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The 2024 F1 Imola GP ended with Max Verstappen fending off Lando Norris by a margin of less than a second. The Red Bull driver had a challenge on his hand and it came from both McLaren and Ferrari.
In the end, while managing his tires, who had gone out of the operating window, Max Verstappen secured his fifth win of the season. In P2, we had Lando Norris, who was surprisingly dejected after winning a race the last time around. In P3, we had Charles Leclerc.
The Ferrari driver tried his best to come to terms with the top 2 but was unable to make that happen. In P4, we had Oscar Piastri, the Australian, making up a place after starting the race in P5, while Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz finished in P5.
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The race weekend had a lot of anticipation going into it and while the result might appear to be the same old story, there's a lot that went into it. So what did we learn from the F1 Imola GP? Let's find out.
The 2024 F1 Imola GP: What have we learned?
#1 Red Bull has been caught
There's no ifs and butts about this one. Red Bull's performance advantage has seemingly shrunk now. The car was fast this weekend, but was it the kind of fast that it lapped half a second quicker than the competition? No, it wasn't.
Ferrari and McLaren have brought significant parts to their respective cars, and it does appear that the gap has certainly been reduced for now. Whether that would continue on a plethora of tracks is something we're yet to see.
#2 Max Verstappen was the difference maker in the F1 Imola GP
If this weekend Max Verstappen made a mistake in qualifying, he wouldn't have won the race, if he made a mistake at the start of the race, he would have lost, and if he made a mistake when Lando was chasing him down, he would have lost. The fact that he didn't and extracted all there was from the car is what makes this win special.
It's often said that much of the accomplishments from Max are down to the 'car'. Well, in F1, that's always going to be a case, but race execution like the Imola GP is the driver, not the car.
#3 Should F1 Imola GP be on the calendar?
Someone in the FIA office thought it was a good idea to shorten the DRS zone of a track that already struggles to produce overtakes. In the end, while for the purists we had a race that was quite intriguing, for the casuals this was a damp squib for the most part.
F1 needs a rethink if it wants Imola and Monaco back to back because the lack of on-track action at those two tracks is something that's not going to appeal to many fans. Unless something is done to make Imola racier, it would be a hard sell to keep the track on the calendar.
#4 Lance Stroll had a stunning race
This was possibly the best race that Lance has driven in a long time. He had the pace to jump Esteban Ocon on track, and then he kept his tires alive for decent enough time that he would just march his way through the RB drivers and the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg. He was the lead Aston Martin driver this weekend, a compliment we haven't given him in a long time.
#5 Mercedes had a positive weekend
Sure Mercedes was not a factor at the front in the F1 Imola GP, but it still had a decent race where there weren't too many things going wrong. Most importantly, the car was predictable, which is something we tend not to say often.
If the team can continue doing this more often, maybe improvements are just around the corner.
#6 Sergio Perez had a disaster of an Imola GP
Sergio Perez had a disaster of a weekend. The driver messed up qualifying, and then the race was a throwback to what often happened with him last season. A P8 result when your teammate wins is going to hurt.
#7 Alpine's weaknesses can't be cured this season
Esteban Ocon had a decent pace, but the issue with driving in a pack is that if you don't have a strong power unit, you're just a liability. Ocon couldn't overtake Alonso for a long time, and then the same happened with Bottas. If the Frenchman is looking at his future team, Alpine might not be the one because some of these issues are just not going to resolve themselves anytime soon, or ever.
#8 Williams is legitimately struggling with the car
Alex Albon had the baptism of fire in the F1 Imola GP race weekend, as there's just nothing that worked for him. The Thai driver would have realised by now that Williams lacks improvements that should propel it to a position where it scores points. It's a long road ahead for a team that has secured a strong driver for the near future.
#9 The bottom 5 continues to be much slower than top 5
If you're a viewer, it would be infuriating to see how the grid is divided right down the middle in terms of performance. Top 5 teams still have a decent advantage over the rest of the field, and it became evident in the manner in which Stroll scored points.
The Aston Martin was just much faster in the F1 Imola GP race trim, while RB and Haas appeared to be sitting ducks as he marched through. The bottom five teams really have to scratch and claw to hold on to points this season.
#10 F1 is entering a good phase now
Finally, there's something positive happening in F1 in the sense that it is entering a phase where the battle at the front is heating up. The F1 Imola GP showed that we will have races this season that McLaren ends up winning, and we will have races that Ferrari wins.
It's not going to be a single team dominance, and most importantly, we are two bad days from Max Verstappen away from a title battle. The F1 Imola GP has shown that something tantalizingly intriguing is on its way.
