The Athletic

The Race is on, and Max Verstappen headed a Red Bull 1-2 in the Milia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola,

but the big story was Charles Leclerc's spin in the race that turned a certain third place into sixth.

So what does that mean for the title battle and what does Red Bull's pace advantage tell us about the balance of power in the championship?

I'm Ed Straw and joining me to answer those questions and many more are Scott Mitchell and Mark Hughes.

Well Mark, how are you getting on last time I saw you, maybe an hour or two ago, you're wondering whether you'd be able to dig yourself out of the car park. I managed to get out of the mud, did you? Yes, it's just a question of waiting for the slow people to get out the way, so you could take a good run at it and keep some momentum and not be worried about it sliding and then you you sail through but if you try to follow the others

yeah you're going to have to come out with a tractor that almost sounds like an f1 driver

excuse just slight tweaking you'd very much have it there and also scott mitchell how have you

enjoyed seeing f1 pounding around Imala again?

Yeah, it's been good. I must admit it's for various reasons, it's now the, it's the third time in a row. I've only been, I've been reduced to watching this race from

television rather than being on site. So I'm still waiting for the opportunity to actually

go and experience Imala as a circuit and what these cars look like there.

But I have to say, it is one that just looks, it's one of those races where even on television, it really does, it really does have something special about it.

It's just something about that. The track, the

layout, the proximity of the grass or gravel, and even the curbs are pretty punishing. It's just

that, yeah, you just know, you know watching it. You're not watching like a modern, boring

tilkerdrome kind of circuit, you know?

It's not like car park's worth of runoff and that kind of thing. I'm sure by the sounds of it,

you could have benefited from some actual asphalt runoff in the actual car parks at Imola last weekend,

but home and dry from afar is absolutely a great Grand Prix to have back.

They did try to install some pseudo-asphalt late on, but it was a little bit too little too late, although it did help a bit. But yeah, I would say it's very old school, Imala, and I'm really pleased Miller's on the F1 calendar, but I would like to see a little bit more effort going into the organisation. I know there's limitations of the place,

but I have to say, Mark, it was quite retro, wasn't it?

...