Yuki Tsunoda survives terrifying Emilia Romagna Grand Prix crash as Oscar Piastri claims pole

Yuki Tsunoda miraculously walked away unscratched after one of the most terrifying F1 crashes in years, before Oscar Piastri held his nerve amid the chaos to continue his world title charge.

Julian Linden

5 min read

May 18, 2025 - 9:12AM

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Australia’s unstoppable Formula One star Oscar Piastri has produced another brilliant drive under enormous pressure to snatch pole position during a dramatic qualifying session for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Chasing his fourth successive win of the season after reeling off victories in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Miami, Piastri kept his cool to nail his final lap and claim pole after qualifying was delayed by two huge crashes involving Yuki Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto.

While Piastri managed to keep his composure to book himself a spot at the front of the grid at the famous Imola track in Northern Italy, his McLaren teammate Lando Norris lost his nerve and only managed fourth place after messing up his last flying lap.

Tsunoda somehow walks away in HUGE crash

Piastri’s other big title rival, four-time world champion Max Verstappen, qualified second fastest in his Red Bull to join Piastri on the front row but knowing that overtaking is extremely difficult on the tight Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit.

George Russell qualified third for Mercedes.

Max Verstappen, Oscar Piastri and George Russell took the first three places in qualifying.

Despite being caught in traffic, Piastri once again demonstrated his remarkable ability to stay calm even when things don’t go perfectly to plan to capture the third pole position of his career with a blistering lap time of 1:14.670 on soft tyres that were hard to extract a lot of speed out of.

“It was a great session. Very tough session, with all the delays, the red flags, and then also the tyres,” Piastri said.

“The team did a great job, got the car in a nice window. We’ve been trying a few different things this weekend and we got into a nice place for qualifying.

“The lap was good. I had about four cars in the last corner, which didn’t help, but it was enough. So very, very happy with the job well done, and yeah, I’m excited for tomorrow.”

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri of Australia will start the Emilia Romagna Formula One Grand Pr from pole position

Piastri appears to be in the box seat to win the race as long as he can make a clean getaway and hold off Verstappen at the first corner.

Piastri has already gone on and won both previous races where he has started from pole this season – in China and Bahrain – and shown no signs of crumbling after dominating the first quarter of the season to emerge as the outright championship favourite.

“I think as long as I can get a good start, then confident. It’s a difficult track to overtake on,” Piastri said.

“I think our pace has been strong. Our long run pace looked very encouraging. So yeah, as long as I can get a good start and have a good first lap, then that would be good.”

Australia’s Oscar Piastri claimed his third pole position of the 2025 F1 season

The hottest young talent in F1, Piastri keeps stepping up at every race he contests.

In just his third season in F1, he has already equalled Daniel Ricciardo’s lifetime tally of pole positions. The only Australian drivers to have claimed more are Jack Brabham (13), Mark Webber (13) and Alan Jones (6) but Piastri is quickly catching up to them.

If the 24-year-old Piastri does manage to win in Imola, he will become the first Australian driver to register four grands prix victories in a row since Brabham won his third world championship in 1966.

He will also become the first McLaren driver to win a four in a row since Brazilian legend Ayrton Senna won his third world title in 1991.

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has been impressed by Piastri’s accelerated rate of improvement but said no-one was taking anything for granted with the season spanning 24 races.

“Oscar himself is gaining these kinds of chances and opportunities because overall Oscar has become a faster driver,” said Stella.

“But it’s a very long season, we need to keep the concentration (in the)] team and Oscar himself because we have only done one fourth of the season so far and there’s a long way to go.”

Ayrton Senna died in a crash at Imola in 1994

Senna was tragically killed in a high-speed crash at Imola in 1994 and with this year’s race likely to be the last Grand Prix at the circuit, driver safety has again been a huge talking point.

The qualifying session was red flagged twice, the first for a terrifying accident involving Verstappen’s teammate Tsunoda at the Villeneuve chicane – the same part of the track where Roland Ratzenberger was killed in 1994, the day before Senna was killed.

Tsunoda’s Red Bull spun across the gravel and was flipped over after launching into the tyre barrier.

He was unhurt and walked away from the wreckage but the crash gave everyone a fright.

“I asked if he’s OK. And I heard yeah, he’s OK,” Verstappen said.

“But then I saw the replay — I’m like, “Jesus, is he really OK?

“It was a big impact, a lot of damage as well. But the most important thing is that Yuki is okay.”

Colapinto, the young Argentine driver who replaced Australia’s Jack Doohan at Alpine, also hit the barriers hard, at the Tamburello chicane, the infamous corner where Senna fatally crashed 31 years ago.

Japan’s Yuki Tsunoda was lucky to walk away unhurt after a terrifying crash at lmola

Like Tsunoda, Colapinto was unhurt but Piastri said the other drivers had to quickly try and put it out of their minds.

“Obviously, when there’s a shunt that big, it’s hard to not look at it,” Piastri said.

“But I think generally in racing — and in a lot of things in life — when you start to second guess or doubt what you’re doing, that’s when things go wrong.

“You need to commit, especially on a track like this. So, of course, you probably think about it a little bit, but by the time you get to the corner, you’re back in the groove of doing what you’ve done the rest of the weekend.”

Verstappen was just three-hundredths of a second behind Piastri in qualifying and said he was hopeful of staying closer to the Aussie ace than the last race in Miami when he ran away with it.

“The last race was not really a fight,” Verstappen said. “I’ll just try to do a good start and see where I’m at with the pace.

“We’ll just see with the new set-up we have on the car. Hopefully it all sticks a bit better on the tarmac and, hopefully, in general a bit more competitive.”

After claiming pole position at the season opening race in Australia, Norris has not been able to repeat that performance in the critical third phase of qualifying (Q3) and is becoming increasingly frustrated.

“I guess I just wasn’t quick enough. None of my performances in Q3 have been strong enough this year, so it’s the same thing,” Norris said.