Max Verstappen probably didn’t hear Oscar Piastri’s comments as he walked to the grid before the start of yesterday’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
But if he did, it would have been music to the ears of the Red Bull driver.
Preparing to line up in his hard-won pole position, which he pipped Verstappen to by just three hundredths of a second the day before, Piastri was asked how important it was to keep that lead at the start.
“Obviously leading the race after the first corner would make life a lot easier but I don’t think it’s the be-all-and-end-all here,” he replied. “So let’s see what happens, but I’m pretty confident that we’ve got the pace to win regardless.”
Keeping track position over a key rival in F1 is ‘not the be-all-and-end-all’? In a series where overtaking is so hard? When we’ve seen so many times this year how much drivers’ tyres suffer in dirty air?
Piastri’s attitude was the exact opposite of what we see from his principal rival, Verstappen, every weekend. He invariably attacks the first corner of a race as if the victory depends on it, and he’s right to, because it often does.
Did the relative ease with which McLaren defeated Red Bull at the previous race lead Piastri to be complacent about their advantage? Although Piastri took several laps to pick his way past Verstappen in Miami, he went on to finish 40 seconds up the road.
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But that was not typical of the previous races. Prior to Miami, every grand prix this year had been won by the driver who led at the end of lap one – with a single exception.
That was Jeddah, where Verstappen and Piastri again shared the front row, this time with the Red Bull driver ahead. Piastri made a better start, claimed the first corner and forced Verstappen wide. The Red Bull driver stayed ahead, despite knowing a penalty was inevitable, precisely so that he could gain the benefit of running in clear air.
That example showed Piastri knows how to deal with Verstappen. But at Imola he stayed his hand, and it cost him badly.
Verstappen dropped back as they accelerated away from the line and shouldn’t have had a hope of taking the lead. But Piastri left the grippy racing line free for him and did not take his opportunity to force the Red Bull driver wide at the exit of the corner.
Piastri seemed far more concerned with covering off George Russell, a far lesser threat to his victory hopes than Verstappen. Russell was aghast at his rival’s positioning, despairing “fucking Piastri, what is he doing?” on his radio as he accelerated out of turn four.
It’s not hard to envisage how this scenario would have played out had the roles been reversed between Verstappen and Piastri. Not only would Verstappen not have left the outside line free in the first place, but had Piastri got part-way alongside, he would have been directed straight to the gravel bed.
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This is because Verstappen knows that being ahead absolutely is the ‘be-all-and-end-all’. Even if it means going off the track, even if it means forcing a rival off the track, his objective is to stay ahead and let the stewards agonise over whether to dish out a penalty to the race leader.
Verstappen is a no-holds-barred fighter who knows possessing the lead is everything. If either of McLaren’s drivers think they can beat him while needlessly playing to the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, they have no idea who they’re dealing with.
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