McLaren lands double podium at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix

The Italian hills echoed with pure race craft, as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri brought the thunder to the rest of the grid in a pulse-pounding Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix. Action packed, that saw strategy calls, wheel-to-wheel battles, and a late-race shuffle that flipped the script in the final laps.

Right off the line, it was chaos and commitment. Oscar Piastri, starting from pole, got squeezed as Verstappen blasted through to take the lead. Meanwhile, Lando Norris locked in P4 and immediately dialled up the pressure. He didn’t just pass George Russell—he sent it around the outside of the Villeneuve chicane like a man possessed.

Lap 13 saw Piastri bolt into the pits for Hard tyres, rejoining deep in the field. No sweat—Oscar went full beast mode, slicing through traffic He muscled past Tsunoda and carved his way back to P3 before Norris pitted on Lap 28.

Then came the wild cards: a Virtual Safety Car for Ocon and a full Safety Car after Antonelli parked it. The restart? Fireworks. With five laps left, Norris charged past his teammate with clinical precision. The final order: Lando P2, Oscar P3. A podium lockout behind only the flying Dutchman.

Lando Norris

“A good race - I’m really pleased with the P2 finish. It wasn’t easy to overtake but we did what we could. Max was quick, of course we would have loved to be there fighting him, but they had a bit more pace than we did. Oscar and I had a fun battle, but we raced each other well and maximised what we could. For us as a team, second and third is great. We go again next week.”

Oscar Piastri

“A double podium is a good result for the team. On my side, it’s always a bit disappointing to start on Pole and then not win the race, but we didn’t quite have the pace, and Max was quick. When we made the call to pit early, the two-stop strategy seemed to make the most sense as the tyres didn’t have the pace, but we weren't able to then maximise it after, and were then unlucky with the VSC and Safety Car. A few things to review, but we’ve got a solid chunk of points. We’ll debrief and then turn our attention to Monaco.”

Andrea Stella
“We leave Imola with a good haul of points. Max was strong, no doubt, but our guys drove hard and smart. We tried different strategies to hunt him down—Lando with a strong one-stop, Oscar on a two-stop with aggressive overtakes. The team executed well, the drivers raced fair and fast, and now we refocus for Monaco. This fight isn’t over.”

Next stop Monaco, tight streets and high stakes.