Triple Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen scored victory at Imola after surviving a late race challenge from McLaren’s Lando Norris. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finished third to the cheer of the tifosi.
Higher tyre degradation than expected compared to when Red Bull struggled badly for car balance in practice on Friday appeared to ease Verstappen’s path, as he was also boosted by the setup work completed at his team’s factory ahead of qualifying.
Norris did mount an exciting late-race charge as he worked his hard tyres better than Verstappen in the second of two stints, but the defending champion held on to win by 0.7 seconds.
At the start, Norris did gain slightly on polesitter Verstappen when they reacted to the five red lights, but his line took him to the outside of the track’s first braking point at the Tamburello chicane where he could not get near enough to make an attack.
As Leclerc and his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz slotted in behind the leaders, Verstappen was clear enough to prevent Norris of DRS even when it was activated on lap two of 63.
Verstappen then just up his race pace from his rival to build his lead to 6.5 seconds by lap 22 – although he did make his life harder later in the race for abusing track limits to such an extent he was formally warned by the FIA.
Norris initially dropped Leclerc in the first stint before the Ferrari closed back in, with Norris becoming the first of the leaders to pit on lap 22 to go from the mediums they had all started on to the hards, with Verstappen coming in two laps later.
Leclerc was left out until lap 25, which meant Norris eased away pushing early in the second stint and Sainz stopping even later meant Oscar Piastri undercut the Ferrari for fourth – having chased Sainz closely for most of the first stint.
Verstappen started the final stint with a 5.6 seconds lead thanks to Lando’s earlier stop, with the Red Bull driver then rebuilding his lead over the next stage, although not as rapidly as at the start.
Indeed, at this stage, Leclerc reduced into what had been a three-second Norris advantage post-pitstop and got to within DRS range of the McLaren by lap 43.
But an off at the Variante Alta chicane shortly afterwards stopped Leclerc’s momentum, just when Lando’s hard tyre stint was transformed and he started to quickly catch Verstappen, who complained that his tyre compound did not work.
Norris pushed hard – saving several wild moments at the track’s first two chicanes as the race traversed its final five laps – but he wound up just short, with Leclerc finishing 7.1 seconds further back in third.
Piastri came home 6.2 seconds back from Leclerc, while Sainz ended falling back to 8.2 seconds off in the McLaren.
Lewis Hamilton had a trip through the Acque Mineral gravel on his way to sixth, with his Mercedes teammate George Russell stopping for a second time late on and dropping down to seventh position, but with enough pace back on the mediums to secure the fastest lap bonus point.
Sergio Perez rescued just eighth from his P11 grid starting spot – the Red Bull driver starting on an alternative strategy and running long on hards, with most of the frontrunners easily battling by him after they pitted before he himself climbed on the mediums for the races second half.
Alex Albon was the race’s only retirement – the Williams driver having his race ruined by a stop/go penalty for leaving his first stop with a loose wheel, after which he went back to the pits slowly and ended up two laps down before he was withdrawn 10 laps from the end.
So an exciting end to the Imola race with the chase from Lando Norris and yet Max Verstappen held his nerve to win. Congratulations to Red Bull Racing in winning after a tricky start to the weekend. Hard work paid off with this triumph.
Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, race results:
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:25:25.252
2 Lando Norris McLaren +0.725s
3 Charles Leclerc Ferrari +7.916s
4 Oscar Piastri McLaren +14.132s
5 Carlos Sainz Ferrari +22.325s
6 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +35.104s
7 George Russell Mercedes +47.154s
8 Sergio Perez Red Bull +54.776s
9 Lance Stroll Aston Martin +79.556s
10 Yuki Tsunoda RB +1 lap
11 Nico Hulkenberg Haas +1 lap
12 Kevin Magnussen Haas +1 lap
13 Daniel Ricciardo RB +1 lap
14 Esteban Ocon Alpine +1 lap
15 Zhou Guanyu Sauber +1 lap
16 Pierre Gasly Alpine +1 lap
17 Logan Sargeant Williams +1 lap
18 Valtteri Bottas Sauber +1 lap
19 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin +1 lap
20 Alex Albon Williams DNF
Max Verstappen has returned to winning ways after missing out in Miami by taking victory in the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, with the Dutchman holding off an exciting late charge from Lando Norris.
After Verstappen built up a solid lead in the early stages following a good launch from pole position, the Red Bull star enjoyed a mostly serene drive around the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, until Norris’s McLaren began to close the gap from P2 as the race reached its latter stages.
A thrilling end to the event ensued as Norris continued to cut into Verstappen’s advantage, but a snap of oversteer seemed to take further life out of the McLaren driver’s ageing tyres, allowing the Red Bull to hold onto P1 by just 0.725s as the chequered flag was waved.
Despite looking to be on Norris’s tail in the fight for P2 earlier in the event, Charles Leclerc had to settle for the final podium position of third in front of Ferrari’s home fans, while Oscar Piastri claimed P4 in a solid drive for McLaren.
Carlos Sainz added to Ferrari’s points tally by claiming fifth place, ahead of Lewis Hamilton in a lonely sixth for Mercedes followed by his team mate George Russell in seventh, who had made a surprise late pit stop for medium tyres allowing him to claim the extra point for fastest lap.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/verstappen-holds-off-thrilling-late-charge-from-norris-to-win-emilia-romagna.2CgBWm3GodjE3QIYIMWL0x
McLaren Formula 1 team principal Andrea Stella says he’s unsure if he agrees that with a few more laps Lando Norris would have passed Max Verstappen to win in Imola.
Norris initially struggled to keep up with polesitter Verstappen in the first stint on medium tyres, but after the sole pitstop for hard tyres the Briton started closing the gap with Verstappen again.
Despite a tyre life disadvantage, Norris truly started reeling Verstappen in over the last 15 laps but just failed to get within DRS range heading into the final lap.
Norris ended up less than a second behind at the line as the Dutchman clinched his fifth win of the 2024 season, and felt he could have made a move with “one or two more laps”.
“Well, 63 laps is already many laps,” Stella told Sky Sports F1. “Many times you say you would like one lap more.
“It is what it is and also it is Max Verstappen, I am sure he was a bit in trouble but he managed to get the most out of what he had, so well done Max and well done to our two drivers, second and fourth.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mclaren-unsure-norris-could-have-passed-verstappen-to-win-f1-imola-gp/10612986/
Max Verstappen felt like he was “driving on ice” on the hard tyres in Formula 1’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, saying he “almost ended up in the grandstands”.
Red Bull driver Verstappen narrowly edged McLaren’s Lando Norris after he gapped the Briton in the first stint on mediums, but struggled much more on the hard Pirelli rubber for the majority of Imola’s 63-lap race.
Verstappen explained that he couldn’t keep the hard compound in the right operating window, which led to a lack of grip that he says nearly saw him crash at Turn 7’s Tosa hairpin.
“On the mediums it was very good,” Verstappen said after clinching his fifth grand prix win of the season.
“But then as soon as I swapped to the hard tyres, maybe not the first five to 10 laps but after that, I was like: ‘I’m not sure I can bring this to the end’.
“The tyres just fell out of the operating window and it was just like driving on ice, really snappy.
“At Turn 7 I almost ended up in the grandstands, for my feeling, at some point. So, it was just very difficult, really weird lines that I had to take.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/verstappen-almost-ended-up-in-the-grandstands-amid-f1-imola-hard-tyre-struggles/10613032/
Ferrari’s power strategy in qualifying for the Formula 1 Imola Grand Prix cost the team a better result in the race, according to Charles Leclerc.
The Italian squad had impressed in Friday practice but, in its preparations for qualifying, the team appeared to lack pace at the start of the lap relative to the cars ahead of it in the battle for pole position.
GPS traces show that his Ferrari was between 3-4kph slower on the straights compared to the two McLarens, and even more in arrears compared to polesitter Max Verstappen – thanks to the tow the Red Bull driver picked up from Nico Hulkenberg.
Leclerc felt that Ferrari’s ultimate grid positions, which became third and fourth when Oscar Piastri was given a three-place grid drop for impeding Kevin Magnussen in FP1, cost a shot at anything more than third.
“Looking back at yesterday, reanalysing qualifying. I think we basically lost everything at the launch [of the lap] for some reason,” he said.
“We had a slightly different power strategy compared to McLaren and Red Bull, and we lost everything on the run down to Turn 2 – Max, on top of that, had the slipstream.
“This is something we’ll have to look into because, especially on a track like this, track position is absolutely everything.
“When you only have a tenth in between Red Bull, McLaren, and ourselves, we need to do everything perfect and the third place today cost us maybe a better result in the race.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/leclerc-ferrari-power-strategy-cost-shot-at-better-f1-imola-gp-result/10613051/