The Saturday in F1 Imola GP saw two major crashes to start qualifying and by the end of it, the Top 10 saw six non-Top 4 teams car in the fight.
It was a tough Saturday in F1 Imola GP after double crash in Q1 of Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto. The Japanese didn’t even get to complete a lap as he took blame for pushing a bit too much on the first lap itself without assessing the changes made after FP3.
He felt he did a bit too much which he shouldn’t have and has forced his team to undertake more work than they should have. His teammate Max Verstappen missed out on F1 pole, but it was the maximum he could have done as he said. The race will be all about pushing as much, even if win is difficult.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was wary of securing F1 pole after his first run, but he pushed enough to get through, while agreeing that the tyres were difficult to work with. His teammate Lando Norris could only manage fourth after another Q3 dip. He was good in Q1 and Q2, but couldn’t work the magic in Q3.
He didn’t wish to complain about the car which ended up on pole, but lamented his own performance. The strategy from Mercedes, meanwhile, almost got George Russell better than third if not for the scramble on the out lap to start the final lap. The medium tyres did work for him to end up third.
It is a slight compromise for the race, but his battle is directly with Verstappen considering the cars around. Teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli was knocked out in Q2 after he couldn’t understand what went wrong. He couldn’t improve, no matter how much he pushed which resulted in minor mistakes.
Antonelli had both the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc knocked out with him in Q2 in their home event. The Brit felt he extracted as much from the car, but it just didn’t have pace and performance, something that Charles Leclerc backed up – as he has been for a couple of races.
Piastri: “It was good. I was happy with it. I feel like in Q3 I really found my groove. It wasn’t the easiest of days, really. FP3, I think everyone put the Soft tyre on and started scratching their heads a bit, and then qualifying itself obviously had a lot of red flags, a lot of long delays. It was hard to build into a rhythm. But I think by Q3 I found my feet, and the last lap of Q3 was a good one. Yeah, I thought it was going to unravel at the last corner with a few people trying to start their laps, but it was enough to get through there and still get pole. I thought it was going to be tough to beat. I felt like my first lap was very strong. I think when I got back to the garage, I saw that there were a few things that could have been a bit better.
“And yeah, found a little bit in a few places, and that was enough in the end. So yeah, felt like I definitely had to find a bit more for that final run, and I think I did a good job doing it. In terms of Yuki’s crash, obviously, when there’s a shunt that big, it’s hard to not look at it. But I think generally in racing — and in a lot of things in life — when you start to second guess or doubt what you’re doing, that’s when things go wrong. You need to commit, especially on a track like this. So, of course, you probably think about it a little bit, but by the time you get to the corner, you’re back in the groove of doing what you’ve done the rest of the weekend.”
Verstappen: “It was alright. I think compared to yesterday, we improved a lot again. The car is a lot nicer to drive. The only problem I had in qualifying was basically the faster I wanted to go, the more problems I had with the tyres just overheating. That was holding me back in Q3 already, run one. And then when I tried to go faster on the second run, Sector 1 was great, and then I just ran out of tyres. I just started understeering more, and just tried to keep the lap together, really. But yeah, that’s a bit of a shame. Of course, we came in and I saw George was on a Medium. And honestly, I also felt better in FP3 on the Medium. But you don’t really have the tyres to qualify on it properly.
“And of course, for tomorrow, we want to make sure we have the tyres in a good window. I’ll just try to do a good start and see where I’m at with the pace, because yesterday wasn’t particularly good in the long run also. And then yeah, just see with the new set-up we have on the car. Hopefully it all sticks a bit better on the tarmac and, hopefully, in general a bit more competitive. Of course, I asked if he’s OK. And I heard yeah, he’s OK. But then I saw the replay — I’m like, “Jesus, is he really OK?” It was a big impact, a lot of damage as well. But the most important is that Yuki is okay. I’ll probably see him in a bit.”
Russell: “We were going for it. We thought maybe the Medium tyre would be a fast one and it turned out to be a good choice. Of course, a small compromise now for tomorrow, but it was worth it to be back in the top three. Really happy with the performance. Very close to Oscar, which again, is always a surprise when you’re so close to the McLaren because they’re so good at the moment. But it was, yeah, a good afternoon. I mean, it was very challenging because opening the lap, we almost missed the flag. I was in first gear starting my lap, I lost a tenth down the straight because I was so close to Sainz.
“But, you know, nevertheless, really happy with P3. I think we could not have really achieved much more today, but ultimately we need to focus on tomorrow and try and get back on the podium. It was great to see that he’s OK. With a crash like that, it shows how impressive these cars are in a situation like that. But I think for all of us, once the helmet’s on and the visor’s down, you have to get cracking, and you’ve got to take anything like that out of your mind.”
Norris: “I made a lot of mistakes. Never good enough in my final lap in quali. Everyone goes quicker and I always go slower. Just not good enough. The car is mega, it’s on pole and it’s the best car on track. I wasn’t. I don’t know, to be honest, I’m not going to just blame the car. That’s not me. I felt good all weekend. I felt good in Q1 and Q2. I felt like there’s lap time available, but when I try and go for the lap time, it just doesn’t go. Clearly, a lot of things changed from last year. Last year, qualifying has been my biggest strength by a long way. This year, it’s just not coming my way. I think we understand some reasons why. Of course, I’m not going to be the happiest about it because I want to be fighting for pole. Things are just not going the way that they should do. I’m working hard, the team are working hard. It’s difficult moments, but it’s the way it is at the minute. It is difficult because I am not on pole, I want to be on pole. In general, Formula 1 is difficult, so you maybe right. I mean it’s going to be tricky.
“I think just overtaking naturally is going to be quite impossible. But there’s maybe some good chances of strategy. I have to just hope the tyres die very quickly. Maybe there’s a thing that we can do better as a team than others, and maybe that will open up my chances to do overcuts or undercuts on the guys ahead. But we’ve not done many long runs. We’ve not used the Hard tyre yet. So many unanswered questions. But of course I’ll do everything, as always, to try to race my way back. At times [I considered using medium]. In fact, maybe it is better with potential, some drivers did do it. The start, I mean, it is a one stop, maybe a two stop. The start will be my biggest opportunity but to pass more than one person off the line is not very easy here, it is very narrow and yeah, I am racing with drivers who take lot of risks. It is a long season, I got to balance my way through it. A podium of course [is possible], but a win is not likely.”
Hamilton: “Yeah, I definitely feel devastated. I feel gutted, I guess, because the car was generally feeling okay. The set-up was just right, the brakes were working, everything was kind of in place – you just can’t go quicker. You look at how quick Max is going through Turn 2 and 3, we just can’t match it. Then we’ve got that new Soft on at the end, and for some reason it just didn’t come alive, there was no extra grip. I really thought we were going to be getting through, the car was alive. Watching these guys doing 14.7s, I mean, we could just get to 15.7s, it’s a lot of time. This is not a great circuit to race on. It’s great to drive a single lap, but overtaking, in the DRS train, there’s not going to be a lot of movement tomorrow.
“But we are all on softer tyres, so we’ll see what we can do. We’ll try and pick them off again. I feel like race pace could be good, our race pace was decent last time. I think we’ve made progress this weekend. A little bit that I was talking about before, it’s still not where it needs to be. There’s performance in that. We need more upgrades, for sure. We’re not at the level we need to be. Look at Max, he was doing 6-10k faster in Turn 2, but we can’t match that, same with McLaren We’ve just got to keep pushing the car, applying pressure, and hopefully the guys can find something.”
Leclerc: “Honestly I don’t even have the words…it is frustrating, very disappointing with the performance at the moment. I think the only thing we can say is sorry for the fans who have traveled many kilometers to come and see us and the best performance that we could give was in 11th and 12th place. This hurts, but I hope I can do some miracles tomorrow, to be completely honest, for now. There’s nothing that gives me hope for tomorrow’s pace, just because I think the potential of the car is not good enough at the moment. It [Spanish GP update] has to be a freaking good upgrade if we want for it to be a turning point. I honestly don’t think that, I hope that we will do a step in the right direction, but the road is a very long one ahead.
“Performance, just performance. We can do whatever with the balance, but at the end of the day, just the performance is not good enough. The race pace is strong; on a track like this, we knew how crucial qualifying was going to be, and we didn’t deliver. We could say that, which has been a bit of a trend since the beginning of the season, so this is something we need to look at. With Q2, for example, I think I did my fastest lap on the scrubbed tyres. It’s also true that it wasn’t a proper scrub because I only had done one out-lap – we’ll have to look at it.”
Tsunoda: “Yeah, I’m just really stupid… pushing like that. I mean, this is very hard and [we] made a lot of changes to the car. So, pushing that hard without understanding enough about the car and just… yeah. [It was] just very unnecessary, pushing that hard in the early stages. First thing I thought was that I was ashamed, disappointed, and frustrated. I haven’t talked with them yet, but the only thing I can do is apologise to them. Obviously, [the car] has big damage, so the mechanics have to do a lot of work. And hopefully the car will be ready tomorrow – but it’s very unnecessary for them and even for myself, it is putting in a wrong situation. Turns 2 and 3 it felt quite good. Obviously, made a lot of changes to the car, but the pace was there until yesterday, just that P3 was P-nowhere, a complete mystery. I don’t think so. I think the team is supporting me enough to take off pressure as much as possible.
“I just tried to be a hero in Q1, which has been unnecessary, and aiming, I would say myself to be just to pass the Q1 with just one set. And also, I mean, I made a lot of change to the car, you don’t know much about the car, how the car is going to react in everything, high-speeds, medium-speed, slow-speed, and like that kind of corner, you need to build up, especially with a massive change. I had a confidence that I can handle it, but at the same time, to be honest – this is kind of really an excuse – but it’s just experience from the car, and just car changes and how the car reacts is bit unexpected. But I know what kind of reason that caused that kind of, I would say, balance into the corner. I mean, I have been five years in Formula 1, a crash in Q1 in such a long time…is obviously [expected] but how I did is unacceptable.”
Antonelli: “I really felt [like] I couldn’t… I don’t know, I didn’t feel [like] anything worked. Also compared to FP3, I lost so much time and it seemed really hard to gain and to make an improvement. I need to check what happened, but definitely today was difficult because I really had no confidence in the car. It’s [C6] definitely not an easy tyre and definitely there were some differences compared to FP3, but it was difficult out there, I just really couldn’t…I didn’t have the same grip as FP3. It’s very disappointing because I was hoping for much better, especially after looking at FP3. But yeah, nothing really did work out and I need to check why. I don’t really know. I mean, the thing is, I know [the] tyres were a bit hotter compared to FP. I don’t know if that can be the reason but I just really struggled for grip out there.”
The fall of four quicker cars allowed both the Aston Martin and Williams cars to get into the Top 10 along with a Visa Cash App RB and Alpine machinery. The Silverstone-based outfit gambled on couple of medium tyre sets to make it through from Q1 to Q2 and also in Q3.
In fact, Fernando Alonso made it through Q1 on the soft compound itself, as he felt both the tyres worked for them. Both he and Lance Stroll seem positive about the update, but wish to see how it performs in a race trim and also a different circuit to be confident about it.
Carlos Sainz managed to top Q2 before ending up sixth in Q3. The Spaniard felt much better in the car to extract as much, than teammate Alexander Albon, who felt 50-50 in the car and still managed to end up seventh. He was not as comfortable as his teammate but hopes the race will be better.
Visa Cash App RB’s Isack Hadjar converted practice pace to end up ninth. The Frenchman made a mistake on his final attempt where he felt he certainly had more. Teammate Liam Lawson was hampered by both the red flags in Q1 to be knocked out.
Alpine’s Colapinto caused for one late in Q1. Even though he made it in Q2, the small moment on the kerb was enough to knock him out. He is learning the car well and has the team support, as teammate Pierre Gasly rued the final lap to end up only 10th after showing much better pace.
He was second last on the out lap which compromised the start of his final run. Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto was happy to make it in Q2 for the second time, as Nico Hulkenberg rues a minor wide moment to miss out on getting through to the second part.
He has the Haas pair for company at the back after Esteban Ocon continued his troubled run this weekend. Teammate Oliver Bearman was not unhappy after his lap was deleted for red flag. He termed it unfair, but the FIA released a valuable information which made it clear that he set his lap time after the red flag was waved.
Alonso: “Very nice, absolutely for the whole team with both cars in Q3, you release the pressure of every shoulder in the team, the package that we introduced on Friday, we had some positive results but you never know until you go to qualifying. We need to keep the feet on the ground, maybe the track characteristics, it helped the Astons, so we will need to see in Monaco and Barcelona, so far it has helped in improvement, but lets see in the race. The whole weekend has been little bit confusing as to which tyre was better, the medium or the soft, so out of the confusion we decided to do one soft and one medium in each of the sessions, like this we covered every possibility. I think we were competitive with both, to be honest, also with the red tyre, I don’t know if that was the key part of qualifying but yeah, definitely we tried to cover ourselves with both compounds in each session, one run each.
“Everything has a consequence, everything has an advantage and disadvantage, to be able to do this kind of programme, you have to get rid of one of the hards, so I think everyone has two sets for the race and we have only one, that’s the bet you need to make at one point, it is a difficult track to overtake, we made Saturday a priority, lets see if it helps in race. It is going to be a tactical race as overtaking is difficult in Imola, less stops possible because then you cannot overtake on track, try to have a good start, good strategy and lets see the pace. It is not good as P5, I am ready to lose couple of positions but hopefully not too many.”
Sainz: “We had a really strong Quali today! This is a high confidence track and I’ve been happy with the car since Friday. The lap in Q2 is testament to that confidence and I went into Q3 wanting to improve even more. We were last in the queue for the last run, trying to get a slipstream and maximise track evolution, but unfortunately it didn’t pay off and my outlap was very compromised since we nearly didn’t make it to the start-finish line. Anyhow, I’m very happy with the overall situation and we need to feel proud of the performances we are showing as a team. We are in a good position for tomorrow; I hope we can fight as close to the top as possible and bring home some good points.”
Hadjar: “Points obviously, from ninth that’s the target, but I believed there was much more, so I have to fight a bit more. Yeah, I am critical about myself, life’s tough. The car was awesome…except…I mean I hit bit of the kerb again, so it is what limiting me at the moment, but like cornering speed and everything, the car has been pretty amazing this weekend. I think we have a really strong pace, our race pace is pretty good. It is a track where you can’t overtake, so we need to get a good start and pay off from the strategy.”
Colapinto: “Yes, of course, it’s tricky when you start from zero, kind of six races behind the others. But overall, I’ve just been getting used to the car, to the tyres, to the balance. The car is very different to what I was used to. In quali, it was probably the first time that I really arrived to the limit of the car. I was always a bit below, and it’s very easy to sometimes go out of that window. I was pushing the limits a bit more. The margins are very tight in quali nowadays, and I kind of tried to use a bit more kerbs and go a bit for it, it was just too much. So it’s a pity, it’s a lot of work in the garage tonight. So, just very sorry for the team, it’s not great to start like this. But overall, I’ve been feeling more comfortable with the car, a bit more connected after the sessions and after having doing the laps.
“So I think even though it’s tough, what happened, I’m sure we are going to comeback strong. It’s tough, of course, it’s not what you want, especially in your first quali. But I think Alpine’s been very supportive. I have enjoyed a lot working with them, we were pushing in the same direction. I’m learning the car every lap I’m doing. So I think, still a lot to learn. I’m sure doing the race tomorrow is going to help me a lot to get a bit more used to the degradation, get a bit more used to the car, to the engine, and to many other things that are different. So yeah, it looks really bad, but it’s not as bad as it looks in terms of how I’ve been adapting to the car. I’m quite happy and much more comfortable in the [seat] than what I was yesterday.”
Bearman: “We get the red light on our dash, and that, for me, didn’t happen until quite a way after I crossed the line. Watching the outboard video, it was clear there was no red flag displayed when I crossed the line, so I believe it’s totally unfair to have it [the lap] deleted. I feel like once they [the stewards] make a decision, even if it’s wrong, even if it’s clearly wrong, they’re not going to turn back on it, and that seems a bit harsh. I don’t know what took them 10 minutes to understand. It’s a clear-cut case, in my opinion, and from what I saw, it was extremely clear. Unfortunately, not for them. I wasn’t frustrated. Honestly, I was quite sure about what would happen, because I know how these people work, in a way. And it’s a shame.
“It’s a shame, because I was quite sure that the second my lap was deleted, there was no way I was coming back. I think they’re [Haas] perplexed as well. I would like now to fully understand what happened with the team and the FIA. Because it’s one thing being kicked out, but it’s another thing being kicked out with no explanation, which is the case at the moment. It’s not going to change the results. Unfortunately, we are last now. It’s things like that. We work and we invest so much. We have a new package this weekend, and this has been months and months in the pipeline. It’s the only chance we have to show it. I put a lap that’s representative and really get the most out of the car, and that’s what we have to show for it. It’s a big shame.”
Bortoleto: “I’m really happy to have made it back into Q2 — it hasn’t been the easiest weekend so far. We’ve had clean sessions throughout, and unlike Miami, where we were confident about progressing, today was much more challenging. That said, everything came together for us. We maximised the car’s potential, stayed focused, and executed a clean run. Overtaking will be difficult here, so tomorrow’s race will come down to strategy — and maybe a bit of chaos up front. Either way, we’ll give it everything and see what we can achieve.”
FIA (on Bearman): “In relation to the Oliver Bearman situation in Q1, the red flag was set at 16:32.17.6 seconds. Bearman crossed the line at 16:32.20.9 seconds with the abort signal / red flag showing on the start gantry. Qualifying 2 was delayed to enable the Stewards to consult the relevant timing experts and examine the underlying data to satisfy themselves that the timing system data was valid and it was therefore right to proceed. The overriding objective was to determine whether or not Bearman had completed the lap before or after the red flag and whether the lap should be disallowed, to ensure the right drivers progressed to Qualifying 2.”
Here’s crash of Yuki Tsunoda: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-emilia-romagna-gp-qualifying-tsunoda-out-in-q1-after-big-crash-brings-out-the-red-flags.1832377280179882652
Here’s crash of Franco Colapinto: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-emilia-romagna-gp-qualifying-colapinto-crashes-out-in-q1-on-f1-return.1832378992079851818
Here’s how F1 Imola GP qualifying panned out
