Italian Grand Prix: Weekend Recap
F1 returned to Monza this weekend for the 2024 Italian Grand Prix, a track rich with history and tradition, where the echoes of past legends still reverberate around the iconic circuit, albeit with altered kerbs. The championship picture took a surprising twist at Zandvoort as Lando Norris delivered a stunning performance, challenging the early-season dominance of Red Bull and sparking hopes of a dramatic late-season title fight. Though Norris remained 70 points adrift of the three-time champion, his recent form hinted at a potential surge to the front. Meanwhile, Williams made headlines off the track by parting ways with Logan Sargeant after his unfortunate crash in FP3 at Zandvoort. The team handed the seat to Franco Colapinto, a young and relatively inexperienced Argentine driver, with just one F2 feature race win and a single F1 practice session to his name.
As the Tifosi, draped in red, packed the stands at Ferrari's home race, there was a palpable sense of anticipation for the Scuderia. Charles Leclerc’s unexpected podium in the Netherlands had reignited hopes of glory at Monza. It has been five long years since Ferrari last triumphed on home soil, with Leclerc in 2019, and the passionate Italian fans were yearning for a miracle. A miracle is what they would get.
Friday Practice Sessions
The opening day of practice for the 2024 Italian Grand Prix at Monza delivered interesting results, with Max Verstappen leading the way in FP1 and Lewis Hamilton narrowly edging out Lando Norris in FP2.
Max Verstappen set the benchmark time of 1m21.676s in a dramatic first practice session that saw the debut of young Italian driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli end abruptly after just 10 minutes. Antonelli, driving for the works Mercedes team, impressed early on by setting a 1m23.955s on soft tires. However, his promising start was cut short when he lost control of the rear of his car at the Parabolica, spinning into the barriers and stoping with a force of 52g and bringing out the red flags.
Once the session resumed, the Dutchman remained on top with his new set of softs, finishing 0.228s ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. Lando Norris slotted into third, splitting the two Ferraris, while Bottas held on to an impressive fifth place. Oscar Piastri showed strong form, finishing sixth, ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who briefly topped the session before falling down the order. Meanwhile, debutant Franco Colapinto managed 17th for Williams, narrowly avoiding a crash similar to Antonelli's.
The second practice session was equally eventful, with Lewis Hamilton topping the timesheets by a mere 0.003s over Lando Norris. The session was halted for over 10 minutes after Kevin Magnussen crashed his Haas at the second Lesmo, disrupting the flow as teams were in the midst of their qualifying simulations. Before the red flag, Ferrari's Carlos Sainz initially led the session with a 1m21.264s on medium tyres, before teammate Leclerc went even quicker with a 1m21.119s, the scarlet cars showing promising performance on home soil. However, the session soon shifted focus to the soft tire runs, with McLaren's Oscar Piastri setting the pace with a 1m20.858s, only to be narrowly beaten by teammate Norris.
Hamilton, who initially struggled to match the McLaren duo, found a late surge of pace, posting a 1m20.738s to take the top spot. Verstappen's session was less straightforward, as he encountered oversteer at Parabolica, forcing him to abort his first flying lap on softs.
As the teams head into final practice and qualifying, the battle at the front remained wide open, with Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari all showing strong pace, while Red Bull faced an uphill challenge to regain their usual dominance. However, there was only one team that the entire nation of Italy wanted on the top step of the podium.
Final Practice
Saturday started with excitement even before the sessions had started. Long awaited news came as Mercedes announced Kimi Antonelli as their 2025 driver. Toto Wolff has been involved in the young Italian driver's career for several years, and is tremendously excited to welcome Kimi to the team, calling him the long-term future of Mercedes. When the cars hit the track, Lewis Hamilton showed good form in the final practice session for the Italian Grand Prix, setting the fastest time with a lap of 1m20.117s. The seven-time world champion edged out his Mercedes teammate George Russell by just 0.093 seconds, marking a strong session for the Silver Arrows as they head into qualifying. The session was highly competitive, with the top six drivers separated by just a quarter of a second. The two Mercedes drivers dethroned Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc from the top of the timesheets during their final runs on fresh soft tires. Leclerc, who had been leading at various points, ultimately finished third, just 0.016 seconds behind Russell.
Behind the Mercedes duo, the McLaren drivers continued to impress, with Piastri and Norris finishing fourth and fifth, respectively. Piastri maintained a slight edge over Norris, while Max Verstappen ended the session in sixth. Verstappen expressed concerns about his car's handling in low and medium-speed corners, and his final attempt was compromised by struggles through the Lesmos.
Carlos Sainz took seventh place, followed by the Williams pair of Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto in an encouraging session for the Williams team. Nico Hulkenberg rounded out the top ten, setting the fastest first sector of the session.
The session concluded with a minor issue for Kevin Magnussen, who was instructed to stop his Haas on track due to an unspecified problem. The Danish driver pulled up on the run to Ascari, bringing his session to an unexpected end. Fortunately, his car was fixed in time for qualifying
Qualifying
Lando Norris delivered a stellar performance yet again in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, securing pole position and leading a McLaren 1-2, with teammate Oscar Piastri joining him on the front row. The session marked another strong showing for Norris, who clocked a pole time of 1m19.327s, while championship rival Max Verstappen struggled to find pace, finishing outside the top five in seventh.
Q1
Even the first qualifying session had its share of action and drama. Daniel Ricciardo's last-minute improvement knocked Yuki Tsunoda out of the running, to P16. Lance Stroll was another shock elimination in Q1, finishing 17th after being shuffled down the order. Williams rookie Franco Colapinto ended up 18th, lamenting a mistake on his final run that saw him go off onto the gravel at the second Lesmo. The Sauber duo of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu brought up the rear in 19th and 20th, respectively. Their final laps were disrupted by yellow flags and scattered gravel, remnants of Kevin Magnussen's off-track excursions.
Q2
Q2 started with a nearly 10-minute delay as marshals worked to clear gravel from the track, following off-track excursions by Colapinto and Magnussen at Lesmo 2 and Parabolica respectively. After the session finally got underway, it was Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso who surprisingly found himself eliminated, finishing 11th and missing out on a spot in the top 10 shootout.
Ricciardo, despite looking good in Q1, couldn't advance further and ended up 12th for Red Bull. Kevin Magnussen, along with the Alpine duo of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, also failed to make it into Q3, ending their runs in 13th, 14th, and 15th respectively.
Q3
The final session saw Norris set the early pace with a 1m19.401s, leading Piastri by just 0.035 seconds. The two McLarens were followed by Mercedes' George Russell and Lewis Hamilton in third and fourth, while Ferrari's Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc slotted into fifth and sixth.
Verstappen, who had a bit of a moment at the Parabolica during his first run, found himself struggling with the balance of his Red Bull, initially placing eighth. In the final runs, Verstappen improved his time slightly while running in the slipstream of teammate Sergio Perez, but could only move up to seventh. Perez, who went off at Lesmo 2 on his final lap, ended up eighth.
Norris further improved his time in the second sector of his final lap, securing pole position with his best time of 1m19.327s. Piastri couldn’t improve across all three sectors and remained second, completing a McLaren front-row lockout. Sainz’s efforts to improve were in vain as he was shuffled back to fifth by Russell and Leclerc, who slotted into third and fourth, respectively. Hamilton rounded out the top six, finishing with a substantial gap to the struggling Red Bulls.
The final spots in the top 10 were taken by Williams' Alex Albon in ninth and Haas' Nico Hulkenberg in tenth, both Albon and the Hulk having a fine day at the office at Monza.
Race
On Sunday, after the Italian national anthem had played and the enormous Ferrari flag had been stowed away, The race began with Norris making a clean start from pole, but he quickly found himself under pressure from Piastri, who succeeded in an aggressive overtake at the Variante della Roggia. This maneuver forced Norris off-line, allowing Leclerc to slip past into second place in the following corners. Rusell was blocked off by Piastri's defense at the first corner, forced to take the runoff, picking up front wing damage and dropping behind Max Verstappen in P6.
As the race progressed, it became clear that tire degradation was higher than expected, prompting McLaren to commit to a two-stop strategy. Leclerc briefly lost track position to Norris due to an earlier-than-anticipated pit stop but managed to maintain his tire performance, setting the stage for a tense battle to arise in the closing laps. Leclerc showed surprising pace in his upgraded SF-24, hanging on to Piastri for quite some time while fending off Lando Norris.
Meanwhile, the midfield was a playground of penalties being tossed around at Monza. Nico Hulkenberg first received a 10-second penalty for causing a collision with Yuki Tsunoda that would force the RB driver to retire. Later, Magnussen was handed a 10-second penalty for his collision with Alpine's Pierre Gasly. However, it was Daniel Ricciardo who won the penalty game, by getting a 10-second penalty for incorrectly serving his 5-second penalty. The 5-second penalty was a result of him squeezing Hulkenberg off the track on the first lap, and the consequent 10-second penalty was a result of one of his mechanics prematurely touching his car in the pits before the 5 seconds had ended.
Oscar Piastri, who was asked by his team if he could manage a one-stop strategy, ultimately had to pit again, handing the lead to Charles Leclerc. Both McLaren drivers complained of heavy graining of their front left tires at this stage of the race. The young Australian driver then mounted a fierce charge, cutting an 11.9-second gap to just 2.7 seconds in the final nine laps, but it just wasn't enough to catch Leclerc.
Norris recovered to finish third, having been surprised by Piastri's first-corner move and later hindered by Max Verstappen, who was running an offset hard-hard-medium strategy. Norris was unable to close the gap to his teammate during the race, finishing behind Piastri but ahead of Carlos Sainz.
Sainz, who also ran a one-stop strategy, initially helped Leclerc by holding up Piastri for several laps, but he eventually ran out of tire life and lost third place to both McLarens. Sainz managed to hold off Lewis Hamilton to secure fourth place on a day when Mercedes did not necessarily look as strong as they were before the summer break.
Hamilton finished fifth after fending off an early challenge from Verstappen, who struggled with a 6.2-second pit stop and an underwhelming final stint, leaving him unable to challenge the Mercedes driver. George Russell, recovered from his lap 1 misfortune to finish seventh, overtaking Sergio Perez in the process.
Alex Albon finished ninth, but only after Kevin Magnussen, who crossed the line ahead of him, received a 10-second penalty for a minor collision with Pierre Gasly. The penalty dropped Magnussen to 10th, while Fernando Alonso narrowly missed out on the points, finishing 11th just 0.143 seconds behind Magnussen after the penalty was applied. Following the race, Magnussen was banned from competing in the upcoming Azerbaijan Grand Prix as a result of reaching the annual 12 penalty points limit and punished with the standard one-race ban.
Rookie Franco Colapinto completed his first F1 race in a brilliant P12, a sign of great things to come for Williams with their new Albon-Colapinto pairing. Setting the fastest lap of the race at the very end, Lando Norris left northern Italy having reduced Max Verstappen's championship lead by 8 points, and McLaren is only 8 points behind Red Bull in the constructor's championship.
But no one in the world right now is as happy as the man from Monaco, Charles Leclerc, who set the home crowd at Monza ablaze with a masterful drive to win the Italian Grand Prix, securing a popular victory for Ferrari as McLaren's two-stop strategy faltered. Pitting early on lap 15 and nursing the hard tires for 38 laps. Leclerc's one-stop strategy paid off, allowing him to fend off a pair of papaya-colored cars. For the last 10 laps, every time Leclerc crossed the pit straight he was pushed along by the immense chanting of the passionate Tifosi. Leclerc crossed the finish line with a 2.884-second lead over Oscar Piastri. The Monegasque driver had initially questioned Ferrari's strategy when they reacted to an early undercut attempt from polesitter Lando Norris, but his ability to manage tire wear proved decisive in the end. Ferrari made a gamble, as they had nothing to lose committing to a one-stop. And like a miracle, that gamble paid off. Charles Leclerc won at Monza in 2019, 5 years ago. When he first did that, and stood on the podium in front of a red cloud and a red crowd, he imagined that even if that was to be repeated, it would never feel like the first time. However, speaking to Monaco-based Youtuber Nico Rosberg after the race, he exclaimed that the emotions behind his hard-fought win were exactly the same as the first time. Earlier this year, he overcame his bad luck and won the Monaco Grand Prix in spectacular fashion. Now, with victory at his second home, Monza, Leclerc has emerged victorious in his two favorite grand prix. The whole motorsport world admired the rare but special spectacle of a Ferrari victory in Monza.
He won in Monaco, he wins at Monza!
