Max Verstappen shrugged off a late safety car that bunched up the field with 10 laps to go in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and scored his second win of the 2025 season and 65th victory of his Formula One career.
The safety car emerged when Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli retired on Lap 47, which promised to shake up a race where Verstappen pulled off a bold outside overtake to snatch the lead from polesitter Oscar Piastri at the first corner and looked to be cruising to a dominant victory.
It didn’t matter in the end, as Verstappen pulled away again when the race went green with 10 laps to go and crossed the line 6.109 seconds ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris to take his fourth straight win at Imola. Piastri crossed the line in third, 12.956 seconds behind the winner.
“I went around the outside [at Turn 1 at the start] and it worked really well, and then that unleashed our pace,” said Verstappen, who made a stop for new tires during the safety car period. “The car was great and a huge improvement from Friday. At the end there was the safety car so it was all back together but I think, on the restart, we managed it very well and brought it home.”
The win helped Verstappen close the championship gap to the leading McLaren pair, going from 32 to 22 behind Piastri and from 16 to 9 behind Norris. Meanwhile, Norris also gained three points on leader Piastri, who now lies 13 points ahead of his teammate, 146-133, with Verstappen third, on 124. George Russell, at 99, and Charles Leclerc, with 62, round out the top-five.
In the constructors standings, McLaren now leads Mercedes by 132 points, 279-132, with Red Bull third, with 131.
Although the late safety car didn’t change the outcome for Verstappen, it did make the difference for Norris, who pitted for fresh rubber, while Piastri stayed out on old tires in an attempt to get and stay ahead of his teammate.
It didn’t work as Norris used his new tires to jump Piastri with five laps to go and pull away to finish ahead of his teammate for the first time since early April’s Japanese Grand Prix, coincidentally also won by Verstappen.
“It was not easy to overtake but we did what we could,” said Norris. “I think Max drove a good race and was real quick today and we couldn’t keep up. At the end, we had the race between Oscar and myself, which is always tense but always good fun.”
The race really swung to Verstappen when a virtual safety car for a stricken Haas car, on Lap 29, jumbled things up, coming out just as Norris exited the pit lane. Verstappen benefited greatly, adding 10 seconds to his lead over Norris, putting it at about 20 seconds. Until the late safety car, Verstappen really controlled the race from the front and looked likely to win by a comfortable margin.
Piastri also helped Verstappen by pitting early for hard tires, then getting stuck in traffic, which slowed his progress as Verstappen and Norris stayed out. Piastri pitted for new hards on Lap 31, just as the virtual safety car period ended, and used those new boots to catch William’s Alex Albon for third, but could not get close to his teammate to mount a challenge.
He stayed on those old tires to gain position under the safety car, but it meant he could not fend off Norris in the final laps.
“It was a good move by Max as well [at the start] and disappointing, obviously, but I think we made a few wrong calls after that; not our best Sunday,” said Piastri. “I tried my best to hang on to second but it was inevitable that he [Norris] would get past.”
Imola seemed to mark a bit of a turnaround for the Aston Martin team, with upgrades helping both its drivers qualify in the top-10, with Fernando Alonso lining up fifth on the grid, while teammate Lance Stroll started eighth.
Although he stayed in the top-five until his first pit stop, Alonso lost ground after changing tires, then the virtual safety car helped drivers who stopped later. He ended the day 11th and continued his points drought in 2025.
The frustration seemed to boil to the surface for Alonso, who complained late in the race that “I’m the unluckiest driver in the [expletive deleted] world.”
A similar scenario played out for Stroll, who held his eighth-place on the grid until he stopped for tires and then tumbled down the time sheets. He finished the race in 15th.
