The quadruple Dutch world champion Max Verstappen (Red Bull) won the seventh the Seventh Grand Prize of Formula One, in the Icola Circuit (Italy); where he offered a new master lesson by relegating the other positions of honor to the dominant McLaren from English Lando Norris and the Australian Oscar Piastri; which ended third and kept the leadership.
In race number 400 of his team in the F1, Verstappen, 27, raised to 65 his third best historical brand of victories in the queen category – the second of the season – by winning in the mythical Italian track a career that the Spaniards Carlos Sainz (Williams) and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) ended eighth and eleventh, respectively, and the Argentine Franco collap. Honor Division aboard an Alpine, sixteenth.
It has a lower car, but continues to overflow talent in abundance. This Sunday, leaving second on grill, Verstappen showed that he did not win by chance his four titles and, in a sensational maneuver in the second curve, which was decisive for the subsequent outcome of the test, on a technical and narrow track, he exceeded Piastri, who is still leading the World Cup.
The prodigy of Melbourne, who debuted in Formula one two years ago, after having won the F3 and the F2 now leads with 146 points, thirteen more than Norris and with 22 advantage over the Dutch star; Difference with which they will reach the next test. In Monaco. Second stop of three weekends in a row that will be completed with the Grand Prix of Spain, on June 1, in Montmeló (Barcelona).
Verstappen mastery the first race in Europe. A test that Sainz, despite having finished eighth, “no” ended up “happy”, since his team decided to stop it “too soon”; And in which Alonso was harmed by a ‘Virtual Safety Car’ and a security car that forced him to do his best to end eleventh, the first place outside the points. After signing on Saturday his best qualification of the year, which ended fifth: a position ahead of his compatriot.
Colapinto, born 21 years ago in Pilar (Buenos Aires), who has just replaced the Australian Jack Doohan in Alpine and who is re-adapting to F1, came out with the ballast of having injured in the second round of the main timed of Saturday and retained the position with which he took the departure.
On Saturday it had been an unforgettable day for the sport of Melbourne in Italy, since to Luke Plpp’s stage victory in the Giro joined the third ‘pole’ of Piastri in the F1 -all this year -after dominating a ‘quali’ in which, for 34 thousandths, he relegated to the second place a new Magic Verstappen. And in which he scored again before his partner, Norris, who was fourth, from the second row and next to the Englishman Russell: that he had marked his quick lap with the middle tire.
Although they did not bear fruit this Sunday, the improvements of Aston Martin had an effect and both Stroll and Alonso entered a Q3 that they did not access – on a Saturday for oblivion – or the Ferrari, nor Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), raised in Bologna, very close to Imala: the three who ran at home. The Monegasco Charles Leclerc, eleventh, and the septuple English world champion Lewis Hamilton – first time in Italy – started from the sixth row; The Italian young debutant, from the thirteenth.
Antonelli left, causing the security car; and the Ferrari made up their performance. Sir Lewis advanced eight squares and finished fourth. Leclerc was improved in five and was sixth.
With good feelings in the last free, Alonso completed his best Saturday of the course – with the used medium – and signed, with another masterful lap, the fifth place; leading a third purely Spanish row that completed Sainz, increasingly comfortable in Williams and that had stayed a single thousandth of his compatriot, also signing his best 2025 grill position.
From the fourth they did their respective teammates: Thai Alex Albon, New Colega de Sainz -who left seventh and ended Quintó -and the Canadian Lance Stroll. Tenth at the end.
Colapinto, who – after playing the last nine of last year, quasing pleasant impression, with Williams – returned to F1 in this Grand Prix, replacing Doohan in Alpine, started sixteenth. The Buenos Aires had qualified for Q2, but at the beginning of that round he lost control of the car in Tamburello, the fourth of the 19 curves of the mythical Italian track, and, without marking time, the main chronometer ended thirteenth. Before being sanctioned with the loss of a grill.
The Japanese Yuki Tsunoda, companion of ‘Mad Max’ in Red Bull, spectacularly rugged – for fortune without regretting damage – in the Q1, starred in the (questionable) comeback of the day, since it left from the ‘Pit Lane’ and concluded tenth a race that almost all faced with the half -new tire, except Alonso, his partner and English George Russell (Mercedes) -Séptimo this Sunday-, which came out with used rubbers.
Verstappen exceeded Pastri to the first change, in the second curve, in another masterful maneuver of the sports idol of the Netherlands. After the third of the 63 scheduled laps the Spaniards maintained their positions and Leclerc, which had advanced two, rolled ninth, at the points; When the German Nico Hülkenberg (Kick Sauber) had exceeded Colapinto, seventeenth.
Norris attacked Russell, who defended himself in actions that favored Verstappen and Piastri -separated by two seconds -that opened hollow; Until Lando exceeded his compatriot of Mercedes in the eleventh, who stopped a return later. The same did Sainz, who tried to make an ‘undercut’ to Alonso -in a misguided team -which was protected to the Astur Astro a turn later; Before your compatriot passed it on the track.
Like the previous ones, Piastri installed hard gums in 14; But Verstappen remained on track 16 more turns, confirming that the ‘Aussie’ stop had been too premature; Because in 25, the difference between the two, when the oceanic – with more traffic, obviously – was seventh, ascended to 32 seconds.
Norris stopped in 29, just before the French Haas Esteban Ocon was stuck and virtual security car was decreed, which did not come to ´Mad Max ‘badly, which stopped in the next one. In which they made a second stop Carlos and Piastri.
In 34, Yuki touched, without punishment, Carlos; and Hamilton – of the few who had left with hard – finally passed to Antonelli to take the sixth place. Leclerc, also benefited by the ‘Virtual Safety Car’, was eighth, just a position ahead of Fernando, who gave the DRS to Stroll in order to try to protect from Russell, before he passed both
Hamilton surpassed the French debutante Isack Hadjar (RB) – not this Sunday and demonstrating a very good level in his first year – to get fifth and start brightering the ‘tifosi’ a little a little
Piastri went to Albon in 40 and took third place; When Sainz was eleventh, a position ahead of Alonso, who like Stroll began to lose bellows with very worn gums.
In 46, the Mercedes of Antonelli stopped – for loss of accelerator control – and was decreed security car, which served to enter ‘Boxes’ Max and Lando, but not Piastri, which provisionally recovered the (virtual) second place. Alonso – who lamented by radio to be “the pilot with the worst luck in the world” – and Colapinto stopped, returning to the fourteenth and sixteenth track; When Sainz was eighth. Position that he kept until finish, but did not leave him satisfied.
Once the ‘safety’ was removed, when there were the last ten laps, the battle was going to mark the more or less worn gums; And Norris was the McLaren who wore the freshest.
In the resumption, Verstappen showed that it is still number one. He was flying and piloted triumphantly. In 58, Norris passed to Piastri; And two later Leclerc realized Albon, in an irregular action in which he touched him and for which he would end up returning the position to Thai.
Hamilton, who had already taken advantage of this situation, would end up passing to his partner and concluded fourth a race after which McLaren confirmed his domain in both classifications.
The Woking team leads the World Cup with 279 points, 132 more than Mercedes and with 148 on Red Bull. Which is third, with 131 units; of which 124 has joined them. That, today, it is still the best pilot of the grill. EFE
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COLAPINTO: “We had a good pace, but we had some bad luck with the strategy”
For its part, the Argentine credit Franco Colapinto (Alpine), ended the Grand Prix of the Emilia-Romagna, the seventh of the Formula One World Cup, declared in the Icola circuit that they had “good rhythm, but” that they had “some bad luck with the strategy.”
“We had a good pace, but we had some bad luck with the strategy and, in the end, it was not the result that the team wanted Doohan.
“That circumstance left me in a very difficult situation when the security car entered the track and I had eight laps with hard rubbers,” said Colapinto, born 21 years ago in Pilar (province of Buenos Aires), which had played the last nine tests last year with Williams, causing a pleasant impression and scoring in two of them, in Azerbaián and the United States. This season had begun as a French team tester pilot.
“From there, I had trouble maintaining the rhythm with the other pilots that rolled with the new tires,” he said. “We had a good rhythm in the car and we learned many things, collecting many data for the team. I think now come clues that will be better, especially Monaco; which is a place that requires a very high level of trust,” said Buenos Aires this Sunday at the Enzo E Dino Ferrari Autodrome.
With EFE information.
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