Impact of McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes upgrades assessed following Max Verstappen’s victory at Imola | F1 News

Max Verstappen offered a reminder that he cannot be discounted from the 2025 F1 title race with a dominant Emilia Romagna Grand Prix win from the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

Imola was quite the contrast to Miami, where McLaren comfortably took a one-two with a half-minute margin to the next car, creating a feeling that the championship would soon become a two-horse race between Piastri and Norris

Instead, Verstappen’s victory moved him back within 22 points of Piastri, and only nine points behind Norris.

Red Bull, like the other top teams, brought upgrades to Imola, but in their case it undoubtedly led to their strongest race performance for some time.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said: “McLaren on Friday looked very, very fast on the long runs.

“But to have the pace that we did in the race, probably since Brazil last year which was wet, that was the first time in a long time we were able to pull away and out-deg the McLarens.

“That’s very encouraging and a great result for the effort that’s gone on behind the scenes.”

So, was Red Bull’s standout win a one off or have they genuinely made ground in the ongoing development battle?

Are Red Bull on terms with McLaren?

Coming into Imola, McLaren had won five of the opening six events and their only non-victory came in Japan, where they effectively got stuck behind Verstappen but had stronger pace.

Verstappen ran a new floor in Miami, which seemingly did not make any difference, but in Imola they revised the rear of the car, including the suspension to optimise airflow, and, notably, had a new engine cover shape which looked similar to the McLaren.

These upgrades are not necessarily the reason for Red Bull’s impressive weekend performance though. So much of McLaren’s pace has come from getting the tyres into the right window and having little degradation.

It seems Red Bull have found something in this area and their revised rear suspension, coupled with geometry tweaks such as changes to the camber and toe has made a difference to how the tyres operate.

Horner revealed the RB21 is in a “better window” as they have “taken away the sliding”, which allows the drivers to manage the temperatures of the tyre and push harder too.

“We brought some subtle new parts to Imola. On Friday, we sort of understood what they were doing and were able to fine-tune the set-up around them going into Saturday,” explained Horner.

“After Max jumped out of the car in P3, he was much, much happier. That carried through into qualifying.

“Going into the race, we didn’t know what to expect tyre deg wise because McLaren looked so good on Friday.

“We generally thought it was going to be very tough to beat them, so it was very reassuring that actually our degradation was better than theirs.”

So have McLaren not made a step forward?

McLaren also revised the rear corner of their car and brought a new rear wing to Imola. From Imola alone, Red Bull have made a bigger jump in performance than McLaren.

At no point did Piastri or Norris complain about a particular issue with the car, be it oversteer or understeer for example at certain corners, so it was not like McLaren have gone backwards.

Team principal Andrea Stella pointed to the fast, flowing Imola track layout as a key reason for Red Bull’s upturn in pace, as they were also strong in Japan and Saudi Arabia – two other circuits with plenty of high-speed corners.

“We will have to look at the data. We will have to look at the behaviour of the tyres,” said Stella.

“What happened in Imola is a combination of Red Bull, I think they are improved, they’ve been developing their car over the last couple of races and they have taken a step forward.

“If we look at the speed of the corners and we compare with the speed in Miami, it’s a completely different regime.

“Our car is strong in track layouts like Miami or 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.

“The track layout, the progress of Red Bull, I think they are the two factors that meant that we didn’t have much of an advantage.”

A weekend of two halves at Ferrari

Ferrari had a disastrous Saturday where both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were knocked out in Q2, giving the team their worst qualifying result ever at Imola.

But they turned things around in the race as Hamilton flew through the field to take fourth in what he described as his favourite race of 2025 so far, even more enjoyable than his China Sprint win.

Leclerc also had great pace on Sunday but was unfortunate with the timing of the Virtual Safety Car and Safety Car, so settled for sixth behind Williams’ Alex Albon.

Both drivers had been unhappy about rear instability on the SF-25 throughout the season, so Ferrari tried to address that with a new rear corner, rear wing and beam wing in Imola.

There is a clear trend that Ferrari have much stronger race pace compared to their speed over one lap and team principal Frederic Vasseur even stated they “are probably there” with McLaren on race pace.

“I don’t think we have the best car. Even when we are in a good shape in the race, we are not faster than the McLaren,” he said.

“What’s clear is over the last three or four events, we always had much better pace in the race. In Jeddah we were the fastest on track on Sunday and were three tenths off in qualifying. In Miami we were much faster in the race than qualifying, Imola was the same.

“It’s clear we are struggling to extract the best in the car on Saturdays. The last two weekends we didn’t improve on new tyres in qualifying, so we have to do a much better job on Saturday than Sunday.”

Misery for Mercedes amid lack of upgrade impact

There had been chatter around the paddock in the week leading up to the first European race of the season that Mercedes were rather excited about the upgrades they had coming.

They unveiled a new front suspension and front wing at Imola but were ultimately left disappointed by an apparent lack of impact.

George Russell maintained his strong qualifying form by taking third but then lacked pace in the race and had to settle for seventh.

It appeared as though a questionable strategy call and the timing of a Virtual Safety Car had played a major part in the poor result, but Russell was pretty damning about the state of the W16.

He told Sky Sports F1: “The trends are pretty clear. When it’s hot, we’re slow. When it’s cold, we’re quick. That was the same last year.

“We’ve been doing everything with the set-up to try and find solutions, but there’s clearly something more fundamental in the car.

“I wouldn’t say we are running out of ideas to solve the tyres, but as I said, it’s sort of baked into the car.

“So, we need to find a better compromise, especially ahead of the next race. We’re approaching summer and it doesn’t really bode well for us. We need to think quick.”

What conclusions can be drawn?

In the ever-changing world of F1, you cannot judge car performance solely from one or two race weekends.

This weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix is an outlier because there is no other track on the calendar with so many slow-speed corners, so we look to the Spanish Grand Prix at the end of the month as the big test.

Traditionally, a car which is quick around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, is fast everywhere. If Red Bull can take the fight to McLaren there, then Verstappen is well and truly in the championship fight for the rest of the year.

Ferrari have pace in hand but are yet to unlock it, particularly in qualifying. They will look at Red Bull’s upturn in form in Imola though and think it is possible to get the car and tyres working over one lap, without hurting your race pace.

As for Mercedes, warm weather is a clear weakness and that is far from ideal when F1 mostly visits hot countries. It is a characteristic from last year’s car that they have not dialled out, and that will be difficult to change any time soon.

Next up in F1’s European triple-header is the ‘Jewel in the Crown’, the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend, with coverage starting on Friday live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime