Max Verstappen of Red Bull proves to still be a top contender on the grid after edging out championship leader Oscar Piastri and his teammate Lando Norris for the win at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix. The Dutch Red Bull winner secured both the Fastest Lap and Driver of the Day titles to add to his hardware. Norris took second place +6.109 seconds behind Verstappen, with Piastri finishing third +12.956 seconds after.
Piastri claimed his third pole position of the season, one grid place above the skillful qualifier Verstappen, who has out-qualified Piastri three times this season in the slower Red Bull. Despite having the starting grid advantage, Piastri lost his lead to a Lap 1 overtake by Verstappen through the Tamburello chicane. Verstappen continued to pull ahead by opting not to make an early pit stop alongside Piastri and other drivers. The decision paid off when Esteban Ocon launched a Virtual Safety Car after pulling his Haas onto the grass on Lap 29, allowing Verstappen to save a substantial amount of time during his pit stop under the Safety Car.
A second Safety Car was deployed on Lap 46 after Mercedes’s Kimi Antonelli suffered an issue with his car that caused him to retire from his home race. Antonelli’s performance at his home Grand Prix weekend left much to be desired, with a Q2 exit in Qualifying and a DNF in the main race. Teammate George Russell struggled as well, the other Mercedes car finishing the race in a disappointing P7 after a relatively positive P3 qualifying the day before. Russell himself recognized the overall struggle for the Austrian team in Imola, captioning his Instagram post with “The most challenging Sunday we’ve had in as long as I can remember.”
Ferrari looked set up to have another mediocre race weekend after both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton missed Q3, qualifying P11 and P12, respectively. Fortunately for the Italian team, a P4 finish for Hamilton and P6 finish for Leclerc gave fans something to celebrate. The team continues to chip away slowly at the Constructors Championship, where they continue to sit far behind McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull.
On the other hand, Williams continues to impress with another double points finish with Alex Albon crossing the line at P5 and teammate Carlos Sainz at P8. After Albon successfully fended off Leclerc for the higher finish and Sainz closing the gap between himself at Russell to less than a second, the Williams drivers prove that they can challenge the top teams even when constantly pegged as a mid to back marker team.
P9 went to Racing Bull’s Isack Hadjar, who finished his race in the same position he started in. Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda made a miraculous recovery from his major crash the day before in qualifying to claim the last of the Grand Prix’s points in P10. Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin just missed out on points in P11 after starting at his best qualifying position to date at P5.
Alpine’s new driver, Franco Colapinto, was another driver who suffered a hefty crash in the qualifying session, causing him to miss out on Q2 despite recording a lap time quick enough to make the cut. Colapinto did not have as much success in recovering, finishing the race in P16 in his return to the grid.
The teams and drivers now look towards the historic Monaco Grand Prix, taking place May 23-25.
