IMOLA, Italy — Max Verstappen powered his Red Bull Racing machine around the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc late in the race to win the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix Sprint race Saturday afternoon at the famed Imola Circuit.
Verstappen started on pole, but Leclerc quickly worked his way around the Red Bull driver at the start of the event. Shortly after the start, contact between Alfa Romeo driver Zhou Guanyu and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly brought out the safety car on the first lap.
Racing resumed on lap five, with Leclerc in control over Verstappen and McLaren’s Lando Norris.
Leclerc controlled the race until the Dutch driver of Verstappen would chase him down with two laps remaining to take the victory.
“We did well as a team and it is of course a positive day for us,” Verstappen said. “I didn’t have the best start, so we need to investigate what happened there but after that we had good race pace. Initially for the first 10 laps or so it seemed like the gap to Charles (Leclerc) wasn’t really growing but then I think at one point the tire degradation started to kick in a bit more and I could close the gap and I got ahead. Tomorrow is a new day and there are no guarantees, I still expect it to be very close and the battle tomorrow will be difficult. We are very focused on what is ahead and we hope to do a good job tomorrow.”
Verstappen’s Red Bull Racing teammate Sergio Perez completed the podium in third.
Carlos Sainz recovered from his Q2 crash to jump six places from his starting spot to finish fourth.
Haas F1 had both cars finish in the top 10, with Kevin Magnussen earning the final point in eighth and his teammate Mick Schumacher finishing 10th.
It was a struggle for both Mercedes drivers, as George Russell placed 11th. Lewis Hamilton dropped one spot from his starting grid position to 14th.