The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve did not disappoint. Thrills and spills dominated the weekend. Good racing, silly mistakes, protests, gamesmanship and a five plus hour wait for the official result were all part of an interesting weekend.

The tyres selected by Pirelli for the event were the softest C4, C5, and the new C6 as the hard, medium and soft respectively.

FREE PRACTICE

In FP1 Charles Leclerc clipped the wall of turn 3 damaging both the Ferrari car’s left hand side suspensions. He had done only 9 laps on the soft tyre and had set the fastest time at that stage. That crash cost Charles a lot of practice as his car was not repaired in time for FP2. Altogether Charles only managed 38 practice laps whereas the average laps for every one else was 80 laps.

Charles Leclerc’s Crash

After completing 2 laps in FP2, local Canadian driver, Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) clipped a wall and broke his car’s front suspension. At least his car was repaired for the next day’s FP3 and he managed 55 practice laps.

Lance Stroll’s Crash

In FP3 it was Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber) and Oscar Piastri (McLaren) who left car debris around the wall of champions. In Nico Hulkenberg’s case he spun the car coming out of the turns 13, 14 chicane. This caused both the front and rear wings to brush the wall. In Oscar’s case it was running wide out of turn 14 and brushing against the wall, which damaged his front suspension. Both made it back to the pits for repairs.

Oscar Piastri crash

Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) was given a 10-place grid penalty for overtaking the limping McLaren under red flag conditions.

The times of the five fastest drivers in each free practice session

Top 5 in Free Practices

A graph of all the drivers’ times in each practice session

Graph of Free Practice Times

QUALIFYING

Q1

With five and a half minutes left in the session it was red flagged for a bizarre incident. The side pod and engine covers (almost the whole left-hand side behind the role hoop engine air intake) blew off of Alex Albon’s Williams.

The session continued after the debris from the Williams was cleaned up.

Those eliminated in the first qualifying portion. Gabriel Bortoleto (Kick Sauber), Carlos Sainz (Williams), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) and Pierre Gasly (Alpine). The surprise was Carlos in the Williams who appeared to have a fast enough car to make Q3. Replays showed him hindered by Isack Hadja (Racing Bulls).

Q2

It was amazing that after everyone had set a first run, only Max Verstappen 1:11.638 and Oscar Piastri 1:11.715 felt safe enough to not do a second timed lap.

Those eliminated were Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull), Franco Colapinto (Alpine), Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber), Oliver Bearman (Haas) and Esteban Ocon (Haas).

Q3

Absolutely brilliant qualifying. After the first timed laps it was Max Verstappen ahead of Oscar Piastri by 0.025 seconds with George Russell 0.243 seconds behind Oscar.

George’s last lap was one of those flawless laps that drivers dream about having. He even stated this in his post qualifying interviews. He found an amazing six tenths of a second improvement and ended up 0.160 seconds ahead of Max Verstappen. That is quite a lot for a short circuit like Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Lap comparison – George Russell (Mercedes), blue; Max Verstappen (Red Bull), orange and Oscar Piastri, white.

Qualifying Comparison Times-Russell,Verstappen,Piastri

All the qualifying times

All the Qualifying Times

All the qualifying times Graphically

All Qualifying Times

The top ten graphically

Top Ten Qualifiers

THE RACE

George Russell won the Canadian Grand Prix ahead of Max Verstappen and Kimi Antonelli.

Kimi Antonelli becomes the third youngest driver to get a podium finish. Younger than him were Max Verstappen at the 2016 Spanish GP and Lance Stroll at the 2017 Azerbaijan GP. What a rookie season Kimi Antonelli is having.

Alex Albon retired from the race on Lap 48, Liam Lawson retired on Lap 56.

This was a milestone race for Haas as this was their 200^th. Great that Esteban Ocon achieved 2 points to put them sixth in the World Constructors’ Championship and himself in ninth in the World Drivers’ Championship.

Lando Norris crashes out in battle with teammate Oscar Piastri for fourth place on Lap 67. This caused a Safety Car under which the race ended.

The parity and fair equality that Lando and Oscar enjoy as they each bid for the Drivers’ Championship title is not new within the McLaren culture. Remember the 1984 F1 season. It was a sixteen-race year where McLaren’s two drivers won twelve of them. Alain Prost won 7 and Niki Lauda won 5. Before the final race, the Portuguese GP, Alain had 62.5 points and Niki 66. The problem was that Alain had qualified in second place and Niki in eleventh so with 9 points for a win and 6 points for second place Alain was the favourite for the World Drivers’ Championship. Alain did indeed win that GP but Niki came second to win his third World Drivers’ Championship by half a point; 72 to 71.5. (The odd numbers were because of the 1984 Monaco GP which was rain truncated and half points awarded.)

The drivers from grid to checkered flag

Starting Grid to Checkered Flag

The full lap chart

Lap Chart

After the results of this GP the World Drivers’ Championship points are

WDC Points

Graphically

WDC Graph

The World Constructors’ Championship points and gaps are

WCC Points Gap

Graphically

WCC Graph

Postscript:

Estoril Grade 1 (F1) Circuit

I wish the Autódromo Fernanda Pires da Silva in Estoril; Portugal was still on the F1 calendar. Estoril was last used by F1 in 1996. It is still a grade one circuit. Estoril currently hosts a round of the World Superbike Championship, alongside other series.

Pirelli selected their most durable tyre compounds for the race, specifically the C1, C2, and C3, designated as the hard, medium, and soft tyres respectively.

Alonso’s most recent race win in Formula 1 occurred in Spain in 2013.

Free Practice 1

As is allowed at some GP weekends, development drivers Victor Martins replaced Alex Albon at Williams and Ryo Hirakawa replaced Esteban Ocon at Haas. Victor Martins is a French racing driver, who competes in the FIA Formula 2 Championship for ART Grand Prix as part of the Williams Driver Academy. Victor is 23 years old. Ryo Hirakawa is Japanese and is a Haas reserve driver. Ryo is currently competing for Toyota Gazoo Racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship. He was Super GT GT500 champion in 2017 and finished runner-up in Super Formula in 2020. This 31 year old is the Hypercar class winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans alongside co-drivers Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley. This trio has also won the 2022 and 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship.

An early time set by Lando Norris (McLaren) was 1:16.095 on hard tyres. His pole performance last year was 1:11.383.

Franco Colapinto (Alpine) ended the session early with a hydraulic leak.

At the end of the hour long session Lando Norris (McLaren) was the fastest with 1:13.718. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) was second, 0.367 seconds slower. Third was Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) on medium tyres, just 0.011 seconds behind Max on soft tyres.

Free Practice 2

After 20 minutes the order was George Russell (Mercedes) fastest followed by Lando Norris (McLaren), Max Verstappen (Red Bull), Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari).

Then came some soft tyre running. George Russell (Mercedes) improved to 1:13.286 seconds. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Lando Norris (McLaren) set an identical time of 1:13.070 to then be second and third. Max had set his time ahead of Lando so was second.

Oscar Piastri (McLaren) then had a lap to take one’s breath away. A clear three sector purple lap. Glorius. He set a time of 1:12.760. That was over half a second faster than George’s time at that time.

Geroge did improve his time before the end of the session, but it was still 0.286 seconds behind Oscar. Oscar’s lap was just scintillating to watch.

Free Practice 3

In the true qualifying simulations, without knowing fuel loads and engine modes, the session was very illuminating. The previous pecking order, other than the McLaren 1, 2, was disrupted. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) was third with George Russell (Mercedes) just 0.009 seconds behind. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) in fifth with a 0.236 second gap to George but only 0.007 seconds ahead of Isack Hadja (Racing Bulls).

Even the McLaren 1, 2 was skewed as Lando was 0.526 seconds behind Oscar. Oscar’s fastest lap appeared to be normal and without the intensity that he seemed to apply in FP2, even though it was 0.373 seconds faster.

Here are all the free practices times, the order of which is how they finished in FP3-

Free Practice Times

The graph showing each drivers performance through free practice-

All The FP Times

Qualifying

Q1

After 10 minutes, and most of the first runs completed, it was as expected with the two McLarens on top. Oscar Piastri with 1:12.551 and Lando Norris with 1:12.799. A minute later Max Verstappen (Red Bull) split the McLarens with a 1:12.798, just 0.001 seconds faster than Lando Norris.

After 15 minutes there was a long cue of cars in the pit lane. Franco Colapinto (Alpine) was at the head of it and radioed that he had a problem. He was able to just creep ahead. Other cars overtook him in the pitlane to get out on the circuit. Franco pulled off onto the grass at the end of the pit lane and did not have his second timed lap.

Eliminated in Q1 besides Franco were Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber), Esteban Ocon (Haas), Carlos Sainz (Williams) and Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull). These eliminated drivers as well as Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), Alex Albon (Williams) and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) did not have a second timed run. This was caused by the Haas of Franco Colapinto breaking down at the end of the pit lane except for Fernando Alonso who chose to run only once.

What’s up with Yuki Tsunoda? Qualifying 20^th in a Red Bull? Is this a car that only Max Verstappen can drive? These and a few other questions must be answered and answered fast. Red Bull, who have six constructors’ championships and are currently supporting the current driver champion, need a Max Verstappen twin or better still a clone.

Q2

Here is what happened in Q2-

Spain Q2 Change

Q3

After 6 minutes, the halfway point, only Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Isack Hadja (Racing Bulls) had not set a time. Lando Norris topped the timing sheets with a 1:11.819 lap which was 0.017 seconds ahead of his teammate Oscar Piastri. George Russell (Mercedes) was 0.256 seconds behind. Fourth was Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) then Max Verstappen (Red Bull) followed by Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari), Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) and Pierre Gasly (Alpine).

This is the moment that the drivers and racing fans love. The cars are now the fastest they will ever be. The fuels are minimal. The power is as much as there can be. The aerodynamics are tuned to maximise the speed on this particular circuit as much as the very clever engineers can. Every driver striving for that perfect lap, to extract the tiniest shorter fraction of a second from each piece of it.

Oscar Piastri did an as perfect a lap as anyone could. He managed a 1:11.546 lap. Its probable that that was the maximum that the circuit in its very hot condition could produce. It was however 0.163 seconds slower than last years pole of 1:11.383 set by Lando Norris. Lando could only manage a 1:11.755 which was 0.209 seconds slower than that of his teammate.

The top ten Q3 shootout looked like this-

Qualifying Top Ten Shootout

The full qualifying times-

All Qualifying Times

The graph of the top 10 qualifiers-

Top 10 Qualifiers

Race

What a start to a race. That 579 meter straight to turn one allowed a lot of positional jockeying and a melee of 3 cars abreast into the turn. Cars into the runoffs. Overtakes.

Out of this seeming chaos, Max Verstappen was ahead of Lando Norris, both Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc ahead of George Russell (Mercedes) and Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber) up 4 places.

Alex Albon (Williams) and Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) clashed which saw Alex Albon with damage to his front wing. On lap 26 they did the same again with the same result. Not a good day for Williams and Alex Albon. Two front wings written off. In their second clash Alex was adjudicated to have gained an advantage off track and given a ten second penalty. He served that in the pits. Did another lap, still with that damaged front wing, and retired from the race.

On lap 14, Max Verstappen pitted, likely aiming for an undercut and possibly switching to a three-stop strategy.

The undercut worked as when the McLarens pitted, Max Verstappen led the race until he again pitted on lap 29. He came out behind Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) who he overtook on lap 36.

That was how the race would have finished. Two McLarens, one Red Bull and then alternating Ferraris and Mercedes. Kimi Antonelli suddenly lost power in his Mercedes and had to pull over off the circuit. Race control deployed a safety car and only 4 cars did not pit for fresh tyres. It was the 3 pitstop for those that pitted except for both Red Bull cars as it was their fourth pitstop. Unfortunately, Max Verstappen had only new hard tyres.

Much has been written about what happened after the safety car. Opinions range from Max Verstappen “should be banned for life from any form of racing” to “that 10 second penalty he received was grossly unfair”. What is abundantly clear is that no matter what the provocation is, a professional driver needs to always be professional, no matter how talented. Was there provocation? You, be the judge.

What I can say is that when the restart happened after the safety car came in was breathtaking. Max’s car on cold hard tyres swerved in the turn under acceleration. For most drivers, that would have been end of race with the car off circuit or worse. That save was among the most brilliant pieces of car control you could ever witness.

Max Verstappen is a single penalty point away from the humiliation of a one-race ban. This has happened recently when Kevin Magnussen was banned from the 2024 Italian Grand Prix. Max’s 11 out of 12 penalty points on his super licence do not start to reduce until after the Austrian Grand Prix.

The alluded to ten second penalty was applied by race control to Max Verstappen (Red Bull). This dropped him from fifth to tenth place and from 10 points to 1.

Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber), who had accomplished a great overtake of Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) on the penultimate lap, ended in fifth for his highest points tally for a race this year. This lifted Sauber from last to joint eighth in the World Constructors’ Championship.

At long last the two times World Drivers’ Championship winner Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) scored some race points for 25025. Very different from Spain 2013.

The positional changes in the race were-

Gains and Losses

The Full Lap Chart

Lap Chart

This race leaves the World Drivers’ Championship points like this-

WDC Points

And graphically

Top 10 Driver’s WDC Points

The World Constructors’ Championship points difference are-

WCC Points

And graphically-

Constructors’ Championship Graph

Next race in Montreal.

All the participating teams must notify the FIA of all modifications they are to make to their cars prior to a race weekend. The modifications or updates that are to be tested during the free practices are to be stated. This applies whether they are to be used for the qualification session, and therefore the race, or not. It also applies whether the updates apply to one car or both cars.

The teams notify the FIA F1 Media department in a Car Presentation Submission. The submission must state:

• Updated component
• Primary reason for update
• Geometric differences compared to previous version
• Brief description on how the update works (min 20, max 100 words)

These submissions are collated and sent out to All Teams and to All Officials by the FIA Formula One Media Delegate.

As an example, the Car Presentation for the Canada Grand Prix by the McLaren Formula 1 Team as was issued by the FIA Formula One Media Delegate:

Car Presentation Submission

This was accompanied by a drawing of where the updates were applied on the car/s.

Drawing of Update/s Position/s

If a team does not make a Car Presentation they are still mentioned in the issued document. Example, Ferrari for the Canada Grand Prix:

No Car Presentation

Where a team uses a previously homologated part that was used in a previous Grand Prix, they do not need to do a Car Presentation for that part. If for instance a team decides to use a low downforce rear wing that has been used at a previous GP, then no Car Presentation is required. This is of course if that rear wing has not been modified or updated.

A personal peeve of mine is all the commentary and lyrical statements of the supposed pundits of F1 talking and writing about this glorious 75th season of F1.

WRONG

This is actually the 76th season of formula one as shown in this simple spread sheet-

F1 Seasons-1950 is 1, 2025 is 76

Was the weekend exciting?

Oh yes but actually no.

The free practices and qualifying were very good as the drivers showed their skills and their cars their capabilities with some surprise performances of both. (More on that later)

GRAND PRIX

The race was not racing. The mandated two pitstops for every car, three tyres of two different compounds, which was to try something different to spice up the racing failed. This rule was to avoid the processional 2024 Monaco race. There was a safety car on lap one where all the cars pitted, changed their tyres and then proceeded to the checkered flag. There were actually four on track overtakes in 2024 whilst in 2025 there were only two. The problem was compounded by Racing Bulls and Williams using slowdown tactics to provide a gap for the team mate ahead to pit without losing a place. The teammates would then swap positions and repeat the slowdown tactic. This was just smart use of the rules of the day to get both of each team’s cars into the points. The consequences of this were a train of cars going up to 6 seconds slower than the front runners and a very boring spectacle. It also led to the most lapped cars at a Monaco Grand Prix in the last ten races.

Why is there so little overtaking at this glamorous venue?

Comparing the Monaco GPs of 1963 and 2025 we see that the 1963 race had twenty plus overtakes on track compared to the 2 of 2025. The cars in 1963 were race cars. The cars in 2025 are the most technically superior aerocars*. Unfortunately, the 2025 version of a F1 car is large and heavy and takes up more than twice the area of a 1963 race car. The shortest F1 car to race was the 1958 Lotus Climax 12 which was 3.325m and weighed 320kg. The 2025 F1 cars weigh 800kg.

The grid start to checkered flag comparison is-

The respective lap charts-

Yes, the 2025 aero car is much more reliable with 2 DNFs compared to the 1963’s 11 DNFs. Only 4 of the 15 1963 cars that raced saw the checkered flag, though 9 were classified and the first 6 earned championship points. There were 28 entrants for the race of which 15 out of 17 qualified. A quite different era from todays fixed teams and drivers.

*(The word aerocar refers to the 1950-60s aeroplane/automobile convertible vehicle but has crept into F1 language.)

What can be done to improve the Monaco grand prix? In my opinion the only cure to stop the processional racing at this venue is a change to the circuit. Yes, smaller lighter cars will assist but the technology we have now will never enable a five square meter car or one of three hundred kilograms. The circuit that was laid out in 1929 has been modified before. A new modification which allows at least two overtaking places is not impossible. Will a new circuit stop people from attending the race? No, it will not. After all this is still the Principality of Monaco and even if the circuit was not mostly inside the Monte Carlo neighbourhood of Monaco it would still be special.

After the Monaco GP the drivers’ championship stood at-

Graphically for the top ten drivers

The constructors’ championship points-

Graphically-

Interesting convergence for second place, with McLaren dominating so far.

The more interesting bits of the Monaco weekend were the free practices and that exciting qualifying.

THE FREE PRACTICES

The tyres for the weekend are the same as at Imola, the softest C4, C5 and C6 as the hard, medium and soft respectively.

FP1 had an approximately 3 minute red flag, at 51:18, when Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) pulled onto the circuit in front of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari. The consequences of this shunt was severe rear damage to the Astin Martin and front wing damage to the Ferrari. Lance was out of the session and gained a 1 place grid penalty. Charles was able to continue after a front wing replacement.

FP2 had two red flag periods. The first was for Isack Hadja (Racing Bulls) clipping the barrier at the exit of the tunnel. A lot of damage to the car but he managed to get it back to the pits. The second was for Oscar Piastri (McLaren) who braked too late to take the runoff at turn 1 and went nose first into the barrier. He got the car back to the pits.

FP3 had one red flag in the last 2 minutes of the session, this ended the session. It was for Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) who had a steering snap in turn 3 and crashed into the opposite barriers. A lot of damage to the car.

Throughout the free practices the lap times tumbled as the circuit rubbered in on each session. At various times there were many different drivers topping the timing charts. In all the three sessions Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) was the fastest.

The free practices’ times were-

And positions were-

QUALIFYING

Qualifying was the most exciting part of the weekend. There were so many session leaders and provisional pole positions as the circuit rubbered in. Pirelli give the Monaco circuit a 5 out of 5 rating for track evolution.

Q1

Session leaders during this 18 minutes session were-

• Alex Albon (Williams) …………………….1:22.067
• Carlos Sainz (Williams) ………………….1:20.617
• Esteban Ocon (Haas) ……………………..1:15.294
• Oliver Bearman (Haas) …………………..1:14.598
• Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber) ………1:13.354
• Alex Albon (Williams) ……………………1:13.153 (second run, first run must have been a                                                                                          warmup, 9 seconds better)
• Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) ………………..1:13.063
• Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) …………..1:12.946
• Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) ……………1:12.878
• Lando Norris (McLaren) ………………..1:12.860
• Oscar Piastri (McLaren) …………………1:12.479
• Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) ………………..1:12.091
• Max Verstappen (Red Bull) …………….1:11.920
• Lando Norris (McLaren) ………………..1:11.596
• Oscar Piastri (McLaren) …………………1:11.385
• Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) ………………..1:11.229

All the drivers were on the soft C6 tyre except the two Alpine drivers Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto who ran on the medium C5 tyres.

Almost immediately after the checkered flag was waived and while some drivers were still on a fast lap, red flags were waived. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) had just completed the second sector at the fastest time of anybody. The reason for the red flag was Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) had clipped the barrier on the way into the Nouvelle chicane (turn10). This was almost identical to Isack Hadja (Racing Bulls) crash in FP2.

Eliminated in the first session – Gabriel Bortoleto (Kick Sauber), Oliver Bearman (Haas), Pierre Gasly (Alpine), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Franco Colapinto (Alpine).

Q2

The remaining 15 drivers now had 15 minutes to prove their mettle to get into the top ten shootout.

Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber) was the first to set a time, but it was a very poor 1:22.400. Did he have a second warmup lap on those soft tyres? Yes, it was, as his third lap was a 1:11.864.

4 minutes and 44 seconds into the Q2 session, yellow flags were waved in the tunnel. A few seconds later the yellow flags were replaced with red ones and the session was halted. George Russell had lost all power in his Mercedes and stopped in the tunnel. Not a good qualifying day for the Mercedes team. Kimi Antonelli crashed and George Russell stopped.

After George Russell’s car had been recovered the session resumed.

With five minutes remaining, the order was the two Ferraris, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, the two McLarens, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, then Alex Albon (Williams) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull).

At the end of Q2 the order and gap between them was-

These top ten were all on the soft tyre except Fernando Alonso who was on medium.

Eliminated in Q2 were Carlos Sainz (Williams), Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull),Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber) and the Mercedes drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli with no time set.

Q3

After 6 minutes out of the 12 allowed, the order was Lando Norris (McLaren), Oscar Piastri (McLaren), Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), Max Verstappen (Red Bull), Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari), Esteban Ocon (Haas), Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls), Alex Albon (Williams) and Isack Hadja (Racing Bulls) who had not set a time. All on soft tyres except Esteban Ocon (Haas) and Alex Albon (Williams) who were on medium tyres.

When the checkered flag came, it was Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) who was 0.062 seconds ahead of Lando Norris (McLaren). Lando was still on another fast lap and, oh boy, was it fast. A new qualifying record of 1:09.954 to be over one tenth of a second ahead of Charles. Brilliant excitement could not have asked for more than that.

All the qualifying times-

Was the weekend exciting?

Oh yes but the race actually no. 

Just fantastic in parts.

Next up Spain.

General

Imola Circuit or Autodroma Enzo e Dino Ferrari did not disappoint as an exciting race venue and produced a scintillating weekend of racing. This old-fashioned circuit requires precision from the drivers and exacting performance from the cars. The circuit was inaugurated in 1953 but did not hold a championship Grand Prix until 1980. That was the Italian Grand Prix which was won by Nelson Piquet in a Brabham-Ford. In 2020 covid brought us the first Emilia Romagna Grand Prix (Gran Premio dell’Emilia-Romagna) to assist in filling out the race calendar for that year. Since then, except for 2023 when the area was flooded, we have had this GP. Now it seems unlikely that we will have it next year.

Amusing

Of amusement to me was the McLaren saying of Forever Forward going sideways on the automatic doors of their hospitality suit.

Going sideways for Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri?

Where McLaren are not going sideways is regarding the legality of their cars. After all the inuendo from other teams (mainly Red Bull) about McLarens lack of tyre degradation being something illegal, their cars were scrutinised by the FIA after the Miami GP. The FIA’s final report stated categorically that the McLaren cars were entirely within the F1 technical regulations.

So, none of this-

or this-

Updates

Car updates galore. Being back in Europe and closer to the constructors’ facilities, most teams have updates to their cars.

• McLaren
  • revised rear corner and suspension to improve airflow conditioning and rear downforce
  • high-downforce rear and beam wing combination, focused on creating more local load on the mainplane and flap
  • front suspension modification to improve component clearance
• Red Bull
  • revised radiator duct inlet
  • revised rear suspension fairing
  • revised wheel bodywork
  • revised exit ducts
• Mercedes
  • modified front suspension
  • reshaped front wing
  • the engine cover modified to improve engine cooling
  • reprofiled suspension fairings
• Ferrari
  • reshaped high-downforce rear and beam wing combination
  • revised rear scoop geometries
• Aston Martin
  • revised halo
  • revised floor body
  • revised floor fences
  • revised floor edges
  • revised diffuser
  • revised engine cover
  • revised beam wing
• Haas
  • new floor body shape
  • new floor edge
  • new diffuser has been designed to work in conjunction with these parts while, at the rear, the
  • revised rear brake duct lower element
  • revised lower suspension fairing
• Alpine
  • reprofiled front wing and flap
  • reprofiled rear bodywork panel
• Racing Bulls
  • new floor
  • new side pods
  • new halo end winglets added.

Williams and Sauber nothing declared other than the high downforce rear wings which are circuit specific

Perelli have issued the C6 grade of tyre for the first time. It is a new softer compound which is reminiscent of bygone eras when there was qualifying only tyres or more recently Super Soft tyres. Last year it was C3, C4 and C5 for hard, medium and soft respectively. This year it is C4, C5 and C6.

Free Practice 1

Carlos Sainz (Williams) was caught speeding in the pitlane. He was clocked at 93.7 kilometres per hour in the 80 kilometres per hour zone. His team was fined €1000.

Ferrari were fined €5000 for altering the tyre pressure on Charles Leclerc’s car without taking the tyre temperature into account. Technical directive TD003G provides the multiple use of tyres during a session but if the pressure is modified then the pressure can not be lower that a certain level according to the temperature of the tyre. As this is a safety issue and that Ferrari have been in breach of this on prior occasions, the fine was applied.

With only a few minutes remaining of FP1, Gabriel Bortoleto (Kick Sauber) took too much curb at turn 18 and went straight into the barriers. This ended the session.

With the top 5 drivers within 0.1 seconds, it was a great session-

Free Practice 2

Plenty of laps run on the soft and medium tyres. McLaren still the performing team.

Free Practice 3

Still McLaren cars faster than anybody else but this time with Lando Norris ahead of Oscar Piastri. The soft C6 tyres seem to be a problem as they seem to go off at the end of a lap.

All the practice performances are shown on this graph-

QUALIFYING

Qualifying One (Q1)

On a circuit where traffic can be a problem, drivers wasted no time getting out to set a time.

5 minutes 40 seconds into Q1, 10 drivers had set a time when yellow flags were shown. 7 seconds later, the flags turned red. Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) had a horrific looking crash into turn six. His car was flipped over along the crash barriers, landing upside-down, before rebounding upright. He was not injured but badly shaken up. His teammate Max Verstappen had just finished sector one in a very fast, purple, time of 23.849 seconds and with the session stopped, had to abandon the lap.

After a lengthy delay to recover Yuki Tsunoda’s car and repair the barrier, the session resumed.

With many drivers on their second Q1 runs, Franco Colapinto (Alpine) put paid to anyone improving their lap times. He brought out the red flag in the final 30 seconds of the session. He put a wheel over the kerb and onto the grass in turn 3, spun off the track and slammed nose-first into the barrier. Franco reported the crash over the radio and said he was all right. His first run had put him in 15^th position on the grid.

Franco’s woes were not just his crash, but the 1 place grid place penalty earned just before the crash. The FIA announced a time for Q1 to be resumed, pending confirmation. Before the confirmation came through Franco was waved out of his garage and he went into the fast pit lane. Drivers are only allowed into the fast pitlane when start or restart times are confirmed. Very technical but in the rules.

Max Verstappen (Red Bull) topped the timing charts with a 1:15.175 time, 0.325 seconds ahead of Oscar Piastri (McLaren).

The drivers eliminated were Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls), Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber), Esteban Ocon (Haas), Oliver Bearman (Haas) and Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull).

Qualifying Two (Q2)

The 15 minutes of Q2 was uneventful compared to the mayhem of Q1.

Carlos Sainz (Williams) topped the timing charts with a 1:15.198 which was 0.016 seconds faster than Oscar Piastri (McLaren). What a lap from Carlos with a 0.789 second improvement over his Q1 time.

All the drivers apart from Max Verstappen (Red Bull), improved on their Q1 times. Max ended up 0.219 seconds slower after a wobble in the second sector.

A black day for Ferrari with their cars just not quick enough to go through to Q3. Local driver Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) also disappointed his fans (tifosi) in not making Q3.

Eliminated were Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in Ferraris, Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), Gabriel Bortoleto (Kick Sauber) and Franco Colapinto (Alpine) who of course set no Q2 time.

Qualifying Three Q3

What a delight in seeing these beautifully liveried racing cars at their very fastest pace storming around a gorgeous circuit. Conditions could not be better with a 23 degree air temperature, 39 degree track temperature and a mild 7 km/h breeze. It just cannot get better.

Reality is that for this narrow circuit the F1 cars are just too wide and heavy with too much air disturbance so that they impede each other. A perfect qualifying experience would be as they did it in bygone eras where each car went off separately, in clean air, to set a time.

Nowadays the compromise must be made between going out early in a session to find that clean air and going out later when the circuit surface is at its absolutely best for traction.

Tyres played a part in this qualifying. Usually only the softest tyre is selected for all the qualifying sessions. Occasionally the faster cars may use a medium tyre in Q1 knowing that their pace will get them through to Q2 even on those. Here, with the first use of the C6 compound, some drivers found that they could not get optimum performance from these over a full lap.

Aston Martin, who brought a huge number of updates for their cars, found out that their cars performed better in the medium tyres. This proved correct as their drivers were third and fourth in Q1, sixth and seventh in Q2 and ended up fifth and eighth in Q3. Fernando Alonso ahead of Lance Stroll in each case. George Russell (Mercedes) also gambled on the medium tyres to good effect and ended up third in Q3.

The results of the Q3 session with tyre choice-

And graphically for the top ten qualifiers-

THE RACE

When the lights went off Oscar Piastri and George Russell made good starts while Max Verstappen seemed slow off the line. Halfway down that very long 400 meter stretch to turn 1 George was alongside Max. On the sweep into turn 1 Oscar covered the centre line as he braked. Max braked so late a crash or run off the circuit looked like the only outcome. But no, his car kept its inside line with outside wheels well within the circuit limits and sweeping into turn 2 he was ahead, leading the race.

That move on Oscar Piastri by Max Verstappen was reminiscent of Max’s move on the then world drivers’ championship leader Nico Rosburg at the 2016 Brazilian GP. A GP that a rival team principal Toto Wolff called “The Verstappen Show”, and that Max “redefined physics”. This was after he had pitted for wet tyres and was in 16^th place with only 15 laps remaining in the race. He stormed through 13 of those drivers ahead of him to finish the race on the podium in third place.

Back to Imola. By start of the second lap Max was already 0.974 seconds ahead of Oscar. By the time they both got through the first sector on that second lap, the gap was 1.284 seconds so even though DRS was enabled, it was of no use to Oscar.

Lando Norris (McLaren) was trying to overtake George Russell (Mercedes) for 11 laps. Eventually Lando got passed George in lap 12 and George immediately pitted for fresh tyres. George had radioed about issues with his car’s performance and tyres, but he successfully defended against Lando.

Oscar Piastri pitted on lap 14. His pitstop had a stationary time of 3.6 seconds which was very slow by McLaren standards. He came out into traffic and took a long time to get briefly back to second in lap 31.

Lando Norris pitted on lap 29. On lap 30 there was a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) caused by Esteban Ocon (Haas) who stopped with a car issue. Max Verstappen pitted and retained the lead of the race. Max was ahead of Oscar Piastri who did not pit.

Oscar Piastri, who was on old tyres, was soon overtaken by Lando Norris and Alex Albon (Williams) who were both on fresh tyres.

On lap 47 Race Control called for a full Safety Car (SC) due to Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) having pulled off the circuit with an accelerator problem. Max Verstappen pitted and retained his lead of the race.

When the SC came in on lap 53, it left a ten lap sprint to the finish. Tyre age was interesting. All the drivers were on hard tyres except Nico Hulkenberg and Yuki Tsunoda who were on mediums. Fresher tyres were king in most cases.

This lap chart tells most of the story of the race-

For a start to checkered flag picture-

Championship Standing After Seventh Venue

World Drivers’ Championship

Points

Graph

World Constructors’ Championship

Points

Graph

Rewrite the record books

Andrea Kimi Antonelli the third youngest driver in F1 history has now become the youngest to win a qualifying session. He is sitting on pole position for the Miami sprint race. What a replacement for Lewis Hamilton at the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team

Kimi Antonelli is the youngest driver in F1 now. He is a total rooky. He has never raced at this Miami circuit before. After this stellar achievement he was cool, calm and collected. Wow!

He had the rare opportunity of driving a F1 car in Free Practice 1 on the Monza circuit last year. He had a spectacular crash when he lost control coming into the high-speed Parabolica turn. When Toto Wolf was interviewed after the crash, all he could say was “Did you see how fast Kimi was”.

Kimi Antonelli is no stranger to being a winner. He has

• Won his first title at the 2022 Italian F4 Championship
• Won the ADAC Formula 4 in 2022
• Won the Formula Regional European in 2023
• Won the Formula Regional Middle East in 2023
• Won the Italian GT3
• Won the gold medal at the 2022 FIA Motorsport Games, representing Italy.
• Drove in the FIA Formula 2 in 2024, winning multiple races as he finished sixth in his rookie season.
• Been a member of the Mercedes Junior Team since 2019,

Andrea Kimi Antonelli was born on 25 August 2006.

Back to the qualifying for the Miami Sprint Race, 2025.

The qualifying times for all drivers-

A graph of the top 10 drivers-

Enjoy the Miami weekend. There is the Sprint Race and qualifying for the GP today. The GP tomorrow.

Norman

6 events or 20% of the season has been run. After 5 Grands Prix and 1 sprint race where do we stand?

The Formula One World Drivers’ Championship (WDC) and the Formula One World Constructors’ Championship (WCC) have some of the preseasons expectations realised but not others.

After the testing in Bahrain the expectations were that Lando Norris would achieve the WDC and McLaren the WCC. Mercedes, Red Bull and Williams should compete from the looks of their long runs. The radical Ferraris were not so good in their long runs, but should improve very rapidly and become contenders. Lewis would find the new challenge an invigorating experience and become competitive very quickly and soon be challenging Charles Leclerc.

The actual drivers’ performance at each event was as shown in the table below, at the end of the Saudi Arabia weekend-

F1 INDIVIDUAL DRIVERS’ POINTS

By the end of the Saudi Arabia weekend the accumulated drivers’ position is –

ACCUMULATED DRIVER’S POINTS

Graphically, the top ten drivers look like this-

TOP 10 DRIVERS’ POINTS

The teams (constructors) position from their drivers’ points is-

ACCUMULATED CONSTRUCTORS’ POINTS

Which graphically is-

CONSTRUCTORS’ POINTS

The McLaren cars are certainly proving to be the fastest car so far in the season. With their two drivers proving to be the fastest, having won all five GPs and Oscar Piastri coming second in the China Sprint Race. The surprise is that Oscar Piastri is comprehensively beating Lando Norris.

Mercedes, with two performing drivers, George Russell and rookie Kimi Antonelli, are coming second in the WCC.

Red Bull are third having only one performing driver in Max Verstappen. Having already changed the second driver after the China weekend, swapping Liam Lawson for Yuki Tsunoda, Yuki Tsunoda’s 2 points for the team is encouraging.

Ferrari are fourth. Charles Leclerc has 47 points and Lewis Hamilton 31 points. Had Ferrari not had disqualifications for both cars at the China GP, they would have been in third place. (See report Four race weekends, four disqualifications)