‘A f***** joke! What did I do wrong?’ | 02:15

VERSTAPPEN’S STILL IN IT THE TITLE FIGHT

What a move.

Verstappen had one sure-fire chance to win the grand prix, and it he seized it immediately.

Starting from the front row, the Dutchman launched a stunning around-the-outside move on Oscar Piastri into the first corner to pull himself side-by-side with the McLaren.

He squeezed the Australian onto the apex successfully, opening up the exit for himself to power into the lead.

Piastri had been caught out defending the inside line, assuming he was in control. While he was also guilty of being too conservative on the brakes, this was a moment of pure Verstappen magic — perfect feeling for the brakes, perfect control, perfect precision.

“His start and first corner was kind of win it or bin it, the commitment that he had,” Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner told Sky Sports. “Oscar was fair and gave him space, but he was coming from a way back and George [Russell] was up the inside.

“He just commits to the corner and was given enough space by Oscar, and that was the last they saw of him.

“Incredibly decisive, and he’s just so good in those situations.

“He saw a gap, he went for it, and that’s just the instinctive racer that Max keeps demonstrating week in, week out.”

It was a timely reminder of Verstappen’s status as the defending drivers championship — and that victory in the title fight must go through him whether he’s in the running or not.

And after an underwhelming Miami, a strong weekend in Imola has changed the complexion of the Dutchman’s season.

He was a genuine pole contender on Saturday and had real race-winning pace on Sunday. At a weekend Red Bull Racing brought some upgrades, the Dutchman’s outlook suddenly looks rejuvenated.

“As a team we’re very strong,” Horner said. “As a unit we’re very strong there’s always a lot of noise on the outside but never on the inside.

“The whole engineering team back at Milton Keynes have done a great job. We brought a few new bits here this weekend — that’s why Enrico [Balbo, head of aerodynamics] went to get the trophy today for the hard work that’s going on behind the scenes.

“The parts that we brought worked. We managed to get a set-up, and once you’re in the window, you can control your tyre temperatures.

“The strategy was good. The pit stops were good. Just as a unit I think we’ve executed a really good race this weekend particularly on our 400th it was a great way to celebrate that by getting this big win today.

“I think I’ve always said this championship is a marathon. It’s race 7. We’ve managed to win two of them now. It’s all about where you are at the end of it. You’ve got to make sure you stay in touch through this phase.

“We’re finding form. It’s the start of a triple-header now. A completely different challenge next weekend and a regulation change the weekend after. The races start coming at you thick and fast now.”

Piastri now leads Norris by 13 points and Verstappen by 22 points with seven rounds still to run before the mid-season break.

Can Verstappen and Red Bull Racing keep it up? We won’t have to wait long to find out.

Leclerc fumes as VSC benefits Max | 01:36

DID McLAREN BLOW IT?

While Verstappen’s brilliance won him the race, the reverse side is an imperfect performance from McLaren blowing the chance to win four grands prix in a row and its sixth of the season.

Piastri kept himself close enough to Verstappen in the opening stint to manage his own race, but instead he found himself among the first to commit to a two-stop strategy, putting him out of sync with the leaders and ultimately dooming his day.

He stopped early, on lap 13, because Charles Leclerc had stopped on lap 10 and George Russell on lap 11. Despite the Ferrari driver having been much further back, Russell rejoined the race behind him, making the undercut look powerful.

And on paper it was. Pirelli’s ambitiously soft tyres were wearing out quickly enough that driver got an immediate boost from fresh rubber.

The problem was that stopping Piastri that early dropped him to 12th and straight into slower traffic.

He made good progress, executing overtake after overtake cleanly, but every car he had to pass cost him time, and by the time he recovered to fourth, he was further behind Verstappen than he had been at the start of the stint — and neither Verstappen nor Norris had made their pit stops yet.

There was no real hope for him from there. The timing of the VSC unluckily gifted Verstappen his first stop cheaply and allowed him to extend his lead. The timing of the safety car was similarly good for the Dutchman, and while it cycled Piastri back up to second, he was on old tyres because of that original early stop.

His entire race hinged on that original decision to pit into traffic rather than complete the race on his own terms — to react hastily rather than play to the team’s strengths.

“Obviously a bit disappointed,” Piastri said. “Not a lot of things went our way today.

“Obviously turn 1 wasn’t great from me, and then I think we decided to go one way with the strategy, and I don’t think it was the right way in the end — but at that point it seemed like a decent idea.

“To come out third is still okay obviously, but not quite the afternoon we were looking for.

Team boss Andrea Stella was nonchalant about the loss, projecting a positive air for his team returning a double podium, even if neither place was first.

“We tried a few things to put some pressure, deviating with the strategy, which didn’t pay off,” he said.

“We won the race in Saudi in corner 1 with a good launch and a good manoeuvre in corner 1. Today was a little bit the opposite. A little bit of variability in racing — I’m okay with that.

“Two McLarens on the podium, strong for the constructors and good points for both drivers.”

You have to wonder whether McLaren is underestimating Verstappen’s challenge. Up until now there have been limited reasons to think Red Bull Racing can catch up, and its form in recent rounds has been inconsistent, but this weekend the car was genuinely quick.

Second and third might not cut it for much longer.

‘Cautious’ Colapinto struggles early | 00:34

McLAREN’S CHAMPIONSHIP CONUNDRUM REAPPEARS

There was a subsequent flashpoint for McLaren late in the race following the safety car, when Piastri leapt back into second ahead of Norris, who had been controlling the place through the middle of the grand prix.

The problem wasn’t the order of the cars; the problem was the tyres they were on.

Piastri’s pit stop sequence meant he’d already made two stops and had no more tyres to use. He stayed out on the road to move up to second while Verstappen and Norris both pitted, retaining the lead and dropping to third respectively.

Norris was quick to jump on the radio to argue the point that Piastri would hold him and prevent him from challenging Verstappen — though he insisted that wasn’t a request for a team order in his favour.

But it was a conundrum all the same. Should McLaren prioritise its pursuit of victory by putting its faster driver — because of the tyres — up to second, or should it prioritise the purity of the drivers title by allowing its drivers to sort it out among themselves?

“It was definitely a thought considering all the options as to how we were managing that situation,” Stella admitted to Sky Sports.

Ultimately the team chose not to intervene.

“Certainly we want to have Oscar having his own chances, so we wanted him to have his own chances at the restart,” he continued.

“We also assumed the principle that if Lando was able to pass Max, he should’ve been able to pass Oscar pretty easily considering that he was on very old tyres.

“In reality if the pace had been enough, things would’ve taken care of themselves, so we are happy with things unfolded.

“I think both drivers think that was fair, and that’s how we go racing.”

It’s an admirable approach, and there’s a certain logic to it. Keeping out of the battle is also consistent with the team’s approach in the Japanese Grand Prix, when it opted against using team orders to get a faster Piastri into second place ahead of Norris to challenge Verstappen.

The Dutchman won that race too, albeit in different circumstances.

And so the battle lines for 2025 are redrawn. It’s not just a three-corner contest for the drivers championship; it’s a McLaren divided between its two drivers up against Red Bull Racing fully backing one star in the fight.

“Our full focus is on the drivers championship,” Horner told Sky. “We’ve got a very clear number one in our team, and that’s where the main focus is.

“When you’ve got two drivers racing each other, you just want to deal with it as even-handedly as you can, and to do that is then favouring one driver over the other.

“They allowed the drivers to race, and that’s good to see and has to be commended, but of course sometimes that’s perhaps against the interests of the team because the drivers have their own interest.”

Verstappen’s path to the championship could run straight through the McLaren pit wall.

“F****** Piastri! What is he doing?!’ | 01:11

FERRARI’S PLEASURE AND PAIN

Ferrari suffered a catastrophic result on Saturday in qualifying when both drivers were eliminated in Q2, but it rebounded powerfully on Sunday, finishing fourth and sixth with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.

The team’s race pace had turned out to be every bit as strong as it was suggesting during practice, and with overtaking a little easier than expected, both drivers were able to carve through the field on different strategies, making up ground voraciously.

Hamilton was in particularly good form. Fourth is the seven-time champion’s best result in a grand prix for Ferrari this year, beating Leclerc on the way there, and he was just 1.4 seconds behind Piastri at the flag.

He was positively glowing after the race, in stark contrast to his recent glum moods.

“So, so happy,” he said. “I definitely didn’t expect us to finish fourth today.

“I didn’t know where I would be able to come given we were [starting] so far back, but the car really felt great.

“The team did a fantastic job with the strategy. They were faultless. We’re slowly getting there.

“The team were calm in executing the strategy, and the pit stops were awesome. Overall mega.”

But it’s too early to say Ferrari is improving. All we can say for certain is that it’s performing unpredictably, even erratically, with big swings between its good and bad grands prix.

What’s also clear is that Ferrari’s biggest problem is still qualifying, with the gap between its pace over one lap and a race distance looking larger than ever.

“I was the last three or four events we always have this delta from quali pace to race pace,” Ferrari boss Frédéric Vasseur told Sky Sports. “In Jeddah we were probably the fastest on track in the race and 0.3 seconds off in quali. In Miami it was the same delta. This weekend it was probably the same delta.”

“A bit of frustration because I think if we start the race in a better position, we can do even better.”

But as his been his argument all season, the team’s race pace was a sign that the SF-25 could still be whipped into shape as a genuine threat this year. Somewhere in there is a consistently competitive car waiting to be unlocked.

“Max was faster than us today clearly, but we are really close in these conditions, which means we need to do a step in quali,” he said.

“The positive side of this was that the pace was strong from the beginning to the end.”