Verstappen holds off hard charging Norris for tight win at Imola; Leclerc a distant third in Ferrari’s backyard

With seven rounds now in the books, Formula 1 has unexpectedly tightened up after the early going looked like an easy Max Verstappen/Red Bull romp to another double championship. Verstappen did return to the winner’s circle Sunday at the Emila-Romagna Grand Prix two weeks after being bested by McLaren’s Lando Norris in Miami. But once again, Norris was his greatest competition and Verstappen had to work extremely hard to hold off the hard charging Englishman amidst the McLaren man’s blistering late race surge. In the end, Norris looked to have the pace to take it to the RB20 but ran out of laps and tires in this 63-lap contest and Verstappen took the checkers a mere 0.725 seconds ahead of him. The McLaren team have now shown that whether at the very nouveau Miami street circuit or here at the old school Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari they actually have the pace to compete with the Red Bull in Verstappen’s masterful hands, making the prospect of the latter two-thirds of the season much more mouthwatering than most might have initially imagined.

Catch up on an action-packed Emilia Romagna Grand Prix! 🇮🇹

Watch the highlights below 👇

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 19, 2024

The race started out ordinarily enough, with Verstappen leading away the field from the pole. Norris had inherited P2 after his rapid teammate Oscar Piastri was demoted three grid spots due to a blocking infraction during Saturday qualifying, shuffling the young Aussie back to P5 on the grid. Verstappen made his usual dynamite start and rapidly built a gap to Norris’s pursuing McLaren. With all top ten starters doing their opening stint on Medium Pirelli tires and the one-stop strategy being undoubtedly the fastest way to the finish, the first twenty or so laps were merely the calm before the first pit stop storm to come. Mercedes’ George Russell was the first of the contending dominoes to fall and he dove into the pits for the conventional switch to Hard rubber on Lap 22. Norris followed suit a lap after and teammate Piastri went one lap longer, with Verstappen going to Lap 24 before he felt the need to pit. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc then boxed from the lead on Lap 25, while teammate Carlos Sainz made his stop on Lap 27, along with the second Merc of Lewis Hamilton. When all had cycled through and Leclerc had passed the yet-to-pit Sergio Perez, the second Red Bull running an alternate Hard-to-Medium strategy after qualifying only P11, it was back to Verstappen leading the race, with Norris in P2 and Leclerc in P3. On the slight undercut, Piastri had also leapfrogged Sainz for P4, with the Spaniard now mired behind the long-running Perez in P6.

Sainz made quick work of that Red Bull on old Hard tires, though, and the Mexican finally made his first stop and the switch to Mediums on Lap 37. Now it was a battle among the top three at the front, with Norris and Leclerc looking like they would be duking it out for P2, and Verstappen just swanning away down the road. However, while Leclerc was able to get his disadvantage to Norris down to a mere 1.72 seconds by Lap 41, he had an off-track excursion on Lap 47 that put paid to his dreams of getting within DRS range of the McLaren. Meanwhile, Norris steadily upped his pace and Verstappen was strikingly unable to maintain his advantage as the laps wound down. By Lap 52, Norris had brought the gap down to under 4 seconds and by Lap 57, it was just 2 seconds. But both Verstappen’s and Norris’s tires were now falling off the performance cliff, and Norris had to fight a snap of oversteer just as he was getting into DRS range of the Red Bull. While Norris gamely tried to make it back-to-back victories after notching his first F1 win in Miami, the laps ran out before he could get close enough to make a lunge. Verstappen crossed the line the winner, albeit under a second in front of the papaya-orange McLaren. While the next race is Monaco and that is its own strange and unique beast, it should be very interesting to see if Norris and McLaren — and maybe Piastri, too, with a little more luck — can keep taking it to Verstappen and Red Bull when F1 subsequently returns to the more conventional and faster circuits in Canada and Spain.

Soooooooo close 🤌

But make no mistake – Lando’s up front to stay! #F1 #ImolaGP pic.twitter.com/dR9EtmcOnA

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 19, 2024

Leclerc finished a distant third but it was also Ferrari’s first podium at Imola since 2006, when Michael Schumacher claimed the win. Scuderia teammate Sainz finished a desultory P5 after Piastri had jumped him in the pits on the undercut and maintained that P4 to the end. Still, Piastri must have been left wondering what might have been had he not gotten that silly impeding penalty. Mercedes continued their run of absolute mediocrity, confirming their status as the fourth best team this season, with Lewis Hamilton crossing the line in P6 and Russell finishing P7. Perez and his strategist were probably hoping for the usual Safety Car/Red Flag period, with all the acres of gravel here at Imola, but surprisingly the race ran green throughout. So, Perez’s lack of qualifying pace continues to damage his and the team’s season and he could only rally to P8 from his poor P11 start. Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll finished P9 and the RB Honda of Yuki Tsunoda took the last point in P10.

Top 10 finishers of the Emilia-Romagna GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in but a week’s time and it’s the grandaddy of them all — the Monaco Grand Prix on the traditional Memorial Day weekend Sunday. Qualifying is everything on the narrow streets of the principality so, we’ll have to see if McLaren or maybe even Ferrari can bring the fight for pole to Verstappen & Red Bull. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!