• McLaren driver pushed Max Verstappen in tense Imola climax
• Norris revealed he watched golf and boxing the night before

Lando Norris said he was praying for just one more lap to have a shot at victory at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix after a thrilling final fight with Max Verstappen at Imola. The British driver also revealed he had been up the night before the race until 2am, watching the title-fight boxing and the US PGA Championship golf.

Verstappen held on to win at Imola but only after the final laps came alive as Norris hunted him down, closing to within under second and ultimately finishing just 0.725sec behind the world champion. The 24-year-old McLaren driver was convinced that with another lap he would have been able to try to make a pass on Verstappen.

• Norris unable to make move after Red Bull’s tyres wear down
• Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz third, Oscar Piastri fourth for McLaren

Max Verstappen took victory at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix but only after a spectacular finale when the Red Bull driver was hunted to the flag by McLaren’s Lando Norris, who could could not quite make the move and finished in second, with the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc third.

Oscar Piastri was fourth for McLaren, Carlos Sainz fifth for Ferrari while the Mercedes pair of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton made little impact, finishing in sixth and seventh.

• World champion equals Senna record of eight straight poles
• Oscar Piastri demoted to fifth so Lando Norris second on grid

Max Verstappen had to pull off a comeback he believed was the best he had managed for more than five years to claim pole position for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, delivering a suitably superb lap under immense pressure that raised him to stand alongside Ayrton Senna with a record eighth consecutive pole.

In the year of the 30th anniversary of Senna’s death at Imola, Verstappen had to dig deep to deliver, after a torrid weekend during which he and Red Bull have struggled with the car’s grip and balance.