Monza F1 Review: McLaren's Beef, Super Max Shines, and more!

It was a very inspiring weekend, especially for the Scuderia Ferrari duo. Lewis

Hamilton had his first outing at Monza as a Ferrari F1 Driver and Charles maintained the excitement there too! For some fans, it was a great weekend, others not so much. It had the good, the bad and the ugly for various teams.

The Tifosi were hoping for a dominate performance

The race began and it was initially an easy run to the first corner for Max Verstappen

and Charles Leclerc, until Verstappen was asked to give positions back to the

McLaren driver Lando Norris, who clearly was frustrated with the move that put him

into the grass, even calling Verstappen an idiot. similar movement was happening

behind with a tough battle for P3 between Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc.

The McLarens had a strong weekend out managing P2 and P3, but a pit stop error

for Lando Norris’s stop, almost cost him P2, until the team asked Piastri to swap

positions. This was an extremely controversial situation, given similar result in

Hungary 2024, but ultimately, Piastri gave it back with no arguments. Max

Verstappen was one of many that were extremely confused on this call, even heard

laughing on his radio about the slow pit stop and the need to get the position back.

The driver managing to stop the McLarens from having a win, was Max Verstappen,

with a strong lead ahead of just over 19 seconds. It was very impressive given the

domination we’ve seen from McLaren so far this season. Yuki Tsunoda had another

tough result finishing P13, after being stuck behind various DRS trains.

The Ferrari pairing had a great weekend, especially with running their iconic new

livery celebrating 50 years since Niki Lauda’s first world title win at Monza in 1975. It

was going to be hard for Lewis Hamilton given his 5-place grid penalty from the

Dutch GP, but he made it work. Qualifiying P5, being pushed back to P10, and

ultimately finishing the weekend in P6. It was an impressive result, but pushing

through the field to manage that is what we would expect from the 7-time world

champion. His teammate Charles Leclerc, had a brilliant result only just missing out

on P3, coming home to finish P4.

Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz had some tense moments during the race

George Russell and Kimi Antonelli had a quiet weekend, keeping to themselves and

making double points for the team. George Russell was close to having battles with

Leclerc but was often forced to back off due to various reasons. Antonelli was also

noted and received a 5 second time penalty for driving erratically. Russell finished

P5, whilst Antonelli managed P9.

Similarly, just sneaking into the points were 2 young rookies, Gabriel Bortoleto,

ensuring points for himself and the team finishing in P8, and Isack Hadjar, who after

starting a fair way back in P19, stormed through the field to take the remaining point

scoring position in P10. Taking a page out of his mate Lewis Hamilton’s book I see.

Oliver Bearman was another rookie, who managed to beat his teammate, although

missing out on points this was still a good result. It was very relaxed weekend for him

until he did received a 10 second time penalty for causing a collision.

Alex Albon, being the experienced driver that he is, had an impressive drive all the

way to P7, it was a strong result for a team that had one driver in the points and the

other just missing out. His teammate, Carlos Sainz just being beaten for the final

spot in the top 10 by Isack Hadjar, a good result, but just missed out finishing P11.

Another driver beaten by a teammate was Liam Lawson, who had a not-so-great

weekend, given the similar race start to Hadjar, it was to be a tough race starting

from P18. He came home to finish P14, but most likely not the result that the team

had expected.

Lance Stroll, Franco Colapinto, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon were all

unfortunately down a lap after being lapped by the field. It was most likely a weekend

to forget for these 4. Stroll finished P18, hard situation for the Aston Martin team with

one driver last and the other as a DNF. Colapinto and Gasly were P17 and P16,

hopefully we will see some improvement before the end of the year from this pairing

before they move to the new Mercedes engine. And finally, Ocon who finished P15,

another quiet race, where there was not lots going on with him other than an early

penalty of 5 seconds.

For Nico Hulkenberg, it was a very short race with the Sauber driver forced to retire

before the race even started, due to a technical issue, linked to the hydraulics

system. He was extremely disappointed, quoting the frustration “Are you serious?”,

before pulling into the pitlane to retire. A disappointing result for a driver who has

been on the up and up, seeing improvements every week. A similar race result for

Aston Martins Fernando Alonso after an early race retirement due to a suspension

failure. Alonso was certainly not happy with the result quoting “this is so

unbelievable”.

Red Bull's risk to use a lower downforce setup made the difference to get the win

With Monza complete, the championships battle is very close with 34 points

separating Norris to Piastri. It will come down to the wire with this battle, whilst the

constructors is all but set in stone with McLaren significantly above Ferrari in P2.

This weekend we return to Baku in Azerbaijan, for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

McLaren could win the constructors this weekend if they are lucky, if not the battle

will continue.

This weekend will be a difficult one, with many previous years of chaos both between

teammates as well as competitors. This includes the 2018 incident between Daniel

Ricciardo and Max Verstappen as well as last year’s last lap incident involving Carlos

Sainz and Sergio Perez. It will be a race to watch!