn’t room to just push it through a gap (because Ocon’s car was already there), so a removal vehicle was needed. Hence a nine-lap safety car. Those who still had some fresh hard tyres – Verstappen, Norris, Albon, Hamilton – came in and had them fitted. Those who didn’t – Piastri, Russell, Leclerc – stayed out.

This leapfrogged Piastri back ahead of Norris but on tyres way older than those of Verstappen ahead of him as they restarted. So he was no threat as Verstappen judged everything to perfection and built up his lead all over again. Norris used his new tyres to fight his way past Piastri but it took a few laps to do it. Similarly Albon was all over the very old-tyred Ferrari of Leclerc and tried for a move around the outside at the Tamburello chicane. Side-by-side at the apex, Leclerc on the inside ran Albon out wide over the gravel – and the new-tyred Hamilton pounced to pass the Williams and later in the lap his team mate too, to go fourth.

The Leclerc-Albon incident was being looked at by the stewards, the field was very bunched and a 5sec penalty would have resulted in a disastrous drop out of the points. So Ferrari instructed him to give Albon the place back. Thus was P5 settled. Fourth and sixth for Ferrari was actually a recovery of sorts after neither had made it out of Q2 the previous day.

Russell benefitted from team-mate Antonelli’s retirement to take seventh, the Merc unable to look after its front tyres but clear of Sainz’s strategy-compromised Williams, Isack Hadjar’s Racing Bull and Tsunoda who made a good recovery from his pitlane start in the rebuilt Red Bull. Fernando Alonso, even from the P5 in which he’d qualified the updated Aston Martin, couldn’t make the points, given the double whammy of heavy tyre deg and unlucky strategy breaks.