{"id":49993,"date":"2025-08-07T09:18:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T09:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/49993\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T09:18:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T09:18:15","slug":"verstappen-wins-f1-emilia-romagna-gp-to-close-gap-on-mclaren-duo-motorsports-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/49993\/","title":{"rendered":"Verstappen wins F1 Emilia-Romagna GP to close gap on McLaren duo | Motorsports News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reigning world champion Max Verstappen wins for the fourth straight time at Imola, defeating McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris and F1 drivers\u2019 standings leader Oscar Piastri.<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen has given his Formula 1 title defence a big boost with victory at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix after a daring overtake on standings leader Oscar Piastri at the start.<\/p>\n

The Dutch driver built a commanding lead on Sunday that 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.<\/p>\n

Verstappen took his second win of the season and first since last month\u2019s Japanese Grand Prix and denied Piastri \u2013 who finished third \u2013 what would have been his fourth victory in a row.<\/p>\n

Verstappen praised his Red Bull team\u2019s \u201cfantastic execution all round\u201d as the team marked its 400th F1 race with a win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe start itself wasn\u2019t particularly great, but I was still on the outside line, or basically the normal [racing] line, and I was like, \u2018Well, I\u2019m just going to try and send it round the outside,\u2019 and it worked really well,\u201d Verstappen said of his crucial overtake. \u201cThat, of course, unleashed our pace because once we were in the lead, the car was good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norris\u2019s late-race move on Piastri was almost a copy of Verstappen\u2019s although Norris had the advantage of being on fresher tyres than his teammate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a good little battle at the end between Oscar and myself, which is always tense but always good fun,\u201d Norris said, admitting that Verstappen and Red Bull were \u201ctoo good for us today\u201d.<\/p>\n

Piastri\u2019s lead over Norris in the standings was cut to 13 points. Verstappen rounds out the top three at nine points behind Norris.<\/p>\n

\"MaxRed Bull driver Max Verstappen leads McLaren\u2019s Oscar Piastri at the start of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix [Antonio Calanni\/AP]Hamilton bounces back<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton recovered from 12th on the grid to finish fourth in his first race for Ferrari in Italy.<\/p>\n

Hamilton profited from a late-race fight between his teammate Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon of Williams.<\/p>\n

Albon complained Leclerc had pushed him off the track as they battled for fourth, and Hamilton passed both drivers before Ferrari eventually asked Leclerc to yield fifth to Albon.<\/p>\n

George Russell was seventh for Mercedes, ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr in the second Williams.<\/p>\n

Isack Hadjar was ninth for Racing Bulls, and Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull teammate Yuki Tsunoda was 10th after starting last following a crash in qualifying.<\/p>\n

An action-packed \u2018farewell\u2019 to Imola<\/p>\n

Overtaking was expected to be rare in what could be F1\u2019s last race for the foreseeable future at Imola. Instead, the Italian fans were treated to Verstappen\u2019s spectacular move at the start and plenty of other overtakes.<\/p>\n

The narrow, bumpy Imola track has been a favourite among drivers, who have relished its old-school challenge since it returned to the F1 schedule during the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, its status as Italy\u2019s second race \u2013 only the United States also hosts more than one \u2013 makes its position vulnerable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t come back here, it is going to be a shame,\u201d Piastri said on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s race was the last under Imola\u2019s current contract, and while it isn\u2019t officially goodbye yet, there has been no word about next year.<\/p>\n

\"MaxVerstappen passes the chequered flag to win the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix [Luca Bruno\/Pool via Reuters]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reigning world champion Max Verstappen wins for the fourth straight time at Imola, defeating McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[591,1687,372,6537,479,18733,50,217,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-49993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-europe","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-italy","tag-motorsports","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}