F1 in Imola reminds us it’s about strategy as much as a fast car

Formula 1’s busy 2025 schedule saw the sport return to its European heartland this past weekend. Italy has two races on the calendar this year, and this was the first, the (deep breath) “Formula 1 AWS Gran Premio Del Made in Italy e Dell’Emilia-Romagna,” which took place at the scenic and historic (another deep breath) Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, better known as Imola. It’s another of F1’s old-school circuits where overtaking is far from easy, particularly when the grid is as closely matched as it is. But Sunday’s race was no snoozer, and for a couple of teams, there was a welcome change in form.

Red Bull was one. The team has looked a bit shambolic at times this season, with some wondering whether this change in form was the result of a number high-profile staff departures toward the end of last season. Things looked pretty bleak during the first of three qualifying sessions, when Yuki Tsunoda got too aggressive with a curb and, rather than finding lap time, found himself in a violent crash that tore all four corners off the car and relegated him to starting the race last from the pit lane.

2025 has also been trying for Ferrari. Italy expects a lot from the red team, and the replacement of Mattia Binotto with Frédéric Vasseur as team principal was supposed to result in Maranello challenging for championships. Signing Lewis Hamilton, a bona fide superstar with seven titles already on his CV, hasn’t exactly reduced the amount of pressure on Scuderia Ferrari, either.

Lewis Hamilton was much closer to teammate Charles Leclerc this weekend, which will be encouraging to everyone. After Hamilton’s exclusion from the Chinese Grand Prix, he has had to run a higher ride height, which has cost him speed relative to his younger teammate. Now it looks like he’s getting a handle on the car and lost out to Leclerc by 0.06 seconds in Q1 and 0.16 seconds in Q2. Unfortunately, Leclerc’s time was only good for 11th, and Hamilton’s was only good for 12th.

Sunday brought smiles for the Red Bull and Ferrari teams. In the hands of Verstappen, the Red Bull was about as fast as the black-and-orange McLarens, and while second was the best Verstappen could do in qualifying, the gap to McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was measured in the hundredths of seconds.

Verstappen’s initial start from the line looked unremarkable, too—the Mercedes of George Russell seemed more of a threat to the pole man. But Verstappen saw an opportunity and dove around the outside almost before Piastri even registered he was there, seizing the lead of the race. Once the Red Bull driver was in clean air, he was able to stretch the gap to Piastri.

Getting past someone is notoriously hard at Imola. In a 2005 classic, Fernando Alonso held off Michael Schumacher’s much faster car for the entire race. Even though the cars are larger and heavier now and more closely matched, overtaking was still possible, like Norris’ pass on Russell.

Undercut? Overcut?

But when overtaking is as hard as it is at a track like Imola, teams will try to use strategy to pass each other with pit stops. Each driver has to make at least one pit stop, as drivers are required to use two different tire compounds during the race. But depending on other factors, like how much the tires degrade, a team might decide to do two or even three stops—the lap time lost in the pits by stopping more often can be less than the time lost running on worn-out rubber.

In recent years, the word “undercut” has crept into F1 vocab, and no, it doesn’t refer to the hairstyles favored by the more flamboyant drivers in the paddock. To undercut a rival means to make your pit stop before them and then, on fresh tires and with a clear track ahead, set fast lap after fast lap so that when your rival makes their stop, they emerge from the pits behind you.

The undercut doesn’t always work, but in Imola, it initially looked like it did. Charles Leclerc stopped on lap 10 and leapfrogged Russell’s Mercedes, as well as his former Ferrari teammate and now Williams driver Carlos Sainz. Since Piastri wasn’t closing on Verstappen up front, McLaren decided to bring him in for an early stop.

But his advantage on new tires was not enough to eat into Verstappen’s margin, and he did not emerge in clean air but rather had to overtake car after car on track as he sought to regain his position ahead of those who hadn’t stopped. Sometimes, a strategy is the wrong one.

McLaren’s other driver, Lando Norris, couldn’t make a dent on Red Bull’s race, either. Having recognized the two-stop undercut wouldn’t work, Norris had stayed out, but he was almost 10 seconds behind Verstappen when it was finally time to change tires on lap 29. Shortly afterward, Esteban Ocon pulled his Haas to the side of the track with a powertrain failure, triggering a virtual safety car. With all the cars required to drive around at a prescribed, reduced pace, Verstappen was able to take his pit stop while only losing half as much time as anyone who stopped under green flag conditions.

Victory required a little more. Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes also ground to a halt in a position that required a full safety car. With some on fresh rubber and others not, there were battles aplenty, but Verstappen wasn’t involved in any and won by seven seconds over Norris, with the recovering Piastri a few more seconds down the road.

Meanwhile, Hamilton had been having a pretty good Sunday of his own. Although he started 12th, he finished fourth, to the delight of the partisan, flag-waving crowd. Some of that was thanks to Leclerc coming together with the Williams of Alex Albon; after that on-track scuffle was sorted, Albon lay fifth, with Leclerc at sixth. Albon was right to feel aggrieved that he lost fourth place but equalled his best finish of the year.

Leclerc needed to cede the place to Albon, but at the same time, his complaint about the amount of rules lawyering that now accompanies every bit of wheel-to-wheel action is getting a bit tedious. If F1 isn’t careful, the rulebook will end up being too constraining, with drivers playing to the letter even if it’s bad for the sport and the show. And sixth place was still a decent result from 11th; the championships already look out of reach for Ferrari for 2025, but at least it’s in no danger of being overtaken by Williams in the tables, even if that is a threat on track.

McLaren is already at 279 points in the constructors’ championship, 132 points ahead of next-best Mercedes, so the constructors’ cup is looking somewhat secure. Things are a lot closer in the drivers’ standings, with Piastri on 146, Norris on 133, and Verstappen still entirely in the fight with 124 points.

Next weekend, it’s time for the Monaco Grand Prix.