Oscar Piastri is performing like a world champion. His third pole of the season is so far the most valuable for both his campaign and McLaren’s. Imola isn’t Monaco, but in terms of overtaking difficulty, it’s very similar.
Track position is crucial, and there’s nothing better than starting a race from pole position when aiming for victory in tomorrow’s Grand Prix. In Piastri’s case, the added value of a technically and mentally flawless performance was boosted by Norris’s misstep.
Lando didn’t crash as he did in Jeddah, but fourth place is still a real blow. Throughout his career, Norris has been seen as a great qualifier, with flying laps being his strong suit, but even in this area (after losing the edge in race pace), Lando seems to be cracking under pressure from his younger teammate.
Too many mistakes at key moments — confirming that pressure is starting to build — and when you’re fighting for the title against a teammate who seems immune to errors, everything counts.
Piastri put himself in the spotlight and spared McLaren from a Verstappen ambush, as Max had snatched three poles in the previous four qualifying sessions from the papaya duo. One could write technical essays on Red Bull’s first part of the season. The team is now accustomed to the “Friday night fever,” having to completely reset the setup after the first two practice sessions and start from scratch through long conversations between the trackside engineers and those back in Milton Keynes.
It may be stressful for the engineers, but it seems to work. After forgettable Fridays — and yesterday’s was no exception — Max Verstappen and Red Bull rise again and nearly pull off the upset. Max believed in it; in Q3 with the first set of tyres, pole was his, but then Piastri delivered a perfectly timed strike.
When the drivers came out of the pits for the final Q3 run, Christian Horner and others thought pole was gone. But not because of McLaren — rather because of Mercedes, who at the last minute opted to fit Russell’s car with a set of medium tyres. It was the right call, one that Red Bull and McLaren didn’t dare to make, focusing instead on covering each other. But for George, the crucial mistake came between turns 1 and 4, where he lost a tenth compared to Oscar Piastri.
Russell had to improvise warming up the medium set, and when a tenth of a second is at stake, everything matters. Over the rest of the lap, the Mercedes was slightly more competitive than Piastri’s McLaren, and in the end George still secured third, putting the podium within reach.
The team that best managed tyre behaviour during the tricky Imola qualifying session was Aston Martin. One of the day’s surprises was certainly Fernando Alonso, emerging as the “best of the rest” — a result even the most die-hard Silverstone fans wouldn’t have dared to expect before the weekend. It wasn’t a fluke, as proven by Stroll’s eighth place.
Williams is less of a surprise now, having become accustomed to Q3, while Hadjar saw a potential third-row start slip away due to a small but decisive error on his second tyre set. It’s no coincidence that Imola’s qualifying session saw more mistakes, incidents, and surprises than usual — the track is extremely demanding, and everyone knows that tomorrow’s starting position will largely dictate the race outcome. That is, barring any unexpected events.
Leave a Reply