Imola Grand Prix Report

Formula 1 descends into the European portion of the calendar, and yes I am fully aware Canada is thrown in the mix too, but let's just use our imaginations for a moment. It's finally time to spend those sunny Sunday afternoons glued to your televisions as the 2025 season continues. Imola, or the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, is one of those classic circuits that is a driver-focused circuit more so than a car-dependent circuit, because it's about how much you dare push the machinery to extract the lap time. It also marks the first race of the second-triple header of the season. Let's find out what went down.

Qualifying

The best way to describe qualifying for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix is dramatic, not just because we expected a 3-5 car battle for pole, but because the classic style of the circuit does not forgive, if you make a mistake, that's it. This point was demonstrated off the bat in Q1 as Yuki Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto crashed. Only a few minutes into the session, Yuki Tsunoda had a pretty scary incident at the Villeneuve Chicane (Variante Villeneuve, for those who appreciate the proper corner names), as his Red Bull lost control in the first part of the corner. The car launched itself into the first part of the barrier and flipped, completing the landing back on the floor, but giving everyone down the grid a reminder of what can happen if you push too hard. Yuki walked away, but that marks his first major incident of the season as a Red Bull driver.

The session was of course Red Flagged, and we had to wait some time before qualifying eventually got going again. Colapinto fell fowl of entering the pitlane under the "expected opening time" message, which we saw with the Mercedes duo in Bahrain, but that was all irrelevant really, because the Argentinian dropped it at the first corner (Tamburello) and smashed into the barriers, nose first. Not a great first impression for his new team. This brought the red flag out again and, along with it, a controversial moment. Oliver Bearman set a lap time that should have allowed him into Q2, but there was some debate about whether the rookie got it in before the red flag. The stewards deemed Bearman was indeed eliminated, having completed his lap 3 seconds after the red flag. The drivers eliminated in Q1 were Lawson, Hulkenberg, Ocon, Bearman, and Tsunoda.

After some serious waiting, and a subtle dig from Kick Sauber as they sent Bortoleto (the driver assumed to be knocked out by Bearman) down to the end of the pitlane, we were able to get going in Q2. Aston Martin opted to run the medium tyres in Q2, allowing them to potentially push harder for the duration of a qualifying lap, and it worked, with both of them able to progress into Q3. Colapinto qualified but couldn't compete, which left some of the drivers with a sense of confidence that they might be able to make it through. The big surprise, however, was the last minute elimination of both Ferraris and hometown hero Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who were pushed out of Q3 by the Williams and Aston Martin drivers. So, eliminated in Q2 were Leclerc, Hamilton, Antonelli, Bortoleto, and Colapinto.

Onto Q3 then and we were set up for a duel between the two McLarens, Max Verstappen, and perhaps the two Mercedes cars could get amongst the mix too - so pretty much the standard tale of 2025 so far. Piastri and Norris set their intentions in the early minutes, dropping into the 1m 14s bracket and lining up 1-2, advantage Piastri. Verstappen followed and displaced them both to set provisional pole. As the chequered flag flew and the final runs came in, it was the championship leader who came out on top, rising to the occasion as he does so well. He would lineup ahead of Verstappen, Russell, Norris, Alonso, Sainz, Albon, Stroll, Hadjar, and Gasly.

Race

So there we were, once again, ready for the start of another F1 race with Oscar Piastri on pole ahead of title rival Max Verstappen, with George Russell in the mix and Lando on the second row too. Imola is an odd grid as well, with pole often facing aggressively to the right to get a straight line down to turn 1. Piastri got away, initially, quite well - not as well as George behind, but the Aussie pinned tight to the inside line to stop the Mercedes creeping up and diving down into turn 1. This ultimately left him open to Max Verstappen on the outside, who got a much better second-phase of the start. The Dutchman out-braked the Aussie and managed to recreate the scenes of the famous 2021 overtake between him and Hamilton. This time, however, the car on the outside stayed on track and took the position. From there, Max never really looked back. He built a gap comfortable for the safety cars, VSCs, yellow flags, traffic, and pitstops, never looked phased and came across the line to take his second victory of the season. If there were any doubt that Max was still in this fight, it's now gone, you just cannot count him out.

Russell managed to stay ahead of Norris at the start, but his tyres were significantly older than the rest of the top four and soon he fell into the clutches of his fellow Brit. George really then forced early pitstops, diving in around lap 11 and followed a few laps later by Oscar, who was given some work to do to climb back through the field. Imola is not well known for overtakes, but Piastri made it look easy in some areas. Somehow, the Ferraris had made some progress from their poor qualifying, and Leclerc even tried and succeeded in an undercut on Piastri and Russell, it didn't last long though as the McLaren and Mercedes had a lot more pace. Norris pitted around 13 laps later than his teammate, and just before a virtual safety car came out as Ocon broke down on the side of the track - not very often we see mechanical failures but we have had a few in the last couple of races, is this a sign of things to come?

As the VSC came out, Max pitted and maintained that lead he had built in the first stint, a flurry of other cars also pitted under VSC, including Leclerc who had already pitted 10 or so laps before and was frustrated over the radio about how unlucky he can be with these sorts of things. Piastri also decided this was the right time to make a second pitstop and came out in fourth place. So after all that chaos, it was still Verstappen from Norris, Albon, Piastri, Hadjar, Antonelli, Hamilton, Leclerc, Alonso, and Stroll at just over the halfway point. The hard tyres on the Ferraris suddenly came alive and both of them started making progress through the field, again I thought Imola was difficult to overtake at.

Heartbreak came on lap 46 though, as hometown hero Kimi Antonelli broke down in almost exactly the same place as Esteban Ocon. The car seemed to be a little further up the hill at turn 8 but for some reason the FIA threw a full course safety car, which stayed out until lap 53. Verstappen and Norris both took this opportunity to pit again, which promoted Piastri to second on old tyres. Once the safety car came in, it was essentially a ten-lap sprint to the finish. Lando came over the radio almost begging for the team to let him through to try and take the victory from Max, but the messages were never relayed to Piastri, or at least that's what we are lead to believe.

The Dutchman pulled out a strong lead again as the McLarens battled, but ultimately Lando got through on his teammate with a handful of laps to go. Albon, now on fresh tyres, battled with Leclerc in the dying stages of the Grand Prix, coming to blows at turn 1. The Thai driver complained that Leclerc had pushed him off, and to be honest it was pretty close either way. Ferrari instructed the Monegasque to let him through, but Hamilton did sneak through to take fourth place, which would have been Albon's highest finishing position of the season.

So Verstappen takes his 65th victory, ahead of Norris, Piastri, Hamilton, Albon, Leclerc, Russell, Sainz, Hadjar, and Yuki Tsunoda claimed the last point after starting from the pitlane. Exactly what Yuki needed to do in the race after a pretty disastrous qualifying result. Alonso continues his pointless season in eleventh, ahead of Hulkenberg, Gasly, Lawson, Stroll, Colapinto, Bearman, and Bortoleto. Antonelli and Ocon both classified as DNF.