F1: 2024 Italian Grand Prix, Weekend of New Beginnings
Following McLaren’s complete dominance in the last Dutch Grand Prix, they’re the most looked-after team in the season–a team on the way to surpass Red Bull Racing. The Italian Grand Prix, home of the Tifosi, was up next, and everyone was excited to see how it unfolded.
FREE PRACTICE
Coming in the weekend, exciting news of Kimi Antonelli driving George Russell’s car for FP1 shook up the world. The current F2 Italian driver had been long rumored to replace Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton, and this news further heightened people’s expectations of the assumption. It was later on confirmed by Mercedes that the rumors are, and Antonelli shared, “It is an amazing feeling to be announced as a Mercedes works driver alongside George for 2025.”
Unfortunately, Antonelli crashed the car near the end of the first session, but the Silver Arrows were more concerned about the kid than the car. However, Russell has shown quite a lot of concern for his car that he’d be driving for FP2.
Williams also announced that Argentinian driver Franco Colapinto will replace Logan Sargeant for the rest of the season. Teammate Albon shared that Colapinto’s experience driving the last nine races of the season will greatly help his improvement. Colapinto even managed to get P17 for FP1, and the first session concluded with Verstappen on top, followed by Leclerc and then Norris.
Monza has caused a lot of tarmac slips, especially for Alpine’s Esteban Ocon. Mercedes driver George Russell is back on his seat, but has concerns regarding some nut going under his seat. Teammate Lewis Hamilton, and 5-time Italian Grand Prix winner, complained about the temperature in Monza making his seat hot, but still got fastest at FP2 with Norris 2nd, and Sainz 3rd.
Red Bull’s Verstappen shared a funny exchange, at least for fans, with his radio engineer Gianpiero Lambiase when he complained about Mercedes driving in the normal lane.
Verstappen: This Mercedes is driving on the normal racing line.
Liambiase: Fairly standard, Max.
Despite these complaints, Mercedes managed to top FP3 1-2, with Hamilton as the leading car, and Leclerc at P3.
QUALIFYING
Just before leaving the garage, Verstappen and Piastri almost crashed against each other, and the Dutch driver was not happy about these happenings as he almost had a collision again later on with Ferrari this time.
With the temperature still high, drivers are certainly more heated. Hamilton also complained this time with his seat being ‘extra hot’.
New Williams driver Colapinto has been struggling to familiarize himself this time with the car, with a lot of slips here and there with Monza’s new asphalt, solidifying his position in the elimination zone for Q1 together with Tsunoda, Stroll, Bottas, and Zhou.
Alonso tried to save himself for Q2 but couldn’t quite get there, resulting in his elimination along with Ricciardo, Magnussen, Gasly, and Ocon.
McLaren’s speed continued to be unmatched, and Norris took the fastest lap at 1:19:01 for the early Q3 lap setting. The Mercedes pair were the last to set their initial times, but they only managed a 3-4 with Russell as the leading driver.
By then, it was a McLaren 1-2, Mercedes 3-4, Ferrari 5-6, and Red Bull 7-8, with Sergio Perez surprisingly out-qualifying Max Verstappen. However, this didn’t last long as Verstappen managed to set a faster final lap time, earning P7.
The qualifying session was concluded with a McLaren 1-2, Norris earning his second pole in just 7 days, and Russell at P3. Norris shared that this pole position was more satisfying because of the competition, whereas his last pole position felt easy to earn.
RACE
It’s not a typical Lando Norris pole if he doesn’t lose his spot in the earlier laps, and just by Lap 1, teammate Oscar Piastri led the Italian Grand Prix. Norris then lost his spot to Charles Leclerc as well, dropping to P3 during the first lap.
Daniel Ricciardo got a +5-second penalty for impeding Hulkenberg, then the latter had a collision as well with Tsunoda afterwards. Just a few laps later, RB decided to retire Tsunoda’s car.
By Lap 11, Russell had already dropped a few places. He was pushed further back to P8 when Sergio Perez overtook him.
When Norris made his slightly chaotic pit stop at Lap 15, he dropped from P3 to P8. It wasn’t a challenge for the McLaren driver, as he managed to overtake the drivers ahead of him.
Russell and Perez continued to battle each other for a higher position, and the Silver Arrows driver just couldn’t quite get past the RB20. But after a few duels here and there, he managed to get the right speed and turns, dropping Perez to P9 and earning P8.
Norris was down to P5 by Lap 41, and despite being the fastest and earning the violet, he made true efforts to leap higher in the leaderboard. It wasn’t quite long when he surpassed current rival Max Verstappen.
Teammate Piastri also made good use of the fast MCL38 and surpassed Carlos Sainz, splitting up the Tifosi duo in the team’s home race. It wasn’t long after that Norris also bumped Sainz out of the podium, and earned a McLaren 2-3.
Starting at P4, after a weekend of disappointing results, Charles Leclerc earned Driver Of The Day and another win to his name. Ferrari won the Italian Grand Prix in the form of Charles Leclerc.
POST-RACE
Upon conclusion of the Italian Grand Prix, of course, Norris was asked about what happened at Turn 4 during the post-race interview, when he lost the lead to Piastri. He answered that it will be something to look at, because if he hadn’t hit the brakes, a crash would have happened.
Norris also praised Leclerc on the amazing performance, as well as the Ferrari team. “Ferrari just drove a better race today, especially Charles. He did a very good job, so just hats off to him,” he said.
Piastri, on the other hand, was very hurt about the results of the race. Despite doing everything right and going for the better decision, second place was still not what Piastri had hoped to earn and shared, “[V]ery, very happy with the pace, with the race that I managed to achieve. Just when you finish second, it hurts.”
2024 Italian Grand Prix winner Charles Leclerc described it all as incredible–the race, the fans, and winning. He said that winning Monaco, and now Monza was a very special feeling.
“I mean Monaco and Monza are the two races that I want to win every year. Obviously, I want to win as many races as possible and the world championship as soon as possible but these are the two most important races of the season and I managed to win them this year. So, it’s so, so special.”
Only 8-points behind the leading Red Bull Racing team, McLaren has been earning points and going straight for the Constructor’s Championship. With the Baku track next, Leclerc hopes to do something great again but is not expecting much.
Fans will be highly anticipating the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, hoping to find an answer to whether McLaren will finally lead the Constructor’s Championship, or will Red Bull Racing finally have an answer back.
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