Windsor critical of McLaren despite Verstappen's 'most brilliant overtake you'll see in F1'

The Red Bull Racing driver just missed out on pole position behind Oscar Piastri on Saturday at the iconic Imola track, but he made amends with a stunning lap 1 move that caught the Australian off guard.

With that move, the Dutchman never relinquished his lead, dominating the rest of the Grand Prix, even though Windsor believes that McLaren still had the faster car in the first European race of the 2025 season.

In his Friday analysis, Windsor suggested that without unusual weather conditions, this would have been an easy weekend for McLaren. However, this did not happen: "I think the car was still that good on Sunday, except that they didn't win. And that just underlines the quality of the drive we saw today from Max Verstappen in the Red Bull," he said on his YouTube channel.

"Saying we just didn't have the pace today, I don't buy that. They definitely had the car to win this Grand Prix, but it all went away with Lando's qualifying performance, and then it went away for Oscar Piastri at the first corner," the Brit continued.

At the start, it looked as though Verstappen initially didn't get off the line well at all, unlike George Russell right behind him in P3. However, the Brit was blocked by Piastri, and Windsor noticed that Verstappen took full advantage of this.

“When Oscar comes out of the throttle [to block Russell], he does so before he actually hits the brake pedal. And at this moment, on the outside, Max Verstappen is going 13 kph quicker than Oscar Piastri going into turn 1. And guess what? He is kind of on the racing line now. He just goes straight in and chooses a bit of road between Oscar and what is going to be a diminishing gap going into the apex kerb. He chooses that gap and goes through it, and comes out perfectly," explained Windsor.

"Oscar does nothing to stop it, partly because he wasn't even expecting it, and I think he was completely surprised that Max was there. And then behind him, of course, George Russell is irate, thinking, 'What is Oscar doing breaking so early, going into turn one?' It was just the most brilliant, opportune pass you'll ever see in Formula One. Superb work by Max Verstappen," an amazed Windor said.

After Verstappen's overtake, McLaren had to come up with something to beat the Dutchman. Piastri felt that a one-stop would be ambitious, which made him go into the pits early, but in the end, Verstappen was able to make a pit stop during a virtual safety car, meaning he lost less time.

“I think they over-strategised this one at McLaren," Widsor continued, believing McLaren made some strategy errors.

"I think that was the problem for Oscar Piastri's race today. It was just over-strategised and not enough looking at what was actually happening because these two were just walking away from the rest of the field. George Russell took a lot of time out of Lando Norris in the early phase of the race, making it difficult for Lando to catch him," the Brit concluded.