The McLaren drivers put more distance between themselves and the competition at the last round in Miami.
What turn will the championship take as Formula 1 begins a run of races on three consecutive weekends? What effect will Alpine’s dramatic double-departure have on their form?
Those talking points plus more for this weekend’s race are covered below.
All change at Alpine
There’s no doubt which team has gone through the biggest shake-up since the last round. Alpine’s decision to drop Jack Doohan was expected for months, but the departure of team principal Oliver Oakes was not.
Oakes unexpectedly left Alpine last week
Perhaps it should have been no surprise, as Oakes was the latest in a series of individuals to hold that job. Flavio Briatore, the team’s executive consultant now filling Oakes’ seat, is the sixth in just five years.
While the arrival of Franco Colapinto will delight his many supporters, he will find himself in a situation that’s little more favourable than when he joined Williams (coincidentally, on the series’ last visit to Italy last year, at Monza). Alpine have collected just seven points so far and are looking over their shoulders to Sauber behind them.
In their announcement confirming Colapinto’s arrival, Alpine indicated he has just five races to prove himself before they reconsider their options. But he’s believed to be favoured by Briatore, so expect he’ll get a decent chance to prove himself, and isn’t likely to find himself shunted aside for practice sessions so the team can run a local driver.
The Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari returned to the Formula 1 calendar five years ago as F1 cast about for European venues to fill its schedules when Covid wreaked havoc with its schedule. Every other track which joined the calendar that year vanished from the schedule in short order, but Imola held on longer than most.
It’s not hard to see why, even ignoring the convenient detail that it happens to be the home city of F1 team principal Stefano Domenicali. Italy is not short of passionate Ferrari fans and the latest iteration of the Imola circuit is a little closer to the classic, high-speed original than the chicane-blighted version used after 1995.
But the race’s deal expires after this year and Domenicali indicated it is unlikely to return. This is likely to be the last time for a while F1 cars race in anger around Piratella, Acque Minerale, Rivazza and the rest.
Extra-soft tyre arrives
Pirelli has devised a new, extra-soft tyre compound for the 2025 season. F1’s official tyre supplier originally described this as “a softer compound especially for street circuits”, yet it has chosen this permanent circuit with several medium-speed corners for its introduction.
The decision to introduce the C6 at this race makes it the third consecutive round at which Pirelli has selected tyres one stage softer than those seen last year. This was done in the hope it would provoke more pit stops and more varied strategies, but had little effect at Jeddah and Miami. Pirelli have said they expect teams will stick to the C4 and C5 for race stints.
The particular enthusiasm Italian F1 fans have for their country’s most successful team is unlike that seen in any other country. Successful Italian drivers have seldom attracted anything like the kind of deep affection with which the tifosi regard Ferrari.
Could Andrea Kimi Antonelli change that? His first half-dozen appearances in an F1 car have done much to justify Mercedes’ faith in his abilities.
He arrives at his first home race having scored his first F1 pole position – albeit for a sprint race – and posted steadily improving results. He could well be in with a shout of a podium finish this weekend. What kind of reception will the 18-year-old receive at what could be the only F1 race he contests at the track just an hour’s drive from his native Bologna – even if he is driving for the ‘wrong’ team?
Ferrari’s woes
Who will get a warmer reaction from the Imola fans: Italy’s new driver Antonelli or Ferrari’s new driver Lewis Hamilton?
Despite their star off-season arrival, Ferrari have given their home fans little to celebrate so far this year. A strategic mis-step in Melbourne was followed by a double disqualification in Shanghai. Charles Leclerc grafted for a brilliant podium finish at Jeddah, then the team was embarrassingly beaten by Williams while it fumbled team orders in Miami.
Even at this early stage in the season, Leclerc and Hamilton know it will take a major shift in the competitive order for them to stand a chance in the championship. There have been rumours of an upgrade package for this weekend, however, and if Ferrari can replicate the kind of well-judged tweak they made in the second half of last season, their home race may be a happier one.
Championship leader Oscar Piastri heads to Imola seeking his fourth consecutive grand prix victory. Meanwhile Max Verstappen has won this event for the last three years in a row. Clearly, one or both of those streaks must end this weekend.
In Miami, McLaren produced a win of dispiriting dominance for their rivals. It may have been an outlier as far as the season so far is concerned, but they clearly have a formidable advantage in particularly hot races.
However Verstappen will go to Imola knowing it is exactly the kind of circuit where he could undermine their advantage. Overtaking is extremely difficult and pole position is extremely important. Verstappen has made a habit of nicking pole from the McLarens by tiny margins this year.
If he’s going to do it again, he could do with the kind of slipstream he gained from Nico Hulkenberg last year. But will his team mate Yuki Tsunoda, or any other driver required or inclined to help him out, be available to lend a hand in Q3?
Pit safety
Ahead of the Miami round there was some chatter the FIA might increase the pit lane speed limit at certain circuits. Doing so would reduce the time lost making a pit stop and therefore encourage teams to consider more multi-stop strategies, which might create more varied racing.
Imola exemplifies this problem. The bypassing of the Variante Bassa chicane since 2020 means coming into the pits at this track costs more time than anywhere else on the calendar.
However it’s doubtful much appetite for increasing pit lane speed limits will remain after the scenes at Miami, where Red Bull waved Verstappen’s car out into the side of Antonelli’s, and only the excellent reactions of both drivers spared mechanics from injury.
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