MAX VERSTAPPEN ADDED ANOTHER GEM TO HIS ALREADY EXTENSIVE COLLECTION. THE FOUR-TIME WORLD CHAMPION TOOK A BRILLIANT WIN, HIS FOURTH IN A ROW IN IMOLA, SOMETHING NO OTHER DRIVER HAS MANAGED AT THIS TRACK. THE DUTCHMAN’S 65TH WIN WAS THE IDEAL WAY FOR HIS RED BULL RACING TEAM TO CELEBRATE ITS 400TH GRAND PRIX, TO WHICH MAX ALSO ADDED THE TEAM’S 100TH FASTEST RACE LAP.
Joining him on the podium were the McLaren duo of Lando Norris, second and pole sitter Oscar Piastri in third spot.
THE DAY ON TRACK
As expected, the Hard and Medium tyres were the only two compounds used in the race. For the start, five drivers – Hamilton (Ferrari), Tsunoda (Red Bull), Antonelli (Mercedes), Bearman (Haas) and Hulkenberg (Sauber) – chose the C4 for the opening stint, with all the others going with the C5.
The Hard completed 812 laps (67.39%) and the Medium did 393 (32.61%). The longest stint on both compounds was 34 laps with Russell, Alonso, Gasly, Leclerc, Lawson and Sainz doing so on the C4, while Tsunoda and Hulkenberg went the same distance on the C5.
Of the drivers who finished, two made just one stop – Tsunoda and Hulkenberg, while Bortoleto pitted three times. The others all stopped twice, on at least one occasion making the most of a Safety Car period.
MARIO ISOLA – PIRELLI DIRECTOR OF MOTORSPORT
“An exciting incident-packed race brought a very busy weekend to a close, which for us featured the outright debut of the new C6 compound. Now, it will be important to analyse all the data from these three days thoroughly, as it should provide useful insights for coming races, especially in terms of tyre compound allocation for races in the second half of the season.
“What we can say right now is that the decision to go with a trio of compounds one step softer than last year proved to be the right one. If we look at the first part of the race, as the second was affected by neutralisations, we saw that in a situation where all the drivers were managing their pace in the opening stint, it only required one of them to make an unexpected move – in this case Leclerc pitting early on lap 10 – to trigger changes in strategy. Some chose to extend the first stint as much as possible, obviously going for a one-stop race, while others realised that the Ferrari driver’s undercut worked very well and were forced to react. In fact, on fresh tyres and with a clear track ahead of him, Leclerc made up a lot of places.
“Of course, what happened in the second part of the race makes it hard to know for certain to what extent such an early pit stop would have paid off, or if the move would have forced those who did so into switching to a two-stop strategy. It means that, in general, the decision to go with softer tyres still opened the door to more choices, both in terms of the number of stops and the length of the stints.”
FORMULA 2
Alexander Dunne won the Feature Race. Rodin Motorsport’s Irish drivers thus secured his second success of the season thanks to the way the pit stops played out, along with some overtaking moves in the crucial stages. Behind him across the line came the two Hitech TGR drivers, Englishman Luke Browning second ahead of Sweden’s Dino Beganovic. The win means Dunne also now leads the championship with 64 points, six more than Browning.
As regards the tyres, the majority of drivers (13) chose to start on the Supersoft to pit at the earliest opportunity to change to Softs. Whereas those who decided to start on the harder compound ran the risk of having a Safety Car period after half-distance. This duly happened which meant some drivers had to make an additional stop. As is often the case, the variety of strategies led to plenty of duels and overtaking on track.
FORMULA 3
Mexico’s Santiago Ramos won the Feature Race. He was the protagonist of a long fight, swapping places several times with Brazil’s Rafael Camara (Trident). The key move came with three laps to go when Ramos made the decisive pass. The Brazilian then lost second place to his team-mate, Denmark’s Noah Stromstedt. However, Camara still leads the championship on 73 points, 21 more than Stromstedt.
As for the tyres, managing degradation was the key to the final result. Those who did a good job of it in the early stages and were able to run clear of traffic, had the upper hand in the end.
