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Verstappen won the race, albeit narrowly, from Lando Norris in a performance that says more about the Dutchman’s quality than his team.
After starting from pole, the championship leader eased out to around an eight-second advantage, only to see that erode in the second half of his hard tyre stint late in the race.
That allowed Norris to close in, creating a high-tension finale in what had otherwise been a largely uninspiring encounter – as Imola so often produces.
That Norris was within a second of Verstappen at the flag is a point worth applauding, both for his performance but also that of his team.
Not only was it a fine drive from the Brit, seeing off pressure from Charles Leclerc before applying it to Verstappen in the closing laps, it was further confirmation that McLaren is a genuine contender.
It has been fast at almost every circuit this season and its latest upgrade has propelled it closer to Red Bull. Given where the squad started last season, it’s an extraordinary transformation.
And it means we have three front running teams. Red Bull Racing remains the fastest but McLaren and Ferrari have both demonstrated that they are within a whisker of the Milton Keynes operation.
That will serve to ramp up the pressure on all three, rewarding those who get it right while mercilessly punishing those who get it wrong. The difference between first and fifth has not been this narrow in a very long time.
And so all three will need to be operationally perfect if they are to succeed. It’s a point Andrea Stella of McLaren made post race; small gains can equal big results.
The flipside is mistakes will be heavily punished, as Oscar Piastri and McLaren experienced after qualifying when he was demoted from second on the grid to fifth, a point Stella took the wrap for.
On the opening two days, Red Bull Racing was far from perfect.
The car clearly had balance issues and was, at best, only third fastest before Ferrari and McLaren.
In qualifying, Verstappen dug deep and pulled a lap out to secure pole. The car was marginally better than it had been earlier in the weekend but it needed Verstappen’s brilliance to wrestle it onto the front row.
One need only contrast his performance with that of team-mate Sergio Perez, who was outside the top 10 in qualifying. And while he raced forward, was never in the fight for more than a handful of points at best – both due to the tricky car but also the lack of overtaking opportunities in Imola.
Hanging onto the RB20 for that lap on Saturday afternoon was critical as it gave Verstappen pole position and an eight-metre advantage over, as it turned out, Lando Norris.
Had he not delivered that lap and instead started on the second or third row of the grid, his race would have been compromised in the same way Piastri’s was – stuck in traffic, unable to pass, as the front of the race pulls away ahead.
In the race itself, the Red Bull Racing was clearly still a handful. Perez speared off the road at Rivazza and Verstappen had three warnings for track limits as he worked to extend a lead in the opening stint.
Fast forward to the end of the race when he’s under pressure, and it served to ramp up the pressure on the Dutchman, but he hung on and dragged a result out of the RB20 to extend his championship advantage.
Charles Leclerc was third, his challenge on Norris blunted after he fired the Ferrari across the grass at Variante Alta in the closing stages.
Leclerc had caught and was challenging the McLaren but after that moment, once he’d dropped out DRS range, he simply didn’t have the pace to continue the fight.
And what of Daniel Ricciardo? Outside of the points again in 13th, while Yuki Tsunoda was 10th for RB.
On that alone it looks another disappointing weekend, but that again doesn’t tell the full picture.
Ricciardo progressed to Qualifying 3, both RBs did, which left the Peter Bayer enormously impressed and hopeful of a similarly positive result.
That didn’t come, largely because both Ricciardo and Tsunoda had a poor start. It was a point Ricciardo noted.
He and his team-mate both dropped two places as they gave away track position at the very start of a race.
The start is of critical importance at every event, but is especially so at Imola given overtaking is so difficult.
Once Ricciardo and Tsunoda slipped backwards, their races never looked as bright as they might otherwise have been.
Clearly, RB has a weakness on its starts as this wasn’t the first time a slow getaway has hindered the team.
A sluggish start for Ricciardo in Japan left him exposed and played a contributing factor in his opening lap crash. Tsunoda was also slow away in Suzuka.
That it is both drivers and their deficits are similar implies an underlying issue; not a driver or execution issue, but something more fundamental. Perhaps tyre preparation, perhaps something in the start procedure itself.
It’s something that needs to be remedied quickly as, with the midfield battle so tight, RB can ill-afford to give such an advantage to anyone – especially direct rivals such as Nico Hulkenberg and Haas like it did last weekend.
There is also work to be done at RB on solving its issues when running in traffic.
Fast in clean air, the car lacks the straight-line speed to attack while simultaneously being vulnerable when defending – especially in a DRS zone – which points to an efficiency deficit.
That should be less of an issue in Monaco, given teams will bolt on downforce without a care in the world for the drag it generates, but it will be curious to see how the team approaches those two areas as the season progresses.
For now, it continues to snipe away, picking up points regularly, which in balance is a good result given the top six cars are in a class of their own, leaving precious little for the chasing pack.
