How Verstappen Fended Off McLaren At The Imola Grand Prix

It’s easy to pin Max Verstappen’s victory on that first lap heroics. That sweeping move around championship leader Oscar Piastri into Tamburello was textbook Verstappen. Opportunistic and clinical. But the win wasn’t sealed there. It simply was a starting point. The rest was about managing everything McLaren threw at him. His RB21 seemed to have just a sliver more in hand, just enough to keep the papaya cars at arm’s length. He didn’t disappear up the road; he didn’t need to.

Track Advantage

McLaren has looked strong across most circuits this season, but Imola exposed one of their few soft spots: high-speed corners. That’s exactly where the Red Bull had the upper hand. carrying more speed in, limiting the sliding, keeping surface temps under control.

Taking a higher speed into the corners reduces sliding and keeps the surface temperature of the tyres cool. This slight advantage gave Red Bull the overall edge when it came to tyre management. And with the softest compounds in play, Imola was all about keeping that tyre surface temperature as cool as needed.

What Verstappen’s first lap overtake did was secure track position and then it was simply defending a car that did not have the race pace to chase him down.

Car Upgrades

Along with several other teams in the paddock, Red Bull also brought an array of upgrades to Emilia-Romagna. These include an extension to the sidepod on the upper edge of the sidepod duct, similar to McLaren and Ferrari. On top of that, there have been changes to the body of the sidepod itself, along with aerodynamic pieces underneath. New braking inlets and outlets were also brought for cooling. These upgrades also ensured flexibility when setting up the car for drivers, giving the RB21 better DRS performance overall.

“The new package gives more opportunity to improve the setup,” said technical chief Pierre Wache.

Verstappen said, “I do think the car felt a bit nicer, a bit more controlled to drive now also in the long run, and that helped me, I think, also then look after the tyres probably a bit more than normal.”

The Strategy

Leclerc’s early stop looked like a great move, with the Monegasque slicing through traffic on fresh tyres. McLaren followed suit, bringing Piastri in, an aggressively early stop in an attempt to undercut the Red Bull. But while the idea was right, the execution hit its limits. The tyres simply didn’t offer enough grip longevity, and with overtaking tough and tyre degradation unpredictable, every second in traffic hurt. Maximising clean air became the real challenge.

Then chaos ensued with the safety cars. Esteban Ocon’s retirement triggered a Virtual Safety Car, gifting Verstappen a cheap pit stop that stretched his lead. Drivers like Norris, for example, lost out, having pitted the lap before. Later, Kimi Antonelli’s DNF brought out a full Safety Car, reshuffling the pack once again, and Verstappen maintained his lead and drove to victory.

“We knew that it would have been very balanced in qualifying, like we have already seen in Saudi and in Japan, in this kind of fast-flowing circuit,” said McLaren team principal Andrea Stella. “But I have to say today [in the race] we were a little surprised, and I have to be honest here, by the pace of Red Bull, which was very competitive.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said, “We were sort of more surprised about McLaren’s, probably, lack of performance.”

“I think it’s very track specific,” said Verstappen. “I mean, every time that we have been really competitive, it’s been high-speed tracks, high-speed corners. We still have work to do, but I do think it’s been a very positive weekend for us.”

What’s Next?

Despite being outscored by his closest rivals, Piastri holds onto the top spot in the drivers’ championship.

Next up is Monaco. The tightest, twistiest maze in motorsport, and with little room to overtake, track position is everything. Last year, hometown hero Charles Leclerc took the victory in the principality. This time around, though, with a mandatory two-stop strategy in play, the deck will keep shuffling until the chequered flag falls.