Despite taking his fifth win in 2024, reigning world champion Max Verstappen was left puzzled why his RB20 was unable to maintain Pirelli’s onerous tyres of their working window.
Red Bull’s Mexican driver Sergio Perez regarded fast on the opening day in Imola, however he misplaced his competitiveness afterward. In the ultimate apply, Perez crashed into the wall on the Gresini chicane earlier than struggling for tempo in qualifying.
The Mexican made an important mistake on his closing Q2 lap, and ended up solely eleventh on the grid. Red Bull despatched Perez with an alternate hard-medium technique into the race which might have seen him transfer up the sphere, however he made one other mistake, going large into the gravel lure between the 2 Rivazza corners.
As a end result of his mistake, Perez misplaced over 5 seconds, and took the chequered flag solely in P8.
“We knew it was going to be a tough day right this moment as the entire weekend was compromised from qualifying. Imola is a troublesome observe to overhaul on so this was the utmost we might do right this moment, particularly we had been fighting visitors at first on my first stint and on the onerous tyres we had no margin to mess around with the steadiness.
With bis team-mate Max Verstappen profitable on a weekend when Red Bull appeared to wrestle for the optimum steadiness, Perez went on to label the Dutchman’s efficiency as one of his greatest.
“We knew that McLaren had been the quickest however Max had one of one of the best weekends I’ve seen from him in awhile, so lots of reward for that and this was an awesome end result for us.
“We have a few things we need to analyse and certainly some work to do as we head into the next race, but I’m looking forward to Monaco and hopefully we will continue our strong season and get some good momentum back.”
Verstappen needed to work onerous on Saturday to say his eighth consecutive pole place, solely beating the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris by fractions.
On Sunday, the reigning world champion appeared to regulate proceedings on Pirelli’s medium tyres, however he discovered it onerous to handle the onerous compound on his second. In th3 dying levels of the race, Norris tried to chase him down and closed in on Verstappen to only seven tenths of a second.
“It was a detailed race right this moment. I didn’t count on that the automotive would have that sort of tempo at first, which was good and we had been sturdy on the medium tyres. When we swapped to the onerous tyres, it was a bit trickier to drive and extra of a wrestle to carry it to the top as tyres fell out of the working window and we had actually low grip.
“During the final ten laps I was actually attempting to outlive on the tyres and managed to maintain Lando behind, nevertheless it required lots of focus as we had been on the restrict with the penalty. However, we managed to work via and take the win; I was undoubtedly counting down the laps till the top and it was an awesome feeling after we took the chequered flag!
“If you look at where we were at the beginning of the weekend, this was an extremely good result. There is a bit of work to do and things to analyse but we are looking forward to Monaco,” mentioned the three-time world champion.
Catching up on the motive force’s parade 💬#F1 || #ImolaGP 🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/s1LZmCIhPD
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) May 19, 2024
Expanding on a hard-fought victory from his outfit, Red Bull crew boss Christian Horner mentioned: “It was a race of two halves for us right this moment. The first half was actually sturdy and we constructed a superb buffer, however the second half Lando began to catch us in a short time.
“Max couldn’t afford to place a millimetre flawed with observe limits and the stress of Lando behind, so an awesome job by Max. It’s very satisfying to win a race like that when you will have been pushed so onerous.
“After qualifying, we ran the reverse technique for Checo and the end result was most likely one of the best we might’ve acquired in a straight race like we had with no security vehicles. McLaren and Ferrari had been very fast and it’s going to be a very tight struggle with each groups, particularly because the vehicles are converging which is what naturally occurs when you will have secure guidelines.
“Overall, it was a weekend to remember in Imola and the whole team is looking forward to going again next weekend in Monte Carlo.”
