What are the strategy options for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix?
Oscar Piastri starts on pole, but what are the strategy options for the 2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix?
The grid is set for the Formula 1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Oscar Piastri nipped Max Verstappen for pole position on Saturday, with George Russell taking third and Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris qualifying fourth.
But some fascinating tire options are available for the 20 drivers for when the lights go out.
Here is a look at the strategy options for the 2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
What happened at the 2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix?
With clear weather and no safety cars, the 2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was a rather straightforward affair. The majority of the drivers that started inside the top ten implemented a one-stop race as expected, starting on the medium tires before switching to the hard compound.
The three drivers who started up front — Max Verstappen on pole, followed by Lando Norris and then Charles Leclerc — finished in that order. Norris was the first to stop, pitting on Lap 22 for his switch to the hard tires, followed by Verstappen on Lap 24 and Leclerc on Lap 25. Over the closing laps, Norris’ hard tires came alive, and he chased Verstappen to the checkered flag, finishing less than a second behind the Red Bull driver.
A bit further back in the field, Oscar Piastri, who started fifth despite qualifying second after he was handed a three-place grid penalty for impeding Kevin Magnussen in Q1, made an undercut strategy work. He started on the medium tire and switched to the hard on Lap 23, jumping into P4 ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr.
Sainz stayed out until Lap 27, and could not chase Piastri down, finishing more than seven seconds behind the McLaren driver.
The top finisher to use a two-stop strategy was George Russell, who finished seventh and picked up a bonus point for the fastest lap. Russell started on a set of medium tires, stopping on Lap 21 for a set of hards, and then pitting again on Lap 52 for another set of mediums. Mercedes was concerned about high levels of tire wear on his set of hards, and he came home six seconds ahead of Sergio Pérez, who was the only points scorer to start on the hard compound before switching to the medium, which he did on Lap 37.
What are the tire options for the 2025 race?
Here is where things get interesting.
Pirelli has gone a step softer in the range of compounds this year. A season ago, the C3 was the hard tire at Imola, with the C4 used as the medium compound and the C5 as the soft.
This year, the brand-new C6 is making its debut as the soft compound, with the C5 as the medium and the C4 as the hard. Pirelli made this switch to try and introduce some new strategy options for this year’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
However, drivers and teams have not found the C6 to their liking, with some believing that the length of a lap around Imola, particularly during qualifying runs, sees the tires degrade near the end of the lap. That is why during Saturday’s qualifying session, you saw some teams, most notably Aston Martin, turn to the medium C5 compound for push laps. Aston Martin bolted that compound on both Fernando Alonso’s AMR25 as well as Lance Stroll’s at the end of Q2, with both drivers advancing into Q3.
They used that compound — with Alonso using a scrubbed medium set — at the end of Q3 as well, along with Russell.
Mario Isola, Pirelli’s Director of Motorsport, gave his thoughts on the C6 compound following Piastri’s pole position run on Saturday in his media report.
“This qualifying session needs to be analysed carefully in terms of tire behavior, as it produced many interesting insights,” began Isola.
“Everyone was keen to see how the C6 would perform in qualifying, comparing it to the C5. From the initial data and listening to the immediate comments from the teams and drivers, we can say that the performance difference between the two softest compounds in the 2025 range is relatively small, which is what was predicted.
“What we saw today, on a track that didn’t evolve much compared to the first two hours of free practice, was that it wasn’t easy for the drivers to extract the full potential from the C6,” continued Isola. “Keep in mind that this compound had never been run on the 2025 cars, and during the end-of-season test in Abu Dhabi, only eight of today’s 20 drivers tried it. So it’s likely that they need to get to understand it better in order to get the most out of it.
“This meant that some drivers preferred to go with the C5, a compound they know well, given that it was already the qualifying tyre for the previous two races in Jeddah and Miami. They chose to sacrifice a bit of grip in exchange for the lap time advantage that comes from the predictability of a tyre with which they have more experience and more data,” concluded the Pirelli Director.
What are the strategy options?
Isola still believes that a one-stop approach, starting on the medium compound and switching to the hards, is the most viable option for teams and drivers.
“As for strategy, the one-stop is still the most viable choice, especially on a track where overtaking is rather complicated, in part because there is only one DRS zone and also because this is the longest pit lane of the season in terms of time lost during a pit stop. Clearly, the combination of Medium and Hard, with a stop between Laps 17 and 23, is the most likely,” outlined Isola.
Drivers and teams could opt to start on the hard tire and extend a stint, staying out until around Laps 37 and 43, and hope for a safety car to pick up an easy pit stop. That could be the strategy employed by the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, who start P11 and P12, respectively.
“As an alternative, some drivers might prefer to go for a longer first stint, starting on the Hard, in the hope of an eventual Safety Car, in which case the switch to Medium would be between laps 37 and 43,” added Isola.
Are there any offset strategies available?
Could we see someone roll the dice on a two-stopper?
Isola believes such an approach would put said driver at a “disadvantage.” While the time difference between a medium-hard and a medium-hard-hard is a few seconds according to Isola, the combination of a single DRS zone coupled with the long pit lane, as well as the difficulties in overtaking, means a one-stop is still the favored approach.
“A two-stop strategy is not out of the question in terms of total race time, but the factors just mentioned mean it is at a disadvantage. For anyone attempting this, the best combinations would be Medium-Hard-Hard,” added Isola.
What about starting on a set of softs to try and pick up track position? That was tried by both Alonso and Pierre Gasly last year, the only drivers to start on the C5 soft compound. They lasted only seven and eight laps, respectively, and neither driver finished in the points.
How many sets of each compound do the drivers have available?
While the medium tire might be the favored compound, three of the drivers starting inside the top ten might need to make do with a scrubbed set of mediums tomorrow: Russell, Alonso, and Stroll.
Here are the sets of tires available for each driver in the 2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, according to this diagram from F1:
As you can see, Russell has one set of scrubbed C5 mediums left, while both Alonso and Stroll each have a pair of scrubbed mediums remaining.
Alonso and Stroll also just have a scrubbed set of hard tires left for tomorrow as well, so Aston Martin might be looking at a scrubbed Sunday when it comes to tires.