McLaren fail to win from their last five pole positions at Imola

Oscar Piastri gave McLaren their first pole position at Imola for 20 years last weekend.

However he was unable to convert it into victory – as was also the case on the previous four occasions one of the team’s cars started from pole position at this track.

Raikkonen scorched off into an early lead in 2005 but his driveshaft failed on the ninth lap. Without that, the race might not have ended so memorably, Fernando Alonso taking the chequered flag with Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari filling his mirrors.

McLaren also lost from pole position for three years running between 1999 and 2001. Mika Hakkinen took pole in 1999 but crashed, then started at the front again the following year but Schumacher leapfrogged him in the pits to win.

In 2001 McLaren failed to win despite locking out the front row. Ralf Schumacher rocketed off the line from third place in his Williams-BMW and passed Coulthard and Hakkinen to win.

Piastri could have taken his fourth consecutive win this year. But his loss was Verstappen’s gain, the Red Bull driver claiming his 65th win and 34th fastest lap.

It was also Verstappen’s fourth win in a row in the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix. His record at Imola has been remarkable: four wins in five races, and in the other he was running a strong second when he suffered a tyre explosion.

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With Imola unlikely to appear on the 2026 F1 calendar, its 32nd grand prix is likely to be its last for a while. Only a dozen circuits have held more F1 rounds:

Ferrari won the last race at Imola during its previous spell on the calendar, when the race was known as the San Marino Grand Prix. However it was unable to win the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix: its best result was Charles Leclerc’s third place last year.

Piastri took his third pole position but failed to convert that into victory for the first time in his career. He now has as many pole positions as Jose Froilan Gonzalez, Tony Brooks, Dan Gurney, Jean-Pierre Jarier, Jody Scheckter, Elio de Angelis, Daniel Ricciardo, Sergio Perez and Teo Fabi.

(Coincidentally, Fabi was the last rookie to take pole for the Indianapolis 500 before Robert Shwartzman on Sunday. Fabi took pole in 1983; Shwartzman’s race number is 83.)

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Ferrari had little to cheer about at home. Neither driver reached Q3, which last happened almost a year ago in Canada. Hamilton at least managed to salvage fourth place, his best result in a grand prix for his new team.

But Fernando Alonso was surely the unhappiest driver after scoring his third 11th place finish in the last five races. He is still yet to score a point over the first seven rounds, which last happened to him in 2017, though on that occasion he skipped the Monaco Grand Prix to race in the Indianapolis 500.

Finally, F1’s stewards seem increasingly fond of the one-place grid penalty. It reappeared at the Qatar Grand Prix late last season having gone unused for four years. But Franco Colapinto’s one-place grid penalty last weekend was the fourth time it’s been issued in the last nine rounds.

Over to you

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2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix

• ‘Saturdays have been mine for years but for some reason it’s drifted away’ – Norris
• “Plan C?”: Why McLaren only got their strategy right for one driver at Imola
• McLaren fail to win from their last five pole positions at Imola
• ‘It’s a shame, but what can I do?’: Verstappen regrets loss of Imola from calendar
• “We can win with Lewis”: Why Leclerc abandoned his late gamble on soft tyres

Browse all 2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix articles