Max Verstappen sees hope after Imola: “A promising weekend, but in Monaco I’ll just enjoy the scenery”. Max Verstappen reflects on his Imola victory as a promising step for Red Bull.

Great start, but not only that
When the opportunity arises, Max Verstappen is always ready. As had already happened in Suzuka — another track where overtaking is particularly difficult — the Dutch champion managed to make the difference again at Imola and took his second Grand Prix win of the season, closing the gap in the standings to just 22 points from the top, still held by Oscar Piastri. The duel between the two at the start was perhaps the most spectacular moment of the entire race — certainly the most decisive. After a less-than-perfect launch that looked like it would leave him in third, Red Bull’s #1 perfectly exploited a gap and took the lead.

“I’m happy with what I did today,” Max Verstappen told Sky Sport F1. “The overtake in Turn 2 was really nice, I enjoyed it — it put me in first position, but after that we didn’t know if we had the race pace. Instead, the car was in a good window,” emphasized the reigning world champion. “I managed the tyres a bit better than usual, we unlocked some pace and things were a bit more under control. So we were able to respond to all of McLaren’s challenges.”

A turning point weekend
Max Verstappen also compared this result with Miami, pointing out that without the pace, even a brilliant move at the start wouldn’t have been enough to bring home 25 points: “In Miami I also had a clear track ahead at the beginning, but I had no pace. You always need to have the pace, even if you’re in front. For sure following another car is difficult, but in Miami they overtook me without any issues, and if I hadn’t had the pace today, they would’ve passed me today too. Today was a much more promising day for us: we had much better balance. As I said, it’s very promising.”

Despite the positive feeling, the four-time world champion warned that things might look quite different in a week’s time at Monte Carlo: “You also have to look at the track layout. Here there were many fast corners, which suit us well. Monaco is the opposite, so it will be more complicated. I’ll probably enjoy the view more,” Max Verstappen joked, “but we’ll see. After that we go to Barcelona, and there it will be much more possible [to be competitive]. We also learned a lot about the setup this weekend and I hope we can show this kind of pace more often.”