What happened to McLaren's pace advantage on Red Bull at F1 Imola GP?

At the Miami Grand Prix Max Verstappen denied Lando Norris pole but only crossed the finish line in fourth in the race, nearly 40 seconds adrift of winner Oscar Piastri in the second McLaren.

Fast-forward two weeks and Verstappen not only defeated both papaya drivers, but did so comfortably. If his Japanese Grand Prix win was largely down to retaining track position in a strategy-starved race, then the four-time world champion was good value for his win in Emilia-Romagna, being pretty closely matched throughout the contest with much better tyre wear than anticipated.

So, what happened? And was Imola’s turnaround the result of Red Bull overperforming or McLaren missing the mark?

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Both McLaren and Red Bull headed to the first race of the European season armed with modest upgrades, with McLaren adding downforce to the rear corner of the car and bringing a circuit-specific rear wing. Red Bull, too, optimised its rear corner aero as well as its sidepods, changes which compound the effect of a redesigned floor which Verstappen already ran in Miami.

As well as adding outright aerodynamic load, Imola’s improvements appeared to have helped Red Bull keep its tyre temperatures under control, which was a limiting factor in races like Miami and Bahrain, where the team was also well beaten by McLaren. Ordinarily you would have expected Verstappen to start out strong but then start sliding and fading. Yet in Imola Piastri was the first to blink, pitting after just 14 laps.

“We’ve definitely managed to put some performance on the car and get it into a better window,” Horner said. “And as soon as you take away the sliding, you’re able to manage the temperature a lot better.

“The McLarens on Friday looked very, very fast on the long runs. But that’s the first time I can remember in a long time we’ve had the pace to really pull away and out-deg the McLaren. So, that’s very encouraging and a great result for the effort that’s gone in behind the scenes.”

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

Horner also pointed out that Red Bull was “more surprised about McLaren’s lack of performance”, with his McLaren counterpart Andrea Stella mirroring those thoughts.

“I have to say we were a little surprised by the pace of Red Bull, which was very competitive,” Stella acknowledged. “Well done to Max and Red Bull for being able to pull off this kind of performance, which meant that the race was very much decided by the swap of position between Oscar and Max in corner one. After that we tried to chase him, but effectively we didn’t have enough race pace to be able to beat Max.”

Stella pointed out that one major factor was Imola’s traditional track layout, which featured more high-speed corners through which McLaren’s MCL39 has met its match in the Red Bull RB21.

Qualifying GPS data showed Verstappen slightly ahead of Piastri down the fast left-handers of Rivazza and on the second half of most straights, with McLaren generally enjoying better traction and acceleration out of corners. The end result was a pole for Piastri by a mere 0.034s, with Mercedes’ George Russell just a tenth behind as well.

“If we look at the speed of the corners compared to Miami, it’s a completely different regime,” the Italian explained. “The car operates in a completely different part of the aerodynamic maps. We know that our car is strong on track layouts like Miami, Bahrain or China, but when it comes to high-speed corners like we have here in Imola, I don’t think we enjoy any particular advantage. So the track layout, the progress of Red Bull, I think they are the two factors that meant that we didn’t have much advantage.”

One emerging trend has been McLaren’s prowess in hot conditions, which helped it stand out with its superior rear tyre management on the aforementioned circuits. Quite why that advantage was absent in a warm Imola race – on Pirelli’s softest tyre compounds too – is yet to be fully explained. “It’s a good question. We will have to look at the data, we will have to look at the behaviour of the tyres and their thermal regime,” Stella said.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

Is it possible that Red Bull may have finally unlocked something with its upgrades and set-up work to keep its rear tyres under control?

“I’ll tell you in a week,” said Horner. “Generally, we’re getting a better understanding, and the technical team have been working very hard on it. We genuinely thought it was going to be very tough to beat McLaren, so it was very reassuring that actually our degradation was better than theirs.

“I think we’re starting to understand. The upgrades were mainly focused on characteristics rather than ultimate downforce. We’ve managed to address, hopefully subtly, some of the characteristics, which is encouraging for the upcoming races.”