Piastri Takes Pole in Chaotic Imola Qualifying as Tyre Gamble Shakes Up the Grid

Damian Hall
May 17
4 min read

MCLAREN'S Oscar Piastri claimed his third pole position of the season with a stunning lap at Imola, setting a 1:14.670 to edge out Red Bull's Max Verstappen by just 0.034 seconds in a dramatic, incident-filled qualifying session at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

"It was a great session, but a very tough one with all the delays, the red flags, and the tyre situation," Piastri said after qualifying. "The tyres were really tricky today. After yesterday, I think everyone thought the C6 wasn’t too bad, but today it turned into a real mystery."

He continued, "The team did a great job getting the car into a good window. We’ve been trying a few different things this weekend, and we finally got it into a nice place for qualifying."

Reflecting on the final moments of his pole lap, he added, "I had about four cars in front of me going into the last corner, which definitely didn’t help, but it was still enough in the end."

With red flags, tyre confusion, and two Ferraris knocked out at home, it was a Saturday full of twists that left the Tifosi stunned and Piastri smiling.

The session was stopped twice. The first red flag came when Yuki Tsunoda found the wall at the second chicane with just over 12 minutes remaining in Q1. The second came in the final moments when Franco Colapinto crashed exiting the first chicane, bringing the session to another abrupt halt. The interruptions disrupted rhythm across the field, but the real drama unfolded in Q2.

There was heartbreak for Italian fans as Charles Leclerc and Sir Lewis Hamilton both failed to reach Q3, qualifying 11th and 12th respectively. The biggest blow, however, came with the elimination of Kimi Antonelli, the 18-year-old local hero from Bologna who had been hoping to make a mark in front of his home crowd. The grandstands were a sea of red, but as Q2 ended, so did the hopes of seeing a Ferrari in the final shootout. With both factory cars out and their rising star sidelined, the atmosphere turned sombre. For a team and fanbase that had come to Imola full of expectation, it was a painful result that left the paddock and pit straight unusually quiet.

A big part of Saturday's story revolved around tyres. Pirelli introduced the C6 compound this weekend, the softest tyre in their range. However, the C6 was behaving more like a qualifying trap than a performance advantage. Most teams, following tradition, had allocated more sets of the soft compound to their weekend plans, but they quickly found it too fragile to last the full lap.

Post-qualifying, Verstappen commented, saying, "The softest compound is very difficult to keep alive around the lap. So yeah, sector one was good, and then the tyres again fell away from me from there onwards, like tiny, tiny margins. But I mean, it was cool."

He continued, "But then you can see George, he set his lap on a medium. So yeah, maybe they were a bit too soft for this track, and for us at least it was a bit more difficult to extract the most out of it. I felt a bit happier on the medium."

Looking ahead to Sunday’s race, Verstappen added, "But the race is tomorrow. That's where you score the points, of course. So that's what we have to focus on. But I do think that today was a very good day for us."

Tyre Tactics Flip the Script

The C5, technically listed as the medium, turned out to be the better option, offering more grip consistency across a full flying lap. McLaren were the only team to fully unlock this during practice, and their edge became clear in qualifying.

While many teams felt forced to stick with the softs to preserve their medium sets for race day, a few were bold enough to switch strategy mid-session. Aston Martin gambled on the C5 to push both drivers through, and Mercedes' George Russell used the medium tyre to great effect, putting his car on the second row in P3.

After securing third on the grid, Russell reflected on Mercedes’ tyre strategy, saying, "Well, 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."

He added, "Of course, there's more compromise now for tomorrow, but it was worth it to be, you know, back in the top three. Really happy with the performance."

Looking at the result in context, Russell said, "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 a good afternoon."

Top Ten Shakeup

Behind the top three, Lando Norris qualified fourth, giving McLaren both cars inside the top four. Fernando Alonso will start fifth for Aston Martin, just ahead of Carlos Sainz in sixth for Williams. Sainz’s teammate, Alex Albon, continued his strong form to secure seventh. Lance Stroll lines up eighth in the second Aston Martin. Isack Hadjar impressed once again, putting the Racing Bulls into ninth, while Pierre Gasly completed the top ten for Alpine.

Full Q1 and Q2 Eliminations

Q1 Eliminated:

20. Yuki Tsunoda

19. Oliver Bearman

18. Esteban Ocon

17. Nico Hülkenberg

16. Liam Lawson

Q2 Eliminated:

15. Franco Colapinto

14. Gabriel Bortoleto

13. Kimi Antonelli

12. Lewis Hamilton