The 2025 Emilia-Romagna GP was an action-packed send-off
With the European leg of the 2025 Formula 1 season kicking off, we go to the revered Imola Circuit to watch the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix take place, which sadly, will be the last visit to the circuit as it is unlikely the contract will be renewed after 2025, so it was fitting that this weekend was a very memorable one to begin with.
Max Verstappen won the race from the very start
For those tired of papaya domination, Max Verstappen’s (Red Bull) performance this weekend showed why he’s a four-time world champion. Despite qualifying in P2, his unrelenting lunge into Turn 1 where he squeezed past Oscar Piastri (McLaren) was nothing short of impressive.
Even with two of the fastest cars on the grid right behind him, he and the team managed to control the entire race with impressive tire management, pitting at just the right time thanks to two yellow flags.
His teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, also had a very respectable race as well. Because of a massive crash in Q1, he had to start from the pit lane as Red Bull had to essentially rebuild his car, but he finished just at the edge of the points-scoring positions (P10), an impressive feat for starting from the back.
McLaren’s strategy bottled Oscar Piastri’s race
You may have the best drivers, the fastest cars, and ideal positions in the race, but if your team makes bad calls and you have slow stops, you’re pretty much screwed in a race like this, which is what exactly happened to Oscar Piastri. After losing his position to Verstappen in Lap 1, he spent the rest of the race trying to catch up to the flying Red Bull.
Oddly enough, he pitted extremely early at Lap 14, unlike the other frontrunners, meaning he had to fight his way up the pack, using up his fresh tires pretty early. Then, the virtual safety car was put out due to Esteban Ocon (Haas) stopping on the grass and retiring, to which he pitted a second time, emerging somewhere in the lower end of the midfield.
He then had to use up those tires to claw his way up through the midfield, finally getting to P3 at Lap 40, to which a proper safety car was called after Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) had problems and retired at the side of the track on Lap 46.
A lap in, the rest of the pack pitted except for Piastri, meaning the Australian had to fight for the lead with heavily degraded tires. This meant that even if he was P2, he eventually had to concede the place to his teammate Lando Norris, who had significantly fresher tires to try and catch up to Verstappen. Norris finished in P2 and Piastri in P3.
We thought Ferrari screwed up, but they didn’t
Going into the weekend, we thought that Scuderia Ferrari might have messed up with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton qualifying P11 and P12 respectively, but to our surprise, we saw the two Ferrari drivers pull nothing short of a miracle as they fought their way up to the front of the midfield.
Sadly, the virtual safety car and the safety car did not fall in Leclerc’s favor in terms of pit stop timing, but for Hamilton, the stars aligned as he was able to overtake the two rapid Williams drivers (Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon), he had quick pitstops and a late-stage scrap between Albon and Leclerc ultimately allowed Hamilton to take P4 in the race, with Leclerc finishing P6 after he had to surrender P5 to Albon.
Filling up the rest of the spots were George Russell (Mercedes) at P7, Carlos Sainz (Williams) at P8, and Isack Hadjar at P9, who is having a solid rookie season after a rocky debut.
The next race will be held at yet another historical circuit, the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday, May 25, at 9:00pm (Philippine Standard Time).
Photos from Formula 1
