Ferrari triumphs at Monza, securing a home-race win

Ferrari triumphs at Monza, securing a home-race win

Monza is an iconic outing on the F1 calendar, hosting the world's fastest race since 1949. It is always a race worth watching with long straights and numerous high-speed corners. It is also a race that encourages exciting overtaking and provides plenty of close racing opportunities. This year was no different; and after a fantastic couple of wins, McLaren blew its opportunity with a flawed strategy. 

The weekend's excitement began in qualifying, where Oscar Piastri displayed his new attitude toward the world champ, nearly colliding on pit release. Early in the qualifying session, Franco Colapinto, Logan Sargeant's Williams replacement, experienced an incident in the gravel that undoubtedly damaged the rookie driver's confidence.

The top 10 starting positions for the race were decided by the third qualifying round, and with Lando Norris leading the way, the McLarens demonstrated their ability to keep up the pace to take pole and second. He was followed by the two Ferraris and local Monza favourites in third and fourth, with the Mercs of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton right behind. 

Race day provided good conditions for racing as the cars lined up on the grid. Russell had a strong start around the outside of the Ferraris when the lights went out, but Oscar made a fantastic defensive play to block him. This forced the British Mercedes driver to miss the corner and fall down the leaderboard early in the race. The McLarens led the way after the first corner, with the Ferraris in hot pursuit, but it was soon after the start that Piastri showed the world that he wouldn't take it easy on his teammate. 

At the fourth corner, Piastri took a late, wide outside line into the chicane, applying pressure on Lando Norris and seizing the position in a display of confidence. It is clear that team orders played little role in this real racing display. Because Lando was forced to take a wider exit from the chicane, the door opened for Leclerc as he closed him off going into the next corner. 

Further back in the pack, Daniel Ricciardo squeezed Nico Hulkenberg onto the gravel, covering the race line in dust and losing four positions in the process. This clearly frustrated Hulkenberg, and, soon after on lap five, he misstimed his braking point into turn one and dove down the inside of Yuki Tsunoda, forcing the Haas to lock up and connect with the side of Yuki’s RB.

Red Bull was feeling the pressure early in the race, with both drivers outside of the top five after 11 laps of racing. Sergio Perez had Russell in his sights coming down the start-finish straight, and although he ran wide due to dirty air out of the previous corner, he built up enough speed under DRS to take Russell leading into the first corner. Shortly after, Kevin Magnussen dove down the inside of Ricciardo in turn one and secured the position, as well as a shot at Alonso to get into the points.

McLaren was the first to kick off the first round of pits, with Lando coming in on lap 15 with the intent to undercut Leclerc, who was currently in second place. He had a mighty close call as he clipped the pit lane marker and nearly received a pit lane speeding infringement in the process. This prompted Ferrari to retaliate only a lap later, pitting Leclerc on lap 16. Unfortunately for Leclerc, the lap on fresh tires gave Lando the advantage he needed, and he overtook the Ferrari as it was leaving the pit lane.

Kevin Magnussen found himself in hot water after Pierre Gasly's late braking manoeuvre ended with him going through the second chicane; fortunately, Gasly was hesitant to fully commit to the corner and suffered no damage as he cut it. 

Racing continued with little drama until lap 31, when Russell began closing the gap on Perez, attempting to return the previous favour by overtaking into turn one. This time around, he lacked the speed to close the gap and was forced wide out of the chicane. After his bold attempt, he had to return seventh to Perez. Soon after, Norris, who was in second position, made a mistake while braking into the second chicane and overshot the corner, forcing him to take the escape route.

It wasn’t long after his moment that the McLaren strategy was revealed. Lando was brought in for his second stop on the two-stop strategy, which would prove to be detrimental to the team's hope of a first-place finish. Lando returned to the field in fifth as we all waited to see if Piastri would attempt to complete the race with one or two stops. 

Russell tried to overtake Perez again entering turn one, almost crashing out of the race. Russell, though, managed to maintain his DRS momentum and overtook Perez down the inside, which Perez immediately challenged by launching a counterattack while moving towards the second chicane. George managed to fend off Perez into the tight corner and maintain eighth place.

Meanwhile, the race leader, Piastri, came in on the 38th lap for a new set of rubber and consequently dropped down the leaderboard into third, while his partner was still trying to pick up the pace behind Verstappen in fifth. This gave Ferrari first and second, so long as their tyres could hold out for the remainder of the race.

Norris finally found his groove and overtook Verstappen for fourth in the first corner, with 12 laps left in the 53-lap race. Now with both Ferraris in front being pursued by two McLarens, it didn’t take long before the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz was under pressure by Piastri on fresher tyres. Piastri passed Sainz outside, ahead of Ascari, and began his hunt for victory. The second McLaren driven by Lando Norris soon passed Sainz down the start-finish straight.

With three laps to go and a 7-second gap between the McLarens and Leclerc's leading Ferrari, the local crowd in red began to celebrate the possibility of a Ferrari win. Although Piastri provided a faster pace, it wasn't enough to close the gap, finishing only 2.6 seconds behind the leader, with Norris sealing third. 

Continuing the recent trend of high-calibre racing, this year's race at Monza was exciting. Ferrari proved to have the better strategy with only one stop on their agenda, which gave them enough of an advantage to take the win away from the recently successful McLaren team. McLaren has now closed the gap on Red Bull's constructor's lead to just eight points, but Piastri showed that a race is a race, despite the fact that they are teammates. It wasn't enough though to beat Charles Leclerc's Scuderia on its home turf.

You can find the race results here on the F1 official website.

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