Leclerc’s Italian Job thrills tifosi as McLaren let another win slip away · RaceFans

Fresh from spraying the champagne with Prince Albert II in the royal box at Monte Carlo having achieved his childhood dream of winning his home grand prix in a Ferrari – his first grand prix victory for almost two years – Charles Leclerc made it clear. He wanted more.

“I’m extremely happy with the job we are doing,” he said. “I hope that this will bring us to many more wins.”

But once the elation of Monaco in late May subsided, the next three months offered mostly frustration and fruitlessness. It wasn’t until Spa-Francorchamps that Leclerc was credited with a podium finish – and even that required the race winner to be disqualified first. After the summer shutdown, a third place in Zandvoort was a reason to be cheerful – but being 25 seconds behind race winner Lando Norris’ McLaren was not.

No matter. Monza was next. The most important event of the season for the Scuderia and one for which they would have the benefit of a new front and rear wing, floor, diffuser, engine cover and more.

But after such a wealth of new parts saw Leclerc and team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr take fourth and fifth on the grid at the end of Saturday, Leclerc patience was lower than his wing level.

“It’s frustrating,” he sighed. “Again, I don’t like fighting for these kind of positions.

“We are very close to first place, on the contrary to last weekend, which is a good step forward. However, it’s not enough. So I really hope that tomorrow we can turn the situation around.”

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But Ferrari have often been stronger in races than qualifying this season. And with the miles of fresh new asphalt lining the historic parkland circuit, there were several unknowns heading into Sunday.

The first of which was whether Norris would manage to hold onto the lead into the first corner from pole position the first time in his career. Attempt number six had been unsuccessful the week prior in the Netherlands, but with a long run down to the Rettifilo chicane, it would likely be a challenge for Norris to hold McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri at bay at the start.

Red Bull had slumped to seventh and eighth on the grid respectively for Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, both at a loss to understand why grip had deserted them at the end of qualifying. With both McLarens on the front row, the papaya team stood a genuine chance of displacing the champions atop the constructors’ standings – with Norris staring at a rare chance to bite a chunk out of Verstappen’s lead in the drivers’.

But McLaren CEO Zak Brown shut down any idea that Norris would get special treatment that afternoon. “We’ve got two number one drivers,” he said. “They’re free to race.”

McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari took the conventional Monza approach of medium compound tyres for their cars for the start. Red Bull, lacking pace but not cunning, chose the hard tyres.

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When the race began, Norris’s start was, for once, strong enough for him to pull across the circuit and obstruct Piastri from taking the inside line on the run to the first corner. Piastri responded by moving to the outside, forcing George Russell to his left to do the same. Norris turned into the chicane with Piastri alongside him, but Russell had to bail to the run off to avoid whacking into the rear of Piastri’s McLaren.

While the Mercedes filtered back into the pack, Piastri kept the pressure on his team mate through Curva Grande. Knowing he was “free to race”, Piastri decided that this may be his last opportunity to attack Norris for the lead, pulling alongside his team mate to the outside.

It took equal effort from both McLaren drivers to avoid a collision, but they successfully made it through the Roggia chicane side-by-side where so many others before them could not. But leaving room for his team mate meant Norris was compromised at the exit, allowing Leclerc to pounce on the run to the Lesmos and snatch second place from the pole winner.

Piastri therefore led from Leclerc, Norris dropping to third. Carlos Sainz Jnr sat fourth, with Lewis Hamilton ahead of Verstappen after a close encounter between the pair on the way into the second chicane. Russell sat ahead of Sergio Perez in seventh – albeit minus his right-hand front wing endplate.

The data from practice suggested tyre wear would be a greater concern at the revamped Monza surface than previous years. While the top eight remained within ten seconds of each other to begin with, Hamilton in fifth started to drop away – just slightly – from the four ahead, encouraged to prioritise being gentle to his tyres over everything.

Russell was the first driver from the top four teams to pit, Mercedes eager to fit a new front wing to his car. Norris matched his team mate’s lap times ahead of him, but Leclerc’s started to fade just slightly just after lap ten, allowing Norris to pull up close to the Ferrari. But rather than have Norris attack Leclerc on-track, McLaren brought him in at the end of lap 14 to switch onto hard tyres.

Ferrari immediately responded by pitting Leclerc, but just one lap had been enough for Norris to jump him – much to Leclerc’s confusion.

“What was that?,” he questioned race engineer Bryan Bozzi. “Why did we pit if we were undercut?”

Piastri pitted from the lead at the end of lap 16, with Sainz remaining out on track on his mediums as Leclerc clearly felt he should have also been given the chance to do. Once Sainz came in at the end of lap 19, the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Perez moved to the front of the field on their hard tyres. They had both experienced graining on their front-left tyres around 12 laps into the race, which caused their respective lap times to start to fall off, a vital detail which engineers communicated to those who had just switched to hards.

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While 38 laps on a set of hard tyres at Monza would have been an easy prospect in years by, it was anything but around the resurfaced track. So when Red Bull eventually brought leader Verstappen in with 31 laps remaining to fit another set of hard tyres – committing to a two stop – it was the first true indication that the traditional one-stop may not be viable for that afternoon.

Once Perez had followed his team mate into the pits, Piastri was now back out front, a couple of seconds ahead of his team mate, while Leclerc was closer to Norris in third than Norris was to the leader. As expected, Norris began to report graining on his front-left, with Leclerc starting to inch closer to him.

On lap 30, Norris completely missed his braking point for the Roggia chicane and did not even attempt to make the corner, choosing to take the escape road instead. The unforced error cost him almost two seconds and brought Leclerc into DRS range of him in a role-reversal of the end of their first stint. Again, Norris pitted – this time as the leading car of the two – fitting a second set of hard tyres, rejoining behind Verstappen in sixth.

Ferrari were now second and third behind Piastri, Leclerc ahead of Sainz. While their rivals were two-stopping, both Ferrari drivers had been informed they were on ‘Plan C’ – likely following suit.

“Think about Plan B,” Sainz suggested to the team. With 18 laps remaining, going to the end on their worn hards would be a challenge, but hunting the Ferraris down after an extra stop would be too.

On lap 37, leader Piastri was asked directly by his team “do you think there is any chance we can one-stop?”.

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “The front-left is pretty dead.”

A lap later, the Ferrari pit wall made their call. “Plan B,” Sainz was told. “We are trying to go to the end, if you are happy.”

Roughly 10 seconds up the road, Leclerc was given a choice. “So, Charles, Sainz is thinking Plan B and we are considering it,” Bozzi informed him. “What do you think?”

“Yep. Copy that,” came Leclerc’s short and sweet reply.

At the same time, Piastri surrendered the lead to Leclerc by pitting, following his team mate with a second set of hards. When he emerged, he had 15 laps to make up 19 seconds and pass both Ferraris on old tyres to win.

But that would be no easy feat. Norris had quickly caught Verstappen with his fresh tyres but had still not passed him despite four laps within a second of his rival. Eventually Norris cleared the Red Bull at the start of lap 41, but Verstappen had stalled his progress at a crucial time.

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Sainz proved less of a hassle for Piastri as his tyres were now far beyond their best. Although the DRS zone on the pit straight had been extended by 103 metres for this year’s event, Piastri picked the second zone on the run to Ascari to make his move, charging around the outside before the chicane to sweep into second.

But even with Sainz dispatched, the gap to the leading Ferrari was still just over 11 seconds with eight-and-a-half laps remaining. Piastri pushed, taking a second and then 1.4s out of Leclerc’s lead over the next two laps, but then gained only five, seven and eight tenths on the Ferrari over the next three laps – not a pace that would allow him to catch Leclerc before the end.

Out front, Leclerc’s secret weapon was clear air. Being freed from behind the two McLarens had made it much easier for him to manage the wear on his left-front tyre and as the laps ticked down, it was dawning on McLaren that they would run out of time.

Leclerc had requested no unnecessary instructions or information from Bozzi over the final 10 laps, but he was having to contend with other distractions. As he had done over the closing laps in Monaco earlier in the year, Leclerc could not help but drink in the excitement of the fans trackside as they roared him on lap after lap.

“Just like in 2019, the last three, four, five laps it was quite difficult to keep the eyes on the track,” he later admitted. “I was obviously looking a little bit in the grandstand. I could see everybody was standing up and that was really nice to see.”

His thoughts turned to his previous win at Ferrari’s home track. “In 2019, I remember there was my mum also in the grandstand because I didn’t manage to have a paddock pass for her. This year, she actually had a paddock pass, so it’s good.”

Too many times in recent years, Ferrari’s shaky strategy calls had frustrated their drivers, infuriated their fans and delighted their detractors. But at their home race, with little to lose, being bold enough to try what none of their rivals had been willing to do had paid off handsomely.

Leclerc approached the final corner – officially named after one of his predecessors, Alboreto, though still thought of by most as Parabolica – ready to celebrate a win snatched from Ferrari’s old rivals on home ground. It was not the first time Leclerc had delivered the dream result of a Ferrari victory to the tifosi, but winning so unexpectedly and through such a display of skill made this much more rewarding.

“The second one just feels as special,” he said. “Today I did not expect it going to the race.

“To stand up on that podium in front of all the tifosi… it’s an incredible feeling to be racing for Ferrari in Monza, but it’s also very tiring. And to be able to win here is extremely special.”

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Piastri fell just two seconds short of catching Leclerc before the end of the race. Yet again, McLaren appeared to have been in a strong position to win, only for one of their rivals to snatch it from them – first Red Bull, then Mercedes and now Ferrari. He could only lament that extra pit stop ultimately cost him the win.

“In hindsight, clearly stopping once was the right thing to do,” he was forced to admit after the race. “With all the information that we’d gathered through the weekend, it seemed incredibly risky. Obviously it hurts at the moment, but I think in the moment it was the right thing to do.”

Norris had achieved his goal of further chipping away at Verstappen’s championship lead from the weekend, but finishing in third after starting from pole on a weekend where Red Bull had been at their weakest since Monaco was little to be proud of.

“It’s pretty disappointing,” Norris said. “Charles drove a great race, honestly. Hard to know if we could have done what he did today, but they deserved it. So, a shame, but that’s what it is.”

Fourth place was claimed by Sainz, seven seconds clear of Hamilton in fifth. Verstappen was over 15 seconds further back in sixth after a dismal weekend by Red Bull’s standards. On top of his car’s poor balance, a slow pit stop and loss of performance from his power unit further spoiled his day. Russell recovered from his wing change to beat Perez to seventh.

Kevin Magnussen finished ninth on the road but dropped behind Alexander Albon in the final results after a ten-second time penalty for contact with Pierre Gasly. While Magnussen claimed the final point in tenth, it came at a hefty cost. The two penalty points he earned for the Gasly clash meant he became the first F1 driver ever to be hit by a race ban for accruing 12 penalty points in a year.

Curiously, Leclerc had now won the slowest and the fastest grands prix of the season. Stepping onto the iconic Monza podium overlooking the mass of enraptured fans, Leclerc led them in the loudest national anthem rendition of the season, singing along as if it was his own. His team had given him a chance to win and that was all he had needed. But entering the final eight rounds of the championship, the race winner urged for patience for Ferrari’s fans once the excitement of his victory had faded.

“It’s very important that not only the team, but I think also the expectations from outside don’t become crazy high from one race to another, because this is not realistic,” Leclerc stressed.

“Have we done a step forward? Yes. Is it enough to go and win races until the end of the season? I don’t think so yet. But we did a good step in the right direction.”