Verstappen takes chequered flag at Imola

Imola — Max Verstappen took a dominant victory at Imola on Sunday to celebrate Red Bull’s 400th Grand Prix and end Formula One leader Oscar Piastri’s run of three wins in a row for McLaren.

Australian Piastri started on pole and finished third, overtaken by teammate Lando Norris on fresher tyres seven laps from the end, with his championship lead cut from 16 points to 13 after seven rounds.

The victory was the 65th of Verstappen’s career, second of the season and the four-times world champion’s fourth in a row at the Italian circuit near Bologna after wins in 2021, 2022 and 2024. There was no race in 2023 due to flooding.

“The start itself wasn’t particularly great but I was still on the outside line, the normal line, so I was like ‘well I’m going to try to send it around the outside’ and it worked really well,” said the Dutch driver.

“Of course, that unleashed our pace because when we were in the lead, the car was good. I could look after my tyres.”

Piastri had started the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix as favourite for a fourth win in a row, and fifth in seven races, but lost out as Verstappen went around the outside into turn one on the opening lap and pulled away.

A virtual safety car halfway through the race also worked against him.

A late real safety car bunched up the field but Verstappen, now only nine points behind Norris, was never in any real danger from the McLarens and took the chequered flag 6.109sec clear of Norris.

“We had a good little battle at the end between Oscar and myself which was tense, but always good fun,” said the Briton.

“A good race. For us as a team, second and third is great. Of course you would love to be up there fighting against Max but they were too good for us today.”

Seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton finished a surprising fourth in his first race in Italy for Ferrari after starting 12th after a qualifying nightmare.

Alex Albon was fifth for Williams with Charles Leclerc sixth for Ferrari.

George Russell started third but ended up seventh while Carlos Sainz was eighth on another great afternoon for resurgent Williams.

Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar was ninth and Verstappen’s teammate Yuki Tsunoda took the final point for Red Bull after starting in the pit lane after a big crash in Saturday’s qualifying.

Reuters