Max Verstappen showed his grit once again as he won the Italian Grand Prix from seventh on the grid at the Autodromo Internazionale Monza.
The victory is Verstappen’s 31st career victory, fifth in succession and he is now just 2 race wins away from equaling the record for the most number of race victories in a single season, a record which is leveled at 13 wins in a season by Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel.
Verstappen started from seventh on the grid after receiving engine penalties. He was on the softest compound, the C4. A good launch saw him pip Lando Norris who suffered an anti-stall. He also was able to pass Fernando Alonso to P5.
The Dutchman exhibited raw pace. He passed Pierre Gasly in the Alpha Tauri for P4 at the end of the first lap. He soon got Daniel Ricciardo for a provisional podium place. The only drivers ahead of him now were George Russell and Charles Leclerc.
Despite the two in front holding on firmly, Verstappen put pressure on them as he set fastest laps early on. Verstappen later on pulled out a clean move on the exit of Ascari on George Russell to move into P2.
On lap 13, Verstappen put on a set of mediums. Despite the aged softs, he still was able to keep up with Leclerc and extend his gap over Russell. Verstappen later pit on lap 26 for another set of mediums as Charles Leclerc began to make gains. Max was able to close down the gap to Leclerc to around 5 seconds when Ferrari decided to bring in the Monegasque for a set of softs on lap 34.
With 10 laps to go, the gap between Verstappen and Leclerc was 18 seconds. Initially the softs did not seem to be that fast on Leclerc’s car, but he managed to lap faster than Verstappen later on.
But things took a turn as Daniel Ricciardo had an engine failure out of Ascari that caused the safety car to be deployed. Verstappen pitted for softs while Leclerc came in for a used set of C4 tires.
Leclerc’s luck ran out as the safety car picked up Russell with the lapped cars of Valtteri Bottas and Yuki Tsunoda splitting the leaders. It seemed to take a long time to clear the stricken McLaren by the crane, and the race would go on to finish under the safety car.
Therefore, Verstappen was able to snatch victory from Leclerc with Russell completing the podium. Sainz put up a great show to claim fourth position with Lewis Hamilton coming home in fifth.
Formula E champion Nyck de Vries finished in ninth place to pick up a couple of points on his Formula 1 debut.
F1 heads to the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore for the next race weekend scheduled from 30 Sep to 2 Oct with the Russian Grand Prix being cancelled for this year.
Verstappen sits at the top of the drivers standings with a healthy lead from Leclerc. Verstappen is 1st with 335 points with Leclerc at second place with 219 and Sergio Perez in third with 210.
Image credit: Formula One Media
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