Imola Shocker: Did FIA Directive Stop McLaren in Its Tracks?

May 20 – A combination of multiple factors could have helped Red Bull’s Max Verstappen beat the championship-leading McLaren team at Imola.

First, Red Bull arrived at the Italian circuit with a major development of its 2025 car, which has been plagued by understeer, a tiny performance and setup ‘window’, and tyre degradation vastly inferior to McLaren’s in some tracks.

Former F1 driver Christijan Albers thinks Red Bull’s biggest breakthrough may have been emulating McLaren’s secret technical trick inside the brake drum.

“We are trying to copy what McLaren has,” De Limburger quotes Verstappen as having said at the beginning of the Imola race weekend.

Albers, meanwhile, told De Telegraaf: “How did Red Bull make such a leap in those long runs, so that they can keep those tyres so consistent?

“You can see that they have modified the rear brake drums, so that the air can flow out better. Maybe that was it.”

De Telegraaf’s main F1 correspondent Erik van Haren thinks he has uncovered another major factor that may have helped Red Bull and hurt McLaren – a technical directive issued by the FIA on the Monday of the Imola GP race week.

He reports that the directive specifically referred to wheel architecture relating to how the tyres work – perhaps a fairly obvious move specifically in McLaren’s direction.

Van Haren, however, notes that McLaren denied having to change anything suspicious about its car. “For us,” said team boss Andrea Stella, “it’s good news when our rivals put their focus onto some of the aspects that allegedly are present in our car – and that effectively are not even present.”

No matter what the full explanation or reality is, Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache is not getting carried away.

“Am I confident now? I don’t have an answer to that,” said the Frenchman. “I was after Suzuka, and then we were beaten by McLaren three times in a row.”

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