He would have preferred eight tenths, said Max Verstappen on Saturday after qualifying. But in Imola, McLaren came within eight hundredths of a Red Bull, which had previously been too bad in all training sessions for poles or victories and always looked beatable. So everything is in place today – it’s the most exciting starting position in months. Also with Max Verstappen on pole. In the favorites check this time he looks anything but like the Goliath of Formula 1.
So not a comfortable buffer of eight tenths. McLaren and Ferrari are so close that there are still good arguments for making them at least co-favorites. It is now important to determine whether Verstappen’s pole success has substance – or was more luck or exceptional driving skills. Verstappen himself finally says: “I went into qualifying and honestly thought: ‘Well, if we make it into the top five, I would be happy.'”
In 180 minutes of training, nothing worked at Red Bull. On Friday the rear didn’t stick. After making adjustments at night, the car went into understeer. The car was not easy to drive or fast in a single training session, neither on a lap nor in a long run. But the team continued to tinker with the setup. And scored a direct hit just in time for qualifying.
“I was finally able to attack the corners,” explained Verstappen. Still, he needed help getting to the pole. On the last lap, he luckily found free slipstream on the way to the first corner, provided by Nico Hülkenberg. Without the Haas he would probably only have achieved the third fastest time behind Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. You can find out more about his qualifying performance here:
The front row of the grid should belong to McLaren: favorites in the race?
So the starting grid was rearranged: Verstappen in front of Norris, a red row two with the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, then Oscar Piastri next to George Russell in row three. The fact that there should be two McLarens at the front raises the question of whether Norris should at least start the race as the first favorite. After all, he was on par with Charles Leclerc in the medium long runs on Friday. Piastri was the fastest on the Hard.
“We didn’t do the fastest laps in these long runs,” says Norris, however. “We were probably the most consistent, but a lot of the others had traffic and stuff. So it’s tight, like today.” His team boss Andrea Stella warns: “I still think that Ferrari is very strong. A few of the laps that Leclerc in particular drove in his long run looked very impressive to us.”
First chicane brings victory in Imola: Who will keep clean at the start today?
The bottom line is that the signs for today point to a potential three-way battle between Verstappen, Norris and Leclerc with similar pace. Formula 1 hasn’t had that for a long time. Then the strategy decides in a race. However, it seems quite easy in Imola. A gigantic 28-second pit stop delta makes everyone shy away from stopping. In addition, the tire holds up well. A medium-hard stop is set as a strategy.
The options are so limited. “You can stop early, try an early undercut, or stop late and overtake people with fresher tires,” says Andrea Stella. The latter has the problem that Imola only offers one DRS zone and little overtaking space. Therefore, the pace advantage required for a maneuver is significant.
But if you have a marginally better pace than the car in front and are therefore stuck at the beginning, Pirelli can imagine that – similar to Norris in Miami – you could extend the first stint without losing too much time. Precisely thanks to the low and primarily heat-related load on the tires, which allows the tire to stabilize again when driving freely.
If the pace is comparable, the start becomes the key. 399 meters to the first braking zone is a long way. A small advantage for Leclerc and Sainz: From the second row they can catch the slipstream of Verstappen and Norris. Could they strike back afterwards? We have to wait for the race. Always good when Formula 1 can say that again.