Race Report: Max Verstappen wins Italian GP

Max Verstappen converted his record-breaking pole position to a dominant record-breaking win at the Italian Grand Prix leading Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Max and Red Bull confounded a dominant McLaren with their pace and low-downforce setup to take the win.

Win

A big win for Max and the team. Laurent Mekies said Max pushed to the team into a setup that worked and their low downforce setup made them fast on the straights while Max managed his tires in the chicanes. Such a great job from the team to trim the car out to take advantage of the track and knock McLaren off their game. Max’s pole was the fastest-ever lap with an average speed of 164mph, and the race was the fastest-ever race with an average speed of 155mph.

A win for Lando Norris who needed to finish ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri and it all seemed to go pear-shaped with his slow stop but the team swapped the positions handing Lando P2. To the team’s credit, Lando radioed to let Oscar box first to cover Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari. The team would normally have serviced Lando first so they felt it was the right thing to do by swapping them. Lando claws three points back in the championship.

It’s not a win but both Ferrari’s in the top six at home is good given their dual DNF last week.

A win for the rookies with Gabriel Bortoleto doing a terrific job in his Sauber to claim P8, Kimi Antonelli in P9 (perhaps P10 with penalty) and Isack Hadjar in P10 (perhaps P9 with Kimi’s penalty). A terrific run for Isack who started from the pit lane!

Also a win for Williams with Alex Albon in P7 as his teammate, Carlos Sainz continues to struggle.

Fail

A fail for Sauber and Nico Hulkenberg who suffered a DNS due to a hydraulic issue.

A fail for Fernando Alonso who was running well into the points but retired with suspension damage.

A fail for Haas F1 with both drivers picking up penalties moving both out of the points.

A fail for Yuki Tsunoda who languished down in P13 as his teammate won the race by nearly 20s.

WTH

Not sure I understand Liam Lawson’s struggles on the day but started on shots, boxed on lap 10 and languished toward the back. Not an issue of Liam but an odd strategy to start on Softs.

Apparently Lance Stroll had a wheelman issue that left him at the back. McLaren had the same issue. There were a few bobbles from the teams this weekend that you don’t normally see late in the season.

Tough race for Alpine. I thought Pierre Gasly might nip a point but on older tires, he sunk like a stone.

MARIO ISOLA – PIRELLI DIRECTOR OF MOTORSPORT

“In this Grand Prix, all the excitement was condensed into the opening laps, with drivers overtaking and repassing each other with some thrilling moves. Then, once the situation stabilised, the race became very linear with all drivers trying to extend their first stints as much as possible, depending on which compounds they had chosen for the start. Unlike last year, there was practically no graining today and on this very smooth track surface, performance degradation was pretty much zero. This meant that all the drivers could more or less chose the moment to pit based on their track position, while others gambled going much longer than the window predicted based on how free practice had gone, in the hope of a possible Safety Car, having nothing left to lose.

“We saw some cases of blistering across the front axle, but not enough to have a significant impact on car performance. In terms of wear, it’s clear that those drivers who went beyond the 40 lap mark on their first stint, came very close to or in some cases, even exceeded the wear limit, but without losing performance.

“All in all, evaluating tyre performance in this Grand Prix, I would say they were too good. It will be important for us to analyse the data very well to understand how to proceed with the development of compounds for next year. On this topic, it’s worth noting that in less than 48 hours, we will be back on track in Monza for two days of testing of 2026 tyres, working with Red Bull Racing (Verstappen/Tsunoda and Aston Martin (Drugovich) on Tuesday and with Williams (Albon/Sainz) and Racing Bulls (Lawson/Hadjar) the following day.”

Italian GP Results:

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