@Max33Verstappen takes #ItalianGP victory as race ends under safety car. #F1

Verstappen Italian GP victory – Red Bull’s Max Verstappen made another recovery drive to overcome a grid penalty and jumped Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to claim the Italian GP victory and denied the Scuderia a win on home soil as Mercedes’ George Russell completes the top three.

 

 

Pole-sitter Leclerc went onto a two-stop strategy to defy expectation, but his late charge on fresher rubber failed to produce enough pace to hunt down the World Driver’s Championship leader as Verstappen pushed from seventh.

 

Leclerc had his hoped boosted by a late safety car intervention that had the potential to change the complexion of the closing stages, but it was to slow to pick up the race leaders and denied an exciting dash to the end and hampered any Ferrari comeback.

 

This allowed Verstappen to clinch his 31^st-career victory, fifth in a row and 11^th of the season to close within two more wins of the record for the most successful Formula 1 season.

 

After changing his internal combustion engine after advice from engine-supplier Honda, Verstappen started seventh due to a five-grid penalty following his flyer for second in qualifying.

 

When the 53 lap Italian GP began, Verstappen’s RB18 racer began the race on the C4 red side-walled softer compound to get a great run off the line to take fifth rapidly following an anti-stall trigger for third-placed starting McLaren of Lando Norris and an overtake on Alpine’s Fernando Alonso.

 

Verstappen kept charging in the early proceedings of the 100^th anniversary race at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza. The Dutchman demoted AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly for fourth place at the end of the opening tour before passing last year’s Italian Grand Prix winner Daniel Ricciardo under-braking into the Variante Del Rettifilo Chicane for a provisional podium.

 

This only left Leclerc and second-place starter Russell up in-front, the Mercedes held strong after missing the first chicane whilst battling the Ferrari for the lead.

 

Despite the F1 W13 racer separating the duo, Leclerc and Verstappen kept setting early fastest laps as a 2.5 net split the opponents.

 

Then the Red Bull took second place with a solid run out of Ascari before using DRS and the slipstream to overtake Russell down the main-straight to set up the fight for the win.

 

With Verstappen a couple of tenths quicker per tour, Ferrari attempted to use the virtual safety car as a strategy twist – which was deployed when Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel pulled off with a smoky engine – to give Leclerc a cheap pit-stop.

 

The Monegasque driver came in on lap 13 for a set of C3 yellow-marked mediums with a fast 2.2 stop just as the green flags were waved for the Grand Prix to resume and dented the effectiveness of the undercut and Leclerc was released into third and 18 seconds behind.

 

Despite his older softs, Verstappen managed to hold onto a decent pace – only lapping 0.5 seconds slower than Leclerc whilst holding a 10.2 second gap to Russell as Leclerc was a further 4.1 adrift.

 

As the Ferrari F1-75 entry began to make gains, Verstappen came in for mediums on the 26^th tour and with a 2.4 second stop, he emerged a touch over ten seconds behind the race leader.

 

Verstappen’s fresher tyres allowed the Red Bull driver to cut the gap to 5.4 seconds when Ferrari brought Leclerc in again on the 34^th lap for softs for a straight run to the chequered flag, the Red Bull returned in second place over Russell.

 

Leclerc’s initial stint was gloomy, but he managed to increase his speed to lap 0.4 seconds quicker than Verstappen as the gap sat at 18 seconds with ten laps remaining.

 

But a lifeline came on the 47^th tour as Ricciardo parked his Mercedes-powered MCL36 racer out of Ascari with an engine failure to deploy the safety car, which came out late, but Verstappen stopped next time round for fresh softs and Leclerc went onto a scrub set of C4’s along with Russell in third.

 

With the field all spread out, the safety car picked up Russell instead and then the lapped cars of Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda split the lead pairing, plus the McLaren took time to be cleared by the crane, the Grand Prix was not restarted to deny a dash to the flag.

 

Thus, Verstappen secured the Italian GP victory over Leclerc to extend his championship lead to 116 points and could secure his back-to-back title in Singapore should the Dutchman win, and the Ferrari driver retire.

 

Russell rounded out the top three for Mercedes.

 

The other Ferrari F1-75 entry of Carlos Sainz put in a fast-opening stint after starting at the back-of-the-pack due to his grid penalty and recovered to finish fourth.

 

Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton done similar notably holding onto his ragged Silver Arrow whilst hunting former McLaren team-mate Alonso plus performing a solid double overtake on Norris and Gasly to snag fifth in the classification.

 

The other Red Bull RB18 entry of Sergio Perez was able to reach the end despite a persistent brake-fire at his opening stop for C2 white-branded harder compounds as Norris claimed seventh place over Gasly.

 

Reigning Formula E World Champion Nyck De Vries equalled Williams Racing’s best result of the 2022 campaign in ninth for his impressive debut appearance filling in for appendicitis side-line Alexander Albon.

 

Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s Zhou Guanyu, rounded out the top ten and in-front of Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon who was 11^th and Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher who placed 12^th.

 

Behind Bottas and Tsunoda who were 13^th and 14^th respectively, Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi and Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen (hit with a five-second timed penalty for missing the Variante Del Rettifilo Chicane) completing the running drivers.

 

Alongside Ricciardo and Vettel, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Alonso (suspected water pump problem) were forced to retire early.

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2022 Italian GP – The Top Three

 

 

2022 Italian GP Winner – Max Verstappen, #1, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“We had a great race; we were quickest on every compound. Overall, we had a really good day. It was enjoyable to drive today even though it was hot out there. Finally, get to go on a great podium like this!”

 

2^nd Place – Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari, F1-75:

“The end was frustrating, unfortunately we were second but overall I gave it my all. I wish I could have won in front of the amazing Tifosi today. I’m not extremely happy with the race because we finished P2. It just wasn’t enough.”

 

3^rd Place – George Russell, #63, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W13 E Performance:

“It doesn’t matter if we are fast or slow, we keep getting these podiums. We had to do something different to Charles and Max, but they were just too quick for us today.”

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Formula 1 Pirelli Gran Premio D’Italia 2022 – Race Results Classification (53 Laps)

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	53	1:20:27.511	26
2	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	53	+2.446s	18
3	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	53	+3.405s	15
4	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	53	+5.061s	12
5	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	53	+5.380s	10
6	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	53	+6.091s	8
7	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	53	+6.207s	6
8	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	53	+6.396s	4
9	45	Nyck De Vries	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	53	+7.122s	2
10	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	53	+7.910s	1
11	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	53	+8.323s	0
12	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	53	+8.549s	0
13	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	52	+1 lap	0
14	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	52	+1 lap	0
15	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	52	+1 lap	0
16	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	52	+1 lap	0
NC	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	45	DNF	0
NC	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	39	DNF	0
NC	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	31	DNF	0
NC	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	10	DNF	0

* Provisional results

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1120/italy/race-result.html

 

Click here for the 2022 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

 

Round 18 of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the Marina Bay Street Circuit under the bright lights in Singapore for the Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2022 from Friday September 30-Sunday October 2.

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