Max Verstappen dominated the 2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix to take victory in Red Bull’s 400th F1 race.
Verstappen completed a late-braking move into Tamburello at the start to sweep round the outside and proceeded to scurry away to victory on a milestone occasion for Red Bull, amidst a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) and full safety car for Esteban Ocon and Andrea Kimi Antonelli respectively.
Speaking post-race about his “fantastic” victory, Verstappen believes that Red Bull are now going in the right direction in terms of car setup and tyres.
“We have clearly made a step forward with the set up of the car. I looked after my tyres quite well and it felt really good on both of the compounds.”
The 27 year-old Dutchman also spoke of his happiness at achieving the win on a milestone weekend for Red Bull as he praised the team for giving him a winning setup.
“Big thank you to everyone here and at the factory for this, this makes our 400th race even more special. Hopefully we can extract what we learnt here today a bit more often.”
McLaren’s Lando Norris finished second with a Lap 58 overtake on Oscar Piastri who settled for third ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
Alex Albon passed Charles Leclerc on the final lap for fifth whilst George Russell, Carlos Sainz, Isack Hadjar and Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top ten, with Tsunoda having started the race from the pits after his Q1 crash.
In the drivers’ standings, Piastri’s 16-point lead was reduced slightly to 13 points by Norris whilst Verstappen is 22 points adrift in third.
At lights out, Piastri made a clean start to lead into Tamburello but turned too tightly to the inside apex which allowed Verstappen to brake late and sweep round the outside into the lead and scurry away to build a two-second gap.
Norris meanwhile battled Russell hard for third until he sold a double-dummy out of Tamburello on Lap 11, which allowed him to sweep round the outside of Villeneuve to complete the overtake.
Further afield, Haas opted to gamble on a pit stop for hard tyres with Ocon which proved a shrewd move as high tyre degradation forced many medium-tyre runners to pit early, with second-placed Piastri making his stop on Lap 14 which dropped him to 12th and left him to battle his way back up the order.
Verstappen and Norris managed to hang on to their tyre life which allowed the pair to commit to an one-stopper after a VSC was deployed on Lap 29, after Ocon stopped on the exit of Tosa with a power-related issue on his Haas.
Norris though had made his stop on the lap of the VSC deployment which allowed Verstappen a free stop and when racing resumed on Lap 31, the four-time champion held a lead of over 19 seconds on Norris as those who started on the alternate strategy also took advantage of the VSC.
The initial medium tyre runners also took the opportunity to make their second stops which led to a mixed-up order but Hamilton and Leclerc benefitted from the chaos, as the pair cleared Antonelli for fifth and sixth on Laps 36 and 38 respectively.
Antonelli eventually encountered a power-related issue which forced him to stop on the exit of Tosa on Lap 46, which triggered a safety car and allowed the majority of the field except Piastri and Leclerc to stop.
Racing resumed at the end of Lap 53 as Verstappen quickly scarpered out of Piastri’s DRS range and cruised to victory in Red Bull’s 400th F1 race from Norris, after the Brit cleared Piastri on Lap 58 for second.
Leclerc and Albon scrapped hard over fourth which saw the latter run wide at Tamburello on Lap 59 and allowed Hamilton to clear both drivers to finish fourth, whilst Albon cleared Leclerc on the last lap to take fifth.
F1 now heads to Monaco from 23-25 May for its annual race on the streets of the Principality, albeit with a new two pit-stop rule in place to try and mix up the action.
| Position | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
| 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 63 | 1h ..m .. |
| 2 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 63 | + 6.109 |
| 3 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 63 | + 12.956 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 63 | + 14.356 |
| 5 | Alex Albon | Williams | 63 | + 17.945 |
| 6 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 63 | + 20.774 |
| 7 | George Russell | Mercedes | 63 | + 22.034 |
| 8 | Carlos Sainz | Williams | 63 | + 22.898 |
| 9 | Isack Hadjar | Racing Bulls | 63 | + 23.586 |
| 10 | Yuki Tsunoda | Red Bull | 63 | + 26.446 |
| 11 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | 63 | + 27.250 |
| 12 | Nico Hulkenberg | Sauber | 63 | + 30.296 |
| 13 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | 63 | + 31.424 |
| 14 | Liam Lawson | Racing Bulls | 63 | + 32.511 |
| 15 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 63 | + 32.993 |
| 16 | Franco Colapinto | Alpine | 63 | + 33.411 |
| 17 | Oliver Bearman | Haas | 63 | + 33.808 |
| 18 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Sauber | 63 | + 38.572 |
| RET | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 45 | Throttle |
| RET | Esteban Ocon | Haas | 27 | Power |
Leave a Reply