2025 Emilia Romagna GP: Post Race Analysis

Superb race start to finish. I think Pirelli/F1 made the right call by bringing the softest tires. The soft was pretty much useless, even in quali it was technically the slower tire. However, it made the race incredibly interesting with a wide variety of tire wear issues and many different strategies.

Red Bull in their 400th race claim a victory with Max Verstappen. As usual, he was brilliant. As per the 2025 driving rules, he was inch perfect in getting around Oscar into the first turn. From there he looked at one with the car and probably would have won by 20-30 seconds if it wasn't for the safety cars. Of course the team brought upgrades that look to have helped the car. He even had luck on his side which meant it was a pretty easy victory. Hats off to Yuki who started from the pit lane after a huge crash in quali. Wasn't looking all that great in the first quarter of the race, but with some luck and good strategy calls he was able to get a point.

McLaren was probably expected to dominate this race. They had the best car but failed to capitalize. Some of that is because Max just did a better job, but the entire team kind of dropped the ball. Oscar's early brake into turn 1. The decision to pit Oscar early in reaction to Leclerc, that was a mistake. A few poor pitstops. Lando had the fresh tires in the end and the probably should have swapped them immediately after the restart. Fair play for letting them race, but if Lando was going to get by anyways, why not orchestrate it to allow him a shot at Max? Still a good result for the team.

Ferrari actually had race pace. They didn't look particularly great in straight line speed, at least not compared to the McLaren. The Ferrari's did look very decent with tire management. It was odd that Ferrari pitted Leclerc so early after Charles said the mediums were better than expected and nobody was really complaining at that point. It did gain them track position as others reacted, but overall it was a mistake as they just didn't have tires in the end. Hamilton has been known for being extremely lucky, and that luck was back today. Very fortunate with how the safety cars played out. I do like that he starts on the hard tires after a bad qualifying as it gives him all sorts of options to be aggressive and race for position in the end. A fantastic 4th place result for him. A bad luck but good 6th place for Charles. He was correct to give the place back to Albon, as he deserved a penalty for pushing him off the track.

Williams were genuinely fast this weekend and it is great to see. Top 5 for Albon which is great. Sainz probably would have done better on a different strategy. After hearing about Albon's time's on old mediums, he recognized the 1 stop (which never happened) was the better strategy. Still strong points overall for the team.

Mercedes were not very good in the race. Seems like the story of the car is poor in hot conditions is true. It's too aggressive on it's tires and drivers need to manager the tires more than others. George complained about the car not feeling right but still got an okay result. Kimi learned a lot about defense, especially in a car that had issues and eventually had to be parked.

RB got a surprise points finish with Hadjar. He was outstanding in this race. There was a point he looked like he might get a top 6. 9th is still worth being proud of, especially when you consider how far back Lawson was in the same car.

Aston Martin brought a successful upgrade for a change, and they wasted it. Too early on the first pitstops, which did make sense in the moment. Choosing not to pit under the VSC was awfully weird when everyone else chose tires with half a race to go. The car had pace for points, it's a shame that they leave empty handed.

Sauber had a good day, but the car is still just too slow. Hulkenberg had a very positive drive and had a sniff at some points. It just didn't work out. Bortoleto seems to have fallen off a bit since the start of the season.

Alpine had a terrible race. Gasly had a great qualifying, starting P10. Ends up driving himself off the track in a fight with Leclerc. I wonder if it damaged the floor because he was nowhere after that. Colapinto returns to F1. He looked amazing last season, not so much in his first race this season. He was given a 5 race period to impress. He is not off to a good start.

Haas had a miserable race. Didn't have the pace, didn't have any luck and they had reliability issues as well. Tough day the say the least.

Driver of the Day: Max Verstappen. Probably had the second best car today, but that's hard to judge because it's the 4th best car in the hands of Yuki. 100% still slower than the McLarens, but Max was happy in the car and he could have won by half a minute. Imola is a drivers track and he made it look easy. Honorable mentions to both Ferrari drivers. Poor starting positions and they had to fight their way forward and make the passes on track. Luck and strategy may have altered their positions a bit, but both drivers did the maximum they could on track.

 

I didn't think it would take 7 laps to remove a single stranded car with zero damage that parked in nearly the same spot Ocon did that only required a VSC.

 

Side note. I really enjoyed Imola's self policing of track limits. It was cut and dry, the edge of curb was the limit, you go off you lose time or crash. There also wasn't any problem with gravel on the track.