THE ITALIAN GP IN 3 KEY MOMENTS
1 Gasly maxes out as Mercedes implodes
The jury remains out on the effects of the FIA’S clampdown on special qualifying engine modes after a madcap Italian Grand Prix, but one thing is certain: Pierre Gasly ran out the victor on merit after seizing the initiative when the usually dominant Mercedes team fluffed it. Starting in 10th, Gasly could hardly have expected to feature in the fight up front, but the circumstances surrounding the double-whammy of a mid-race Safety Car period followed by a red flag – for separate incidents – conspired to turn the race on its head.
After qualifying, during which Lewis Hamilton annexed pole position with the fastest lap of all time, it appeared the law of unintended consequences was at work and that the new engine-mode rules had in fact hindered those running Ferrari, Honda and Renault power units rather than Mercedes. Carlos Sainz’s Mclaren, in third place, was eight tenths off Hamilton. With a touch of schadenfreude, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff revealed his team had seen the ban coming months ago and developed “a strong mode for qualifying we can run all race”. This glee would not last long once the start lights went out on Sunday.
As Hamilton got away crisply into his customary lead, team-mate Valtteri Bottas got swamped. He would later speak of suffering an unspecified “disturbance” at starts, something which caused him to pre-empt the lights going out in Hungary and nearly did so again here. The result was that Sainz went by him before Bottas was even rolling, and the Finn dropped to sixth on the opening lap. So discombobulated was Bottas that he reported a puncture that proved to be non-existent.
Bottas faced a long battle to get back to the front and it soon became clear he was unlikely to do so. His car’s marginal cooling setup meant he had to do too much lifting and coasting to regain ground on the cars ahead.
Gasly, meanwhile, had survived a squeeze at the first corner, during which he inadvertently knocked Alex Albon’s Red Bull into the run-off. Gasly ran 10th until he pitted, just before Kevin Magnussen brought his expiring Haas to a halt in the grass by the pit entry. Since there was no gap in the barrier
there, the car had to be pushed into the pitlane.
The FIA therefore closed the pitlane for the first laps under the resulting Safety Car, but this went unnoticed by Mercedes and Alfa Romeo, who brought in Hamilton and Antonio Giovinazzi, both of whom were handed 10-second stop-go penalties. Once the pitlane opened and others stopped, Gasly found himself third behind Hamilton and Lance Stroll, the only driver yet to stop at all.
When Charles Leclerc embedded his Ferrari in the barriers shortly after the restart, bringing out the red flag, that meant Gasly took the subsequent restart from third on the grid. He duly blasted past Stroll, who made a mess of his first lap, then inherited the lead when Hamilton served his penalty.
Gasly managed the second half of the race superbly to keep Sainz just out of DRS range until the final lap, eventually finishing 0.415s ahead of the Mclaren. “I nearly shunted 10 times in those final laps,” Gasly said.
“It was kind of my race to lose,” said third-placed Stroll. Yes, it was.
Hamilton got through the pack as far as seventh, but it was heavy going, and Wolff would later bemoan that the engine-mode clampdown had made for “a lack of spice”.
What a difference a day makes…
2 Racing Point faces a different kind of protest
The legality surrounding Racing Point’s ‘pink Mercedes’ may be settled but the team had more negativity on its hands after it took advantage of the rules enabling tyre changes under red-flag conditions. Since Lance Stroll hadn’t pitted before the stoppage, he was running just behind race leader Lewis Hamilton on track and was therefore able to take the restart from second on the grid – with fresh tyres fitted at no cost of time.
Mclaren’s Lando Norris, who had run third in the first half of the race and ultimately finished fourth, felt swindled.
“They gained 24 seconds doing nothing,” said Norris. “Not having to box and do that mandatory pitstop is a thing which I don’t think is right.”
3 Home-turf misery for Ferrari
If the beleaguered Ferrari squad could extract any comfort from another uncompetitive grand prix, it would be that Charles Leclerc’s frightening-looking shunt played some part in eliminating the possibility of Lewis Hamilton equalling Michael Schumacher’s record 91 victories the following weekend, at the Scuderia’s 1000th race. When Leclerc speared off into the wall at the Parabolica he triggered the red flag which ensured Hamilton took maximum pain from the 10s stop-go penalty he had earned for entering the pitlane while it was closed.
Until that point, Leclerc had brought the briefest flicker of light to a lamentable weekend on Ferrari’s home turf. Neither he nor Sebastian Vettel had qualified inside the top 10 (Vettel was out in Q1 after having a time struck off for a track-limits error and getting bogged down in traffic when he tried again). Brake failure eliminated Vettel early on, leading him to opine it was a good thing the grandstands were empty.
But the timing of Leclerc’s pitstop – just before the Magnussen-induced caution and pitlane closure – elevated him to sixth under the Safety Car. At the restart Charles had made short work of both Alfas for fourth when he crashed. A miserable end to another miserable race for the Scuderia.