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Ferrari may have arrived at their second home race of the year at Monza with all hopes of a world championship all but extinguished by the brutal speed and consistency of Max Verstappen and Red Bull, but everyone representing the Prancing Horse in the paddock this weekend – from mechanics and hospitality staff up to Binotto himself – was keen to demonstrate that the team retained that team spirit.
For 15 rounds in 2022, Ferrari have faced relentless scrutiny from all quarters. Every slip-up over every weekend provided easy fodder for content creators across the internet to mercilessly mock Maranello’s finest. Commentators openly chastising the team’s strategy calls every Sunday.
In Italy, so fiercely proud of Ferrari’s status as the most revered car brand on the planet, the frustration at their failures grew so strong that red stickers proclaiming ‘BinottOut’ were spotted on light poles, benches and other objects around the grounds of Monza.
But while the voices of pundits or a few disgruntled ticketholders can be easily dismissed, those of Ferrari’s chairman, John Elkann, are not. With the boss’s boss and the Italian President both in attendance at the circuit on Sunday, Ferrari headed to the Autodromo knowing no less than their very best would be accepted.No wonder, then, that Charles Leclerc had been so thrilled to have secured pole position for the race on Saturday afternoon. It had been a near-inevitability, with Verstappen due to drop five places on the grid for a fourth power unit and Carlos Sainz Jnr, Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez all set to be demoted to the back of the grid for similar technical offences. However, beating Verstappen on merit for the first time in four rounds gave Ferrari the best possible chance of victory on Sunday. What Leclerc now needed to do was to beat his fellow front row starter, George Russell in the sprint to the Rettifilo.
When the lights went out, the Mercedes’ getaway was just as good as the Ferrari’s. Russell’s front wheels were level with Leclerc’s rear wheels for just a second, before the Mercedes switched from the inside line to dive down the outside of the Ferrari under braking for the Rettifilo chicane. Russell held on around the outside of the right-hander but Leclerc had no intentions of letting him hog the inside for the second turn, with Russell bouncing over the kerbs over the inside runoff, emerging ahead of Leclerc.
As the field rounded Curva Grande for the first time, the pair led the two previous Monza winners with Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren in third and Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri. Behind, Verstappen was already up to fifth – two cars already dispatched before emerging out from the Rettifilo. Gasly’s fourth place lasted roughly 40 seconds longer, before Verstappen carved up the inside under braking for Ascari. His quest to reach the lead from seventh on the grid was already half-complete before the end of the first lap.
At the start of the lap two, Verstappen proved his higher downforce set up for the weekend would be no obstruction to his ability to overtake that afternoon, breezing past Ricciardo on the pit straight as if he was already lapping the McLaren.
“Good job Max,” Verstappen’s engineer Gianpiero Lambiase casually praised his driver. “That’s P3 for the moment.”
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Out front, Leclerc was already being warned of Verstappen’s progress. Only Russell now stood between the two, but with DRS activated, the Red Bull was enjoying a 20km/h speed advantage over the Mercedes. At the start of lap five, he used it to slip inside of Russell into the Rettifilo and move into second place.
Despite being easily passed, Russell managed to cling onto the back of the Red Bull and remain within DRS range, allowing him to be pulled along in Verstappen’s slipstream as the championship leader closed up on the leader. The trio were already six seconds clear of last year’s winner, Daniel Ricciardo, who headed up the remaining cars. Of those who started out of position at the back, Sainz was having by far the better recovery, having already gained seven places to 11th, while Perez had fallen one position to 14th and Hamilton had only moved up one spot to 18th.
Verstappen continued his steady march towards the back of the Ferrari. With the three leading cars on fresh soft tyres, they would all likely be looking to run as long as they could to make a one-stop strategy work, with Pirelli estimating that around lap 18-20 would be the best time to do so. But then, suddenly, the dynamic shifted when Sebastian Vettel began to report a loss of power on his Aston Martin at the end of lap 11, puffs of smoke coughing out of the rear of the car.
Vettel pulled off at the exit of the second Lesmo, leading to yellow flags as he began to climb out of his stricken car. When Ferrari warned the leader of the hazard half a lap ahead of him, Leclerc did not hesitate.
“Is the Safety Car window open?,” he asked, only for the Virtual Safety Car to be deployed just seconds later. “What do you think about boxing for Plan A?,” Marcos Padros asked his driver.
“Err, yeah,” Leclerc replied, mulling the question over in his mind. “It will be tight, but it’s probably the best solution, yeah?”
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Ferrari agreed, calling their man in at the end of the 12th lap to switch not to hard tyres, but to mediums – leaving him with a tough challenge to make his tyres last until the end of the race.
Unfortunately for Ferrari, Vettel’s car was now already cleared. As he entered the pit lane, the VSC period was ending. At almost the exact same time that Leclerc dropped the clutch to leave his pit box with his shiny new set of mediums, the green flags flew and new leader Verstappen resumed at racing speeds. Luckily, Leclerc emerged third – just as Ferrari predicted – avoiding the train behind Ricciardo. But the restart timing had cost them a handful of seconds they otherwise would have gained.
“With hindsight, we believe it was the right decision,” Mattia Binotto later explained after the race.
“We knew that Charles has got good pace, but Max got better tyre degradation and he was already faster to us and staying on the simple same strategy of him, he would have beaten us sooner or later. So the only chance for us was somehow try to move the strategy on two stops and not staying one and pitting at the time of the Virtual Safety Car.”
A total of 17 seconds separated Leclerc on his fresh tyres from Verstappen. After carefully bringing his new mediums up to temperature, Leclerc began to chip away at that advantage, as concerned with preserving the life of his tyres as he was bridging the gap to the leader.
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However, Ferrari knew that even with the benefit of a stop under VSC, they would still struggle to beat Verstappen in a straight fight with the pair on a one-stop strategy. Instead, Ferrari pivoted to “Plan C”, likely committing to a two-stop strategy in order to give themselves some kind of alternative form of attack.
Two laps later, it was Verstappen’s turn. But rather than hard tyres, he stuck with mediums. As Leclerc zoomed by the pit lane and back into the lead, Lambiase was quick to stress to his driver that he could take his time, rather than commence an all-out attack straight out of the pits.
“You’ve got a 14-lap advantage on Leclerc’s tyre set, so bring these in gently,” Lambiase instructed his driver. “Still a 28-lap stint to go – you’ll need them.”
Whether Verstappen listened or not to the advice was unclear as he immediately began to eat into the 10-second lead Leclerc held, lowering the fastest lap in the race up to that point. Any questions of whether the mediums were the right option appeared to be answered by Russell behind them, who was not enjoying his move to the hardest compound.“I’m not very happy on this tyre,” Russell reported. “I don’t feel the grip – sliding. I’m just going to go as fast as I can.”
Leclerc’s lead shrank as Verstappen went ever faster, taking a full second out of the Ferrari on the 32nd lap. In response, Ferrari pulled the trigger and Leclerc was in at the end of the next lap, bolting a new set of softs on his car and sending him back out just ahead of Russell to hold second place. With just 19 laps now remaining, Verstappen’s lead sat at 19.6 seconds. To win, Leclerc would have to take just over a second per lap out of the Red Bull, then find a way past.
Instead, it took five whole laps before Leclerc could get Verstappen’s lead under 19 seconds at all. Even with faster tyres that were nine laps younger, it still was not enough to allow Leclerc to make any kind of reasonable progress on the leader. Five laps later, the gap remained north of 17 seconds. Just as he had for the four previous races, Verstappen appeared to be totally at ease at the front of the field without needing to even consider glancing in his mirrors at any point.
“I’ve lost the engine,” Ricciardo reported. “I’ve lost the engine.”
Unlike Vettel earlier in the race, Ricciardo was unable to pull off past the second Lesmo to the access road and instead had to stop on the side of the track between the two right-handers. As the yellow flags waved, Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes each put their top three drivers on standby to pit the moment they saw any Safety Car or VSC indication. Verstappen and Leclerc passed the pit lane, but there was no such call. Until, exactly one minute after the first yellow flags, the Safety Car was indeed deployed.
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Exiting the Parabolica, Russell had to react instantly to the signals to pull into the pits. He had a set of used softs fitted to his car and was released still in third, as fourth-placed Sainz also stopped behind. Verstappen and Leclerc were both called in with the pair also reassured that they would not lose track position by doing so, making their stops at the end of lap 48.
Half a lap behind, Russell had caught the Safety Car. But while he was not the leader, he was also not getting the signal to pass the Aston Martin Vantage. After checking the situation with his race engineer Ricardo Musconi, Russell held back:
| Musconi | So you can go by. You’re not the leader. You can go by the Safety Car. |
| Russell | Are you sure? I can overtake the Safety Car? |
| Musconi | If there’s a green light on top. |
| Russell | There’s a yellow light on top. |
| Musconi | They should wave you through. |
| Russell | Copy that – I will overtake the Safety Car. |
| Musconi | Stay behind, stay behind. When the lights are green, they should wave you through. |
But the lights did not go green. Instead, Russell remained stuck behind the Safety Car for two more laps until being eventually released along with the queue of cars behind him on lap 51 – by which time Verstappen had caught the rear of the train that he was supposed to be leading.
“How many laps left?,” Leclerc enquired. “Two laps left,” he was told. A few moments later, Leclerc received the news he did not want to hear.
“And we will finish the race behind the Safety Car,” Marcos Padros disappointedly informed him.
“Oh, come on!,” Leclerc groaned, gesticulating his disgust out of the cockpit. “It’s clear!”
“Bullshit!” he raged. “It’s cleared now. It’s a joke. It’s a joke. It’s a big joke. The track was cleared, come on! We are in Formula 1. What are we doing?”
Denied a chance to at least try and fight Verstappen over a shootout of a lap or two, Leclerc could only cruise around the final 5.8 kilometres and look on as his rival crossed the line ahead of him to take the chequered flag first for the 11th time in 2022.
But Leclerc knew he could have no complaints about the victor, who continued to demonstrate near unstoppable race pace to overcome his latest grid handicap of five place for his fifth straight win.
“We had a great race,” Verstappen said. “On every compound, we were quickest.
“I was just controlling the gap at the end, but of course then the Safety Car came out. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a restart. But overall, we had again a really good day.”
Russell was satisfied with third. Sainz made the best of a bad starting situation to end up fourth at the finish, ahead of fellow rear starters Hamilton and Perez, the latter having lost places to both of them. Lando Norris took advantage of a poor race for Alpine to take modest points out of Alpine’s lead over McLaren in their battle for fourth in the constructors’ championship, while Pierre Gasly finished eighth.
On his unexpected grand prix debut, Nyck de Vries claimed a highly impressive ninth place, having to be carried out of his car due to the strain on his shoulders. The strain of holding off 10th-placed Zhou Guanyu for the majority of the race appeared to take a toll, as the Alfa Romeo driver ended his team’s six-race points drought.
“It’s not difficult, it’s impossible to beat the fastest car,” conceded Binotto.
“Normally you win if you’ve got the fast car and you may only make it wrong with strategies and lose the race if you’ve got a fast car, with strategy. So I think today he was faster – whatever has been the strategy, he would have won.”
Leclerc, resigned to the near-certainty this will not be his year, could take solace in the unwavering support from the fans as he looked out over the sea of red from the Monza podium – even if not from as high an angle as he’d prefer to have done.
“It’s always incredible,” he said.
“Starting from pole, I wanted to get that – and we didn’t. So it’s not the best day, but the podium makes it a lot better.”
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2022 Italian Grand Prix
- F1 warned to avoid “knee-jerk” red flag rule change after criticised Monza finish
- McLaren ‘surprised two teams found more performance than everyone else’ in 2022
- Alpine confident for Singapore and Suzuka races after “massive” floor upgrade
- Red Bull’s RB18 suits Verstappen more than Perez now – but that’s not by design
- “We’ll have four racing laps’: How F1’s Safety Car confusion unfolded at Monza
2022 F1 race reviews
- Verstappen smokes his rivals one last time as Vettel goes out fighting
- Russell banishes memory of lost Sakhir win with breakthrough triumph in Brazil
- How Mercedes failed to make Verstappen fight for his record 14th win
- Verstappen brings joy to bereft Red Bull team by delivering constructors’ title
- Verstappen is champion again with classy drive in anti-climactic decider
MCG (@malrg)
12th September 2022, 7:13
So many arguments about the end of the race in the other articles. Max was going to win this no matter how it was managed. the only thing that could stop him was mechanical failure. Right now he is hands down the best driver on track and combined with a very competitive car an unstoppable force.
S
12th September 2022, 9:40
Nobody is arguing about what the results might have been, only that the race ending was completely fumbled by Race Control.
Of course Verstappen would still have won, but it would have been far better to see them race for it for a couple of laps at the end.
grat
13th September 2022, 1:24
He blew past 6 cars on the opening lap. You really think there would have been any other result?
S
13th September 2022, 7:46
No, I don’t think that. I even said it explicitly.
But I’d still rather see racing under competitive conditions, regardless of the result.
ttongsul (@ccpbioweapon)
12th September 2022, 14:15
@malrg “Right now he is hands down the best driver on track”
So when Lewis wins its the car but when its max he wins because he is the best driver?
Ridiculous double standards there.
Also we don’t know who would’ve won if there was a red flag restart but we will never know due to the FIA meddling in the end of the race again..
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2022, 18:27
Indeed, can’t say verstappen is the best driver when he also has a better car than his most realistic opponents, true that leclerc made a couple of costing mistakes, but verstappen made them too, you can’t tell me doing a full 360 isn’t a mistake, or going off due to a gust of wind, he just didn’t pay for them.
grat
13th September 2022, 1:25
You must be new here. It’s been that way since 2014. Or 2008, depending on who you ask.
Leonard ‘Big Lenny’ Persin (@)
12th September 2022, 7:39
Ferrari shying away from letting Leclerc defend for a few laps from Max. How often do they put Leclerc before max closes in fully? Too often; I almost think they do this to avoid an on track pass.
They tried everything they could except for a direct fight.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th September 2022, 8:12
@theessence I’ve also noted this.
MattDS (@mattds)
12th September 2022, 13:27
@theessence because if they pit him while still having 6-7 seconds lead, they are at least putting him on a strategy that sees him with better tyres trying to make up less than a full pit stop, and he retains track position should RBR pit Max too.
If they leave him out until Max is there. Once he makes a pass (and given the tyre difference, the great straightline speed of the Red Bull and Max’s overtaking capabilities that would very likely not have taken long) it effectively means that Max can also pit and possibly even keep track position. At that point any and all cards Ferrari/Leclerc hold are off.
Leonard ‘Big Lenny’ Persin (@)
12th September 2022, 15:02
We’ve seen strong defences before at Monza even. It was worth a try. If Leclerc could have made a fight of it, he would have taken time out of Max at the least, on top of this he might have been able to overheat Max’s tyres, could have forced an error opening a gap, he could just have got tough and risk a racing incident… It’s even possible Max wouldn’t have enough delta to overtake. It’s also possible with a few extra laps ahead that there’s a safety car or vac and he gets lucky with it.
And if Max was able to overtake (instead of Leclerc pitting as soon as he got within 1.7 seconds) he could have pitted for the undercut and an even greater delta than what he would have had with an earlier stop.
If you’ve not got the fastest car on pure pace, and you have no significant advantage on strategy, you need to give yourself track position and try to fight wheel to wheel to create your opportunities, if not, you are just admitting defeat
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2022, 18:31
Yes, they should’ve tried, especially at home, however I’m not sure they could’ve defended with that strategy in the 2nd stint; instead, in the first stint, he seemed to lose small enough amounts to defend indefinitely, so maybe the vsc pit stop was wrong.
MattDS (@mattds)
12th September 2022, 22:28
@theessence
But if they had waited until an overtake happened he would have had (slightly) more than a pit stop to make up in just one stint. I get you are making a case for trying to get ahead on strategy, but that would just be too optimistic.
Risk a racing incident… Max at this point has nothing to lose anymore, Ferrari were trying to save some face for the own crowd so they clearly had more to lose.
The SC imo is the only really valid argument here.
But OK. To each their own opinion!
jff
12th September 2022, 8:14
Whenever Binotto declares with hindsight that it was ‘the right decision’, then we all know it was a mistake.
At least we would’ve had fight for the win if they didn’t pit that early or if they had gone for Hard tyres.
MichaelN
12th September 2022, 11:42
So much talk about the safety car hides that the rest of the race was fairly stale. Out of 20 drivers, only two had a genuine chance to win, and it wasn’t even close to a 50/50 split between them.
It should be of some concern to Liberty that even with the budget cap, most teams seem incapable of building a competitive car. And with Red Bull opting for a “Bottas” rather than a “Rosberg”, the result is predictably dull.
F1 sells itself well, but compared to the races in Indycar and the WEC this weekend its actual product remains lacking.
Allerd
12th September 2022, 12:04
Who’d you see as a potential “Rosberg’ for Max?
MichaelN
12th September 2022, 16:49
Finding a true “Rosberg” is hard, absolutely. But they had Ricciardo and Sainz under contract and they lost both. Part of that is on the drivers and their ego, definitely, but also on Red Bull for not providing them an environment that gave them confidence they could race alongside Verstappen as equals. They went through their entire junior catalogue and found nothing of note, and were lucky to do so during a period where they were uncompetitive anyway. Tsunoda and Gasly aren’t going to be that driver either.
I don’t think Ricciardo or Sainz could go head to head with Verstappen in his current form, and truly challenge him like Rosberg did with Hamilton in 2014 and 2016, but I suspect they wouldn’t be over 100 points behind either.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2022, 18:37
Ricciardo was definitely a rosberg back at red bull, yes, you see he beat verstappen on points with the help of reliability sometimes.
David BR (@david-br)
12th September 2022, 13:27
Perez is sub-Bottas.
The Rosberg-for-Max was Danny Ricciardo. Though there’s no way he’d be close either now were he to return. I don’t think anyone would beat Max regularly in that Red Bull. Maybe Piastri is good enough, no idea yet, he clearly has outhful confidence and a sure focus, so maybe. I’m not sure Red Bull had that many clear options when they signed Perez and even when they resigned. In fairness to them, they did try Albon and Gasly first.
jff
12th September 2022, 13:29
I guess that if you’re only interested in who wins the race/season, then F1 is not a good sport for you.
If you (also) get excited about the action on track even if it’s fighting for position 19, then a lot of pleasure can be found in the sport.
Ever
12th September 2022, 12:01
No thoughts about two Mercedes engines giving up and creating the ideal circumstances for Mercedes.
Interesting..
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2022, 18:42
Yes, it’s interesting to link engines to conspiracy theories, but since the race didn’t restart, I get ricciardo didn’t get his bonus money! Was a decent race for ricciardo, he seems to be more suited to monza, shame he didn’t get any points due to this, could ‘ve been his last.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2022, 18:42
I guess*, not get
hyoko
12th September 2022, 13:04
Losing a bit of respect for George Russell for the comment “He pushed me wide” very much Merc style, trying to force a penalty on his rival. Which would have been totally undeserved anyway, as Charles entered the turn ahead and just kept to the racing line.
GR did not use to be like that. Maybe sportsmanship is dead in F1 since the ugly days of Ayrton the Bully but I would still appreciate it.
David BR (@david-br)
12th September 2022, 13:16
It was daft but no different from any other driver. They all complain, especially when, I suspect, they know it’s not clear cut. I’ve literally heard similar hundreds of times. You really expect objectivity in the heat of racing?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2022, 18:44
Yes, unfortunately they ALL do that, don’t like it.
David BR (@david-br)
12th September 2022, 13:29
This season turned into a complete cake walk for Max when Leclerc span out on his own from the lead at the French GP. I can see him winning every single remaining race unless the Red Bull gives up.
George
12th September 2022, 13:43
Now Mad Max is winning by most races such huge margins I dont hear or see anyone on this site say that he is winning because he has the fastest car, which he most certainly has by far.When Lewis hamilton was winning people kept winning they kept on saying its because he is in the fastest car.
(something thats is totally not true as Hamilton won in a slow Mclaren car in 2010.).The fact is in formula one no world champion has ever won without having the fastest car or a leading car.
.Not shummy,not Vettal, Not Clark, not Fangio- NO ONE. People should now stop saying Hamilton always wins when he has the fastest car or winning only from the front because this is clearly not true.Mad Max and Red Bull clearly have the fastest car.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2022, 18:45
I do, he does have the fastest car in the last few races, at least spa, monza and zandvoort, there’s a case to be made for hungary, where leclerc was really competitive early on and could’ve won with a proper strategy.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2022, 18:47
Also it depends if you mean races or titles, it’s very possible to win races without the fastest car, those drivers all did, including hamilton, but titles, very rare, think about prost in 1986.
MCG (@malrg)
12th September 2022, 22:27
You don’t see that? Do you only read what suits the Lewis fan agenda. That rhetoric is all over this site. So many comments saying it is the RB, protecting the Lewis dominant times as all due to Lewis.
Interesting that Max is winning because he has by far the best car yet his Team mate is nowhere near in the same car, Kinda tells me there is more to it than the car alone. But yes the car needs to be competitive.
Itsmeagain (@itsme)
14th September 2022, 22:22
Than you haven’t read 80% of the comments here. Racefans readers are much more on lewis side with real frustrated ones between them. That’s alright. Get on the YT comment zone, that’s more an indication in how the popularity between these two is.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
12th September 2022, 14:24
I said a few days ago that I thought the best Ferrari could hope for here, knowing how fast the Red Bull is on the long straights, was one driver, or possibly both on the podium. Sainz delivered a pretty good race but of course he had the penalty. I think without this Ferrari would have almost certainly achieved this. Perez never looked as fast as the Ferraris.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
12th September 2022, 17:27
11 wins, 6 races to go…. no competition, no need to be on pole, no need for DRS, can start every race from pit lane and easily win.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that this is just the 1st year of changes and Red Bull struggled a bit.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2022, 18:49
Indeed, as it looks now verstappen could turn up on sunday, skip practice and quali every weekend and win, would prob be more interesting for us, would take a bit more to recover to 1st.