Red Bull driver Max Verstappen wins F1’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix to end Piastri’s streak
IMOLA Italy AP Max Verstappen gave his Formula title defense a big boost with mastery at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix on Sunday after a daring overtake on standings leader Oscar Piastri at the start The Dutch driver built a commanding lead which was wiped out when the safety car bundled the field back up He still held on to win ahead of Lando Norris who overtook his McLaren teammate Piastri for second with five laps remaining Verstappen took his second win of the season and first since last month s Japanese Grand Prix and denied Piastri who finished third what would have been his fourth win in a row Verstappen praised his Red Bull squad s fantastic execution all round as the club marked its th F race with a win The start itself wasn t particularly great but I was still on the outside line or basically the normal racing line and I was like Well I m just going to try and send it round the outside and it worked really well Verstappen stated of his crucial overtake That of curriculum unleashed our pace because once we were in the lead the car was good Norris late-race move on Piastri was almost a copy of Verstappen s though Norris had the advantage of being on fresher tires than his teammate We had a good little battle at the end between Oscar and myself which is reliably tense but inevitably good fun Norris mentioned admitting that Verstappen and Red Bull were too good for us this day Piastri s lead over Norris in the standings was cut to points with Verstappen nine behind Norris Hamilton bounces back Lewis Hamilton recovered from th on the grid to finish fourth in his first race for Ferrari in Italy Hamilton profited from a late-race fight between his teammate Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon of Williams Albon complained Leclerc had pushed him off the track as they battled for fourth and Hamilton passed both drivers before Ferrari eventually requested Leclerc to yield fifth to Albon George Russell was seventh for Mercedes ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr in the second Williams Isack Hadjar was ninth for Racing Bulls and Verstappen s Red Bull teammate Yuki Tsunoda was th after starting last following a crash in qualifying An action-packed farewell to Imola Overtaking was expected to be rare in what could be F s last race for the foreseeable future at Imola Instead the Italian fans were treated to Verstappen s spectacular move at the start and plenty of other overtakes The narrow bumpy Imola track has been a favorite among drivers who have relished its old-school challenge since it returned to the F schedule during the COVID- pandemic Still its status as Italy s second race only the United States also hosts more than one makes its position vulnerable If we don t come back here it is going to be a shame Piastri stated Saturday Sunday s race was the last under Imola s current contract and while it isn t officially goodbye yet there has been no word about next year AP auto racing https apnews com hub auto-racing Source
