@danielricciardo wins #ItalianGP as @Max33Verstappen and @LewisHamilton collide. #F1

2021 Italian GP – Daniel Ricciardo won an action-packed Italian GP as title contenders Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton collided twice and retired at the Variante Del Rettifilo.

 

 

Ricciardo lead his team-mate Lando Norris home to a McLaren one-two, giving the Woking-based outfit it’s first victory since the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix, as Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas ended up third after making solid progress through the field and then capitalising on the drama that followed the incident that eliminated Hamilton and Verstappen.

 

This happened at the very end of the pit-stop window, with Hamilton emerging out of the pits and trying to get back in the battle for third with Norris, who stopped a lap earlier.

 

But Verstappen, the pole-sitter and only behind Hamilton thanks to his very slow pit-stop, shot along the side of his championship rival on the rundown to the Variante Del Rettifilo.

 

 

The duo went side-by-side past the Rettifilo’s opening apex and then with Verstappen ending up over the big kerbs leading to the second he was launched into Hamilton’s side – the F1 W12 still close alongside.

 

Then contact put Verstappen over Hamilton’s rear wing, engine cover, roll-hoop and halo, with both cars stuck in the gravel trap on the outside of the chicane – the Red Bull sitting on the top of the Mercedes.

 

Both were out of the Grand Prix and the safety car deployed, which set up a thrilling second period of the race.

 

When the 53 lap Italian GP began, Verstappen and Ricciardo jumped off the line equally, but the McLaren’s acceleration was much better and Ricciardo was able to pull alongside his former Red Bull team-mate on the run to the Variante Del Rettifilo.

 

With Ricciardo holding the inside line he easily grabbed first place and moved clear, with Hamilton, the sole driver of the leaders running the C2 white side-walled harder compound and not mediums going around the outside of Norris exiting the second sequence of the Variante Del Rettifilo.

 

As Ricciardo lead the field to the Variante Della Roggia chicane, Hamilton pulled alongside Verstappen and the pairing tangled between the corner’s two apexes – the title contenders making side-to-side wheel-to-wheel contact.

 

Hamilton then jumped across the kerbs to cut the second apex, which cost the Mercedes driver momentum and allowed Norris to get back into third place on the approach to the first Lesmo corner.

 

The race was then stabilised from a brief virtual safety car, called to get rid of debris from a collision involving Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi.

 

Giovinazzi was attacking the other Ferrari of Charles Leclerc for fourth place into the Variante Della Roggia, but the Italian cut the second apex after being squeezed out of the move and as he rejoined the circuit, he came across the Ferrari of Sainz and was speared into the wall on the outside with the SF21 left with no room in an incident, which wiped off Giovinazzi’s front wing and fell to last in the order, with the Italian being punished with a five-second time penalty from the stewards.

 

The virtual safety car ended on the second tour at the end of which Ricciardo held a 1.2 second gap over Verstappen, who then posted a fastest lap to make sure he was in DRS range when it was activated for the start of the fourth tour.

 

The Dutchman was able to stay within a second of the McLaren but could not get any closer for the next stage of the Grand Prix, as the front-two moved clear from Norris, who was under intense pressure from Hamilton.

 

As Ricciardo and Verstappen lapped in the mid-high 1:26’s bracket compared to Norris, as the Briton eventually dropped back from the rear of the Red Bull – his pace also edging Hamilton back towards Leclerc’s Ferrari.

 

At the 20^th lap, Ricciardo was still 0.9 seconds ahead of Verstappen, and six seconds clear of team-mate Norris, as McLaren and Red Bull were considering when to bring their drivers in to get rid of their C3 mediums, with the duo struggling to keep them alive without getting stuck behind traffic in the chasing field.

 

As the opening stint went on, Verstappen reported similar struggles with his rears to Ricciardo, and locked up on the 21^st lap on the rundown to the Variante Del Rettifilo – as the Dutchman slid past the apex and bumped over the high kerbs behind the second apex.

 

This meant Ricciardo’s gap increased to 1.4 seconds and the Australian came in at the end of the following tour to switch to the harder tyres.

 

Red Bull called Verstappen in immediately after on lap 23 and the Dutchman suffered an 11.1 pit-stop due to a very slow right-front change meaning the Dutchman had no chance to take the lead.

 

The bigger threat for Ricciardo was suddenly from Hamilton, as he overtook Norris with a brave move on the outside of the Variante Della Roggia chicane on the lap 24, but the threat subsided when the Mercedes driver stopped at the end of the following tour and emerged into the collision with Verstappen.

 

The Grand Prix was stabilised for six laps by the safety car, with it’s intervention meaning Leclerc and the rest of the field could pit and capitalise on the McLarens.

 

The order after the restart on lap 31 was Ricciardo, Leclerc, Norris, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, Sainz and Bottas – who had been making great progress through the field from last place thanks to his Friday evening power-unit component changes.

 

Bottas was able to get by his slower rivals in a way his Mercedes team-mate Hamilton had struggled to against Norris in the early proceedings of the Grand Prix and came in during the safety car to switch the hards he started the race on for mediums.

 

Ricciardo dropped Leclerc back at the restart, with Norris fighting the Ferrari into the Variante Del Rettifilo, then getting a solid slipstream into the inside of the sweeping Curva Grande and chasing after his team-mate.

 

Leclerc was soon overtaken by Perez – controversially when the Mexican jumped over the kerbs at the Variante Della Roggia’s second apex after his move around the outside of the Ferrari did not work – then Bottas, which took the Finn two attempts as Leclerc cut the opening chicane on the 33^rd tour, before giving the position back then flying by on the run to the Variante Della Roggia with a great slipstream.

 

Norris was pressuring team-mate Ricciardo at the front, with Bottas finally getting by Leclerc at turn one a tour after his first attempt failed, the former telling his McLaren team to make Ricciardo up his pace.

 

Ricciardo done so to show his true pace on the hards to the end, which saw the Australian hit the high 1:25’s and team-mate Norris also was able to reach that in the stage immediately after the safety car, with Bottas the bigger threat once Perez was slapped with a five-second timed penalty for his incident at the Variante Della Roggia chicane with Leclerc.

 

But as the McLarens pulled away, Bottas’s charge stopped behind Perez – a move around the outside at the Variante Della Roggia chicane’s opening apex failing just when it looked like the Mercedes driver was in-front and he lost momentum exiting the second apex and the Red Bull moved back ahead.

 

Over the final 20 laps, Ricciardo’s increased pace pulled him comfortably clear of team-mate Norris, who was told “It’s best for us where you are” after asking his McLaren team if the current order was its preference.

 

Norris was out of the DRS threat for the closing stages of the Grand Prix, with Perez not in a position to threaten McLaren’s one-two – even as though the pack dealt with a second virtual safety car period when Haas F1 Team’s Nikita Mazepin lost drive and parked it on the outside of the Variante Ascari on the 43^rd tour.

 

Compared to the middle-third of proceedings, the final stage was much calmer, with Ricciardo crossing the line to win the Italian GP and his first victory since the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix by 1.747 seconds, and the Australian also posted the fastest lap of the race.

 

Bottas was promoted to third following Perez’s penalty as he could not find a way passed before the end – with the Red Bull driver finishing in fifth place behind Leclerc – but just in-front of Sainz.

 

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll came home seventh but currently faces a post-race investigation for possibly failing to slow for yellow flags with Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso in eighth.

 

Williams Racing’s George Russell was ninth and ahead of Alpine’s Esteban Ocon – who earlier in the race picked up a five-second time penalty served at his pit-stop for tangling with Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel (12^th in the classification) at the Variante Della Roggia chicane.

 

The other FW43B Williams entry of Nicholas Latifi finished outside the top ten in 11^th place and in-front of the aforementioned Vettel.

 

Alfa Romeo Racing pairing Antonio Giovinazzi and Robert Kubica were 13^th and 14^th respectively and Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher brought up the rear in 15^th.

 

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda did not start the race due to a brake issue, with his team-mate Pierre Gasly forced to retire early after going through the pre-start drams on the tours to the grid.

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2021 Italian GP – The Top Three

 

 

Italian GP Winner – Daniel Ricciardo, #3, McLaren Racing-Mercedes, MCL35M:

“Can I swear? I want to swear. No? About cough time. It went well for me yesterday and even if we got the start, was never a guarantee we’d hold the whole race. To lead literally from start to finish, I don’t think anyone expected that. There was something in me on Friday, I knew something good was to come.”

 

2^nd Place – Lando Norris, #4, McLaren Racing-Mercedes, MCL35M:

“We’ve had a pretty awesome weekend. We’ve been working towards this, and we got a 1 – 2 finally. I’m happy for of course Daniel for getting the win. You want to go for it, but I’m also here for the long term, for the team and it could have ended up like the other guys [Hamilton and Verstappen].”

 

3^rd Place – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance:

“I mean starting from the back, it’s never easy. I’m glad we get to get more points than Red Bull, we maximised and from my side, it was good fun.”

 

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Formula 1 Heineken Gran Premio D’Italia 2021 Race Results Classification (53 Laps)

 

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	53	1:21:54.365	26
2	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	53	+1.747s	18
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	MERCEDES	53	+4.921s	15
4	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	53	+7.309s	12
5	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING HONDA	53	+8.723s	10
6	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	53	+10.535s	8
7	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES	53	+15.804s	6
8	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	53	+17.201s	4
9	63	George Russell	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	53	+19.742s	2
10	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	53	+20.868s	1
11	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	53	+23.743s	0
12	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES	53	+24.621s	0
13	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	53	+27.216s	0
14	88	Robert Kubica	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	53	+29.769s	0
15	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	53	+51.088s	0
NC	9	Nikita Mazepin	HAAS FERRARI	41	DNF	0
NC	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	25	DNF	0
NC	33	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING HONDA	25	DNF	0
NC	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI HONDA	3	DNF	0
NC	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI HONDA	0	DNF	0

 

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1076/italy/race-result.html

 

Click here for the Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings

 

Round 15 of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the Sochi Autodrom in Sochi, Russia for the Formula 1 VTB Russian Grand Prix 2021 from Friday September 24-Sunday September 26.

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