Imola to be moment of truth: are Ferrari and McLaren ready to challenge Red Bull?. Ferrari brings the evolution of the SF-24 to Imola.

The Scuderia brings the evolution of the SF-24 to the Enzo and Dino Ferrari Circuit, while McLaren seeks confirmation in Italy of the success achieved in Miami: the two pursuers of the RB20 have closed the technical gap from the leading car, or was Max Verstappen’s slight misstep in Florida just an isolated incident? Imola will resolve the doubts.

For many and different reasons, the Imola weekend will be a crossroads. In the seventh stage of the 2024 championship, many aspects will converge that could adjust the balance of power on the field, which we will most likely see until the summer break. The Enzo and Dino Ferrari Circuit has very little in common with the Miami track, and for this reason, it lends itself to being an important test of the verdicts issued two weeks ago in the United States.

The first, and among the most anticipated, concerns McLaren. Lando Norris didn’t just win the Miami Grand Prix, together with Oscar Piastri he confirmed that the MCL38 (with a significant upgrade) was the overall fastest car on the track. Not in all conditions (Max Verstappen secured pole position twice during the weekend), but in race pace Norris excelled without much doubt.

After the American race, opponents posed a question that will find an answer during the Imola weekend. How much of the performance seen in the Miami Grand Prix was linked to the technical upgrades brought to the track by McLaren, and how much, instead, may Lando Norris’ performance have been influenced by the car’s good adaptation to the layout and conditions of the track?

The ‘B’ version of the car seemed to have solved the top speed issue, and even the management of the hard tires used in the latter part of the Grand Prix was perfect, demonstrating greater aerodynamic load. If Imola confirms what was seen in Miami, very interesting scenarios will open up for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

However, the spotlight will be on the Ferrari garage, and it couldn’t be otherwise since the Scuderia will bring to the track the first significant upgrades of 2024, tested last week at the Fiorano circuit. The revised SF24 car has (for now on paper) all the ingredients to be a turning point in Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz’s season. In Maranello, they took all the time necessary to carefully evaluate how to improve the project, considering also the basic qualities of the car that allowed Ferrari to start the season with a good trend.

The objectives are clear. So far, the SF24 has proven to be a car with excellent tire management during the race, at the expense of a tire warm-up that requires more time compared to Red Bull. This aspect has somewhat influenced the performance in qualifying and in restarts, both after pit stops and at the end of a safety car period. Among the targets of the update is also an improvement in performance in slow corners, and the timing of the arrival of the upgrades seems perfect, considering that a few days later Formula 1 will stop in Monte Carlo at the Monaco Circuit.

Red Bull, as is obvious, can only confirm itself. After the Miami race, the team confirmed a loss of performance by Max Verstappen in the second stint of the race due to an off-track excursion (and contact with a cone) that damaged the bottom of the car, resulting in a loss of performance. The question that the Imola weekend will have to answer is whether it was really just an isolated incident, or whether in Miami (as also appeared from Max Verstappen’s team radio) something with the hard tire race pace didn’t go as expected.

All of this fits into a new scenario, where at the moment the new variable (seen in Miami) has been the growth of McLaren. If it hadn’t been for  Lando Norris, Max Verstappen would have celebrated his fifth win of the season two weeks ago, with or without a dislodged cone, and this is precisely the most interesting topic on the eve of Imola. On the evening of March 9, at the end of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the second Red Bull double (within seven days) had suggested a replay of last Formula 1  season.

Two months later, the picture is a bit different, not so much in the fight for the world titles, but in the chances of the opponents to aim for individual stage victories without having to hope for unexpected events or exceptional conditions.

McLaren and Scuderia Ferrari, aware that they don’t have championship objectives, are positioning themselves for something more than just a passive second force role, without the possibility of bothering those ahead. The first highlight came from Lando Norris in the Miami Grand Prix; the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix weekend will help understand if it was an isolated incident or if we are expecting (somewhat surprisingly) a slightly different championship than what was hypothesized two months ago on the warm evening in Jeddah. And maybe, with two teams ready to seize the moment every time things don’t work perfectly at Red Bull.