He was still struggling on Friday, and he didn’t show any outstanding form in the final training session on Saturday – but when it counts, Max Verstappen delivers. He put his lap together perfectly in the third qualifying section and, contrary to expectations, took pole position for the Formula 1 race on Sunday. Not entirely uninvolved was Nico Hülkenberg, who also took part in Q3 with a strong performance in qualifying for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
The key to pole position: Hülkenberg’s perfect slipstream game
Approaching turn 2 – the Tamburello variant – the German pulled the Dutchman along in his slipstream. “We were slipstream buddies out there. Already in Q2, then in Q3. I gave him a slipstream for Turn 17, then he gave me a slipstream for Turn 2,” Verstappen spoke in the press conference about the mutual help on the Route.
Hülkenberg started his last fast lap in Q3 in first place and at the end of his lap he ran into Verstappen, who was on his warm-up lap. The German initially benefited from Verstappen’s slipstream. Then the roles changed. Because when the world champion began his flying lap, Hülkenberg was on his cooling lap, first pulling Verstappen along on the start/finish straight and then letting him pass.
Accordingly, Verstappen had a small advantage on his pole lap in the first sector, which the motorsport boss also acknowledged Red Bull, Dr. Helmut Marko, in an interview with Servus TV, acknowledged: “He won it in sector 1 and you also have to thank Hülkenberg. Because he gave him a slipstream and he made up two tenths on Piastri. In the last one [Sektor] Then it was only seven hundredths.”
The data reveals: The decision was made in Sector 1
The analysis of the Red Bull Motorsport boss is reflected exactly in the data: Verstappen was able to gain ground on the second fastest, Oscar Piastri, especially in the first half of the lap, whereas the Red Bull driver was particularly close to the two in the last sector McLaren driver lost. In this diagram we have shown you the laps of the four fastest drivers from Q3. The gap between Piastri, Norris and Leclerc and Verstappen’s time is shown:
The large lead that Verstappen was able to build on his final qualifying lap up to Turn 2 becomes even clearer when you overlay his first and second Q3 attempts. In this diagram you can see how steeply the gap increased at the beginning of the round in the first attempt compared to the second attempt:
Verstappen could probably have benefited even more from Hülkenberg’s slipstream if he hadn’t made a small mistake on his qualifying lap. “I think I arrived a little too quickly because I missed turn 2 a little bit,” admitted the world champion after qualifying. “So I gained a bit before, but lost a bit in Turn 2. Overall, though, it helped me a bit. But when you fight all weekend and then you finally get it, you have to look for those little advantages to stay ahead, and it worked beautifully,” Verstappen summed up happily.
Unexpectedly at the top: How Red Bull turned qualifying in Imola
Nobody at Red Bull had expected pole. “To be honest, I went into qualifying thinking if we got into the top five I would be happy because this weekend was really difficult,” said Verstappen. “So I’m incredibly happy to be on pole here. I didn’t expect that,” said the Dutchman immediately after qualifying. Already the first notes on the pit radio sparkled with relief: “Whoa, let’s go! What a difficult start, but we bloody turned it around. Thank you all! That’s fantastic! I’m really happy!” Verstappen hasn’t been heard this emotional and euphoric for a long time.
But why did the pole in Imola come as such a surprise for the world champion team that dominated the first races of the 2024 Formula 1 season? To do this, we have to go back to the three training sessions in which Verstappen did not get past fifth place. The Dutchman was particularly noticeable for trips into the gravel trap and complaints about a lack of grip on the pit radio. After the unsuccessful Friday, Verstappen was extremely dissatisfied and criticized Red Bull’s performance harshly.
The measures that Red Bull took overnight and on qualifying day seemed to be having an effect. “Every change today was positive. Adaptations were also made between Q1, Q2 and Q3. You could see that in the first Q3 run he had relatively strong understeer in Turn 7, and that was also adapted ” Marko noted on Servus TV.
“We just kept trying to improve the balance of the car because yesterday and this morning it was sliding back and forth quite a bit. We tried a lot of things and just kept tweaking here and there. Everyone stuck together, kept thinking about what we were doing could – also at the factory. And in the end we did it,” said Verstappen, emphasizing productive teamwork.
Regarding the setup work, Verstappen explained that the details were crucial here: “It was more about fine-tuning a few small things. It’s still a very strong car that I feel comfortable with. Just somehow it was very difficult this weekend “To find a setup.” In the session itself, in addition to the slipstream, it was the continuous improvement in each session and ultimately the willingness to take risks on the last lap that brought success, the pole sitter continued.
Imola was the closest qualifying of the season so far and normally he would prefer larger gaps, Verstappen joked in the press conference. But he can also see something positive in Red Bull’s trembling and resurrection: “It’s definitely a great feeling when you have a really difficult weekend and then manage to do it in qualifying. Of course I hope that doesn’t happen too often , but at the moment I’m very happy that we managed to turn the tide.”
For Red Bull it was the biggest turnaround during a weekend in recent years. “It’s been a while since I felt like we were so far away. I mean, in Singapore [2023] We were wrong all weekend, it was just a terrible weekend. But here we were pretty far away, and then we managed to turn things around.”
For Ferrari, pole was the advertised goal. Was the update a false hope? You can read all about it here:
Can Red Bull convert pole into a win? Verstappen urges caution
So will Red Bull come back stronger from the short downturn and drive everyone else into the ground again in the race? Not if Verstappen has his way. Because he doesn’t feel well prepared for the race at all. “I feel a little less prepared than I would like to be and we don’t expect it to be easy. Yesterday both the long runs and short runs were terrible. This morning we were only able to do three laps in the long run, “But it didn’t feel good there either,” Verstappen said blackly.
But Verstappen was able to regain a little optimism: “Of course I think that things will go better with the balance that I had in qualifying. But I have no idea how things will go McLaren will run out. They looked very strong on their long run yesterday so hopefully we can achieve something similar.”
Ultimately, Verstappen did not dare to make a final prediction: “We were behind the whole weekend. We managed to be at the front in qualifying, but that’s qualifying, the race can be a little different again. So we have to wait and see and see what happens in the race.”
However, the best starting position for the 63-lap race should help the Red Bull driver. If anyone has a chance of dominating and winning the race at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, it is the pole sitter. Because overtaking is notoriously difficult on the track. This circumstance may also have been crucial for the exuberant joy after the pole lap.
By the way, with his eighth pole in a row – across all seasons – Verstappen broke another historic mark today: he set the Formula 1 legend’s record Ayrton Senna, who had a fatal accident 30 years ago at the San Marino GP in Imola. And in another statistic he could catch up with the Brazilian hero tomorrow: If he gets his third victory at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, then Verstappen will have as many Imola victories to his name as Senna.
The entire Formula 1 weekend in Imola is marked by the tragedy surrounding Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. On Thursday, Sebastian Vettel organized a memorial run for the Formula 1 drivers who died in an accident in 1994. Many drivers also commemorate the deceased symbolically throughout the weekend. In this video, F1 reporting legend Roger Benoit remembers his moving encounters with the driver and the person Ayrton Senna: