F1 News: Max Verstappen storms to GP of Emilia Romagna win

World Champion Max Verstappen made a sensational overtake of polesitter Oscar Piastri in Turn 1 at the start and led the rest of the way to win the 2025 GP of Emilia Romagna at Imola.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

“The start wasn’t particularly great but I was on the outside line, the normal line and I just thought well, I’ll try and send it and it worked out well,” said Verstappen.

“Then I could unleash the pace, we were good on our tires. The VSC was handy, even on the hard tire our pace was strong. The restart we managed well and brought it home.

“Incredibly proud of everyone, the car has performed well and the execution of the whole race was very good.”

Verstappen appeared to be cruising to an 18s win over Lando Norris; however, a late Safety Car bunched the field behind Verstappen and the two cars behind were the superior McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

Verstappen put his head down, set the fastest lap after fastest lap, and opened the gap to Piastri and Norris over the last 10 laps to win the 63-lap race by 6.109s, the 400th F1 race for his Red Bull team.

It was Verstappen’s 2nd win of 2025 and his 65th career F1 win.  It was also Verstappen’s 4th straight win at Imola.

Norris, on much fresher tires, passed Piastri with less than 5 laps to go to take 2nd behind Verstappen.

“It was a long race, not easy to overtake but we did what we could,” said Norris. “Max drove a good race, they were quick today – probably a little quicker. A good race, for us as a team second and third is great as they were too good for us today.

“With George, he was struggling with the tires a lot so it is a situation you have to take advantage of, we are racing – but he is a good racer, a fair racer.”

Piastri held on to third on his worn tires to finish 12.956s behind Verstappen.

“I Just braked too early at the start, it was a good move by Max as well,” said Piastri. “Disappointing obviously, and then we made a few wrong calls after that. Not our best Sunday, lots to look at and review after that one. We’ll see what we can do a bit better.

“It was tricky, the VSC was perfectly timed for Max and Lando, and I had used both my tires at that point so it made my last race start tricky, I didn’t have enough grip so third it is.”

Lewis Hamilton drove a spirited race, and used some good pit stop luck to finish 4th, 14.356s behind Verstappen.

Ferrari are one team that had a good afternoon. P11 and P12 on the grid turned into fourth and sixth at the flag, and they delivered double points for the Tifosi.

Alex Albon passed Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari on the last lap to round out the top-5 for Williams, 17.945s behind Verstappen.

George Russell started third but faded to P7 as the sole Mercedes finisher following Kimi Antonelli’s retirement, while Carlos Sainz added to William’s point tally in P8.

Isack Hadjar was ninth for Racing Bulls in another notable performance from the rookie, while Yuki Tsunoda climbed his way up too 10th to claim the final point. Some consolation for the Red Bull driver after his dramatic crash in Saturday’s Qualifying.

Piastri remains in control of the Championship, 13 points ahead of Norris. But Verstappen has closed right up – he is just nine points behind Norris now.

Albon has amassed an incredibly 40 points this season for Williams, he is eighth in the standings – way ahead of Ocon in P9.

Next up is the GP of Monaco next weekend where qualifying will be essential.

2025 GP of Emilia Romagna Results