Max Verstappen reignited the championship fight on Sunday, beating Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to victory at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. The Dutchman made a daring move around the outside at Turn One and never looked under significant threat thereafter.
Piastri’s lead over Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship standings has now been trimmed to just 22 points heading into a Monaco Grand Prix that will produce several question marks, with a new mandatory two-stop tyre strategy set to be implemented.
Elsewhere, the tables turned between Mercedes and Ferrari. The Silver Arrows endured a miserable weekend in Imola with Kimi Antonelli suffering a mechanical DNF and George Russell dropping from third on the grid to seventh at the flag. Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, scored his best finish of the season in fourth with team-mate Charles Leclerc close behind in P6.
Keep up to date with the latest F1 news and reaction with our live blog below…
Max Verstappen has called out the decision to seemingly let Imola slide off the F1 calendar. The iconic circuit is out of contract at the end of the season with no sight of a resolution, while Zandvoort’s exit after 2026 has already been confirmed.
“Losing these kind of tracks is a shame,” the Dutchman said. “I get it from F1’s side of things, of course — the new tracks that we are going to, so you have to see it from a sportive side and a financial side, right?
“If you want to grow the business and make it more popular, I get it. For me, of course, personally, when I just speak about the enjoyment of driving, it’s these kind of tracks that made me fall in love with racing in general – in go-karting even, because you have the same thing in karting where some tracks are more special than others.”
1 hour ago12:17 Harry Smith
Barrichello admits Sergio Perez U-turn
Rubens Barrichello has described the second seat at Red Bull as the ‘toughest job in F1’. Yuki Tsunoda endured a challenging race in Imola, coming from the back after a heavy qualifying crash.
“Being in the sister car to Max Verstappen is the toughest job in F1,” he told PokerScout. “There’s a lot of pressure in it. Unfortunately, you don’t get the respect when you perform in that role. I honestly believed, from the bottom of my heart, that Sergio Perez was not the right person to drive alongside Verstappen at Red Bull, but he ended up doing so well.
“Perez showed he’s the right person to do that role. He won Monaco with Verstappen as his teammate. Red Bull may have waited too long to get rid of him, but he proved a lot of people wrong. When I see people talking badly about Perez, I defend him now, he did so well. Red Bull needed a change and Perez needed it too.”
2 hours ago11:28 Harry Smith
Horner applauds divisive McLaren decision
Christian Horner has commended McLaren’s decision to let Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri battle at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. The two stars finished second and third behind Max Verstappen, who claimed his second victory of the campaign.
“The VSC came out, the pit stop was pretty straightforward, then, of course, Oscar pitted again on his strategy, which sort of neutralised things,” Horner explained.
“But by that time, he’d use both of his hard tyres, and then that final safety car: Max pitted, Lando pitted, but it dropped him behind Oscar, which was… you’ve got two drivers that are fighting for a world championship.
“At some point, self-interest will always outweigh team interest – that’s the conflict. So they did a good job to not make contact. It was commendable that they were allowed to race, but you could see it got pretty close.”
F1 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix 2025 Practice 1 And Practice 2
Christian Horner applauded McLaren’s decision (Image: Getty)
3 hours ago10:32 Harry Smith
Verstappen ‘should consider Red Bull exit’
Rubens Barrichello believes that Max Verstappen is ‘enjoying life’ at Red Bull, but that he should consider moving to Aston Martin if the opportunity presents itself.
“Max Verstappen is a happy guy, he’s enjoying life and you can see the emotion when he puts the Red Bull on pole, he’s getting more out of the car than what it should produce,” he told PokerScout.
“Verstappen has gratitude for what the car used to be able to produce, which makes a good combination. For sure, he’s a driver who won’t be short of offers to join rival teams, but I don’t think that will dominate his thoughts, he’s focused on producing results now.”You would say right now, Aston Martin is a good place to be for the future, so Max Verstappen will be thinking about that at some point. But, Formula One is a clever world, and it’s amazing how they can develop their cars.
“I was a pain in the arse as a driver, because when the engineer would tell me they’ve made a change to the car, I would be really critical. Now, you can appreciate that they can make machines fly past so quickly, it’s amazing.”
4 hours ago09:52 Harry Smith
Hamilton draws China comparison with Imola joy
Lewis Hamilton has compared the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix to his sprint race victory in Shanghai. The seven-time world champion came from 12th on the grid to finish fourth in Imola.
“There are tons of positives,” Hamilton explained. “The strategy was fantastic, they made great calls, and didn’t put a foot wrong, the car felt like China when I was really aligned with the car – and then the only other time is today, like I really felt that synergy.
“The set-up was great, and we made an improvement in the race and unlocked our potential. If we had qualified higher, we would have been fighting for a podium, which I just did not think was possible.
“The whole thing was entertaining, obviously the beginning wasn’t spectacular, but got a decent start and was squeezed and lost ground to the Mercedes [of Kimi Antonelli]. I was just sitting there waiting, and I had to be patient, but the strategy started to pan out, and the car came alive on the medium tyres.
“I’ve always loved when you are fighting from further back and coming through, that is how I started off as a kid at Rye House. It is such a better feeling than starting and finishing first, but definitely, it was a mega race and there are so many positives to take from it.”
4 hours ago09:10 Harry Smith
Piastri pledges to avoid repeating Verstappen blunder
Oscar Piastri has vowed not to repeat his Turn One mistake defending from Max Verstappen at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. The Australian’s championship lead was trimmed down to 13 points following his third-place finish.
“I thought I had it pretty under control, and it was a good move from Max,” Piastri said after the chequered flag. “So, yeah, I’ll learn for next time clearly. But at that point, I wasn’t overly concerned about not being in the lead.
“But then our pace just wasn’t as strong as I expected. So that compounded the first corner. I definitely would have done something different. I would have braked ten metres later probably. That’s all. Live and learn. It’s never a great day when you start first and finish third. I think Turn One was not ideal. I think in the end, our stop timing wasn’t [great], and I think the race panned out differently than how we expected at the start of the first stint.
“So then the timing of the VSC and the safety car, the race was very tough from very early on. You’re going have tough days in the championship, and this is clearly one of them. So as long as we learn the lessons, then that’s all I can ask.”
F1 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix 2025
Oscar Piastri finished third in Imola (Image: Getty)
5 hours ago08:24 Harry Smith
Verstappen expects tough time in Monaco
Max Verstappen expects Red Bull to face another tough weekend at the Monaco Grand Prix next time around, despite storming to his second race win of the campaign in Imola on Sunday.
“This track has quite a few high-speed corners, which I think our car likes,” he explained after the chequered flag on Sunday. “I also think we took a step forward with the setup of the car, which helps.
“[The next race in] Monaco is, of course, very, very different. So, let’s see how we are going to perform there. Last year was very difficult for us. I don’t expect it to be a lot easier this time around because there’s, of course, a lot of low speed, but we’ll see.
“I mean, it’s just one race on the calendar, where you try to do the best you can. Even after that, there’s a lot of races left, but, of course, you can clearly see that once we go to high-speed tracks and corners, then we are more competitive.”
5 hours ago07:54 Harry Smith
Villeneuve calls out Norris treatment as McLaren catch heat
1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve has called McLaren out for showing ‘weakness’ in their fight against Max Verstappen. The Canadian racer believed that Andrea Stella’s squad made a mistake in not prioritising Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri on the final safety car restart.
They show weakness,” he told Sky Sports F1. “Basically, they don’t show the strength that Red Bull are always showing year after year. It’s as if they’re afraid to be aggressive in trying to win the Drivers’ Championship, and they’re afraid to go against Piastri. It’s really, really odd.
“Piastri messed up that first corner. He got caught out sleeping. He should never have come out of the corner second, and then he didn’t have the pace, which was odd. Norris had more pace. On the restart, McLaren knew that it was a matter of laps before Norris would have taken Piastri with the tyre difference; it was obvious.
“100 per cent sure he would get ahead, so why make him lose three laps instead of giving him a shot at Verstappen? Because Verstappen is in for the championship. You don’t want to give Verstappen wins. That’s more points for him in the Drivers’ Championship.
“They seem to be happy with second and third. McLaren has a car where a good weekend means first and second. Anything less is a bit disappointing. First and third is fairly acceptable, but they seem happy with second and third.”
6 hours ago07:46 Harry Smith
Hamilton confesses Imola sleep issues
Lewis Hamilton revealed that he was struggling to sleep ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, with the seven-time world champion chomping at the bit to get behind the wheel of the SF-25 in front of the Tifosi for the first time.
“I feel so happy for this result, for the team,” he said after the race. “As I said, I only slept four hours last night, so I couldn’t sleep. My brain was working just over time, trying to think of how we’re going to rest today and what I’m going to do.”
“When I arrived here, it was a wonderful day, full of fans. They gave me so much love. It’s a new experience for me here. The performance has improved a lot. The team has done an incredible job. The pit stops and the strategy were perfect. They really deserve a good pat on their backs, so I’m really proud of everybody.”