Italian GP: Martin Brundle on Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris team orders, ‘tremendous’ Red Bull turnaround and ‘happier’ Lewis Hamilton | F1 News

Qualifying in Monza generated the fastest average speed lap in F1 history, and for only the second time in 54 years we witnessed a new fastest race record, a full 55 seconds faster than the previous best.

Such pace of course depends on lack of Safety Cars or red flags, and dry conditions. Also, over the decades chicanes have been introduced in order to keep top speeds down for the safety of the fans, the track workers, and the drivers. Cars have often slowed in terms of power and grip for the same reasons, yet such is the relentless technical progress in F1, here we are faster than ever.

Monza was also a good reminder that great track action is not all about lap times, something we will probably have to remind ourselves of in 2026. Watching Caterhams race on a national circuit, or original Minis at the Goodwood Revival can have you on the dev of your seat at a fraction of F1 speeds. MotoGP and Superbikes are over half a minute a lap slower than F1 at directly comparable circuits, but they are equally mesmerising too.

Tremendous Red Bull and happier Hamilton

Max Verstappen grabbed pole position in Italy with another great lap, but it wasn’t simply one of his laser-guided specials at just the right moment, he and his Red Bull clearly had good single-lap and long-run speed. This was a tremendous turnaround from the ‘monster’ he struggled with a year ago.

The two McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri lined up second and third, and it was a weekend where, fresh from his massive disappointment a week earlier in Zandvoort after his car failed, Norris was marginally the faster of the two championship contenders through the event.

We must remember and celebrate this time in F1 because the 20-car field is so professional and competitive throughout that any well-driven car in qualifying, or with a sweetly executed race strategy, can surprise and score great results.

Lewis Hamilton was carrying a five-place grid drop for speeding indiscretions going to the grid in Zandvoort which frankly were a fair cop, and he would start 10th, but once again coming though the pack as he did at Silverstone and other races, we would witness Lewis driving as we remember from years previous.

All round he looked more comfortable in the car, and seems to have had a mindset adjustment of making the best of what he has instead of being frustrated that he’s not got a race-winning car underneath him. He’s probably also come to terms with just how fast Charles Leclerc is. It was nice to observe Lewis looking happier.

Some teams found their cars more efficient and suited to the low downforce set up, others didn’t and struggled near the back such as Alpine. McLaren’s car is less dominant in low downforce setting, such as we’ll also see in Las Vegas, and their clear advantage in long fast corners around 125mph, and in managing their tyre degradation much better than others, simply didn’t count on this high top speed track with very low tyre degradation.

Impressive Piastri navigates high-risk opening laps

And so that would play out in the race with Verstappen eventually waltzing away at the front with apparent ease in a manner we became very used to in more recent years.

The first few laps were entertaining. Despite running out of road and onto the grass on the run down to the first corner, Norris kept his foot in and claimed the inside line. Max went deep and had to take to the escape road cutting the apex of turn two, emerging in the lead. Quite rightly his team asked him to yield to Norris, which also showed the confidence they had in their combined pace on the day.

Piastri lost out a little behind this scuffle and Leclerc passed him, only for Piastri to sail around the outside of the first Lesmo corner in hugely impressive style. Leclerc would come back at him and they raced hard, and championship leader Piastri’s front wing and suspensions were frequently at high risk, but the control and judgement (and trust) these frontrunning megastars have is quite something to observe.

Eventually it became a three-horse race with the McLarens just about keeping Max in sight. Eventually the team’s only chance to disrupt Red Bull’s metronomic pace was to do something different. Verstappen pitted on lap 37 for new hard compound tyres, McLaren extended to lap 45 with Piastri first in with a magical 1.9-second stop for used soft tyres to protect against a hard-charging Leclerc who had fitted new hard tyres as early as lap 33.

Normally Norris would have the luxury of pitting first as the frontrunning McLaren, but he had a cushion and team protection against his team-mate in the circumstances. He pitted a lap later on 46 but there was an issue with the front left wheel gun and it was a yawning 5.9 seconds he was stationary. And he emerged inevitably behind Piastri.

McLaren team order swap was right call

McLaren now had a problem, the team had swapped pit stops around and hurt Norris through no fault of his own other then being compliant with a team request. That 1.9-second stop could and should have been his normally.

They asked Piastri to yield and swap positions. He was unsurprisingly reluctant as that’s a six-point swing in the championship battle with Norris, but he complied and I believe that was the right thing to do all round, as happened in reverse in Hungary last year.

If Norris had for example run long in his stop and scattered his mechanics, or it had simply been a slow stop, then that’s the way the cookie crumbles. But there were a number of aspects to this scenario including prior discussions and agreements. The cohesion of this team is what’s making it so dominant this season and both drivers are smart enough to realise that for both now and into the future. Don’t judge either of them for playing the team game, all the other teams on the grid would kill to have two great drivers working in tandem for the good of the team like this, while also racing the wheels off the cars and doing their best to beat each other.

At least Piastri did gain the advantage of now being in Norris’ DRS rear wing open range, but Norris continued to have the pace.

Bearman at risk of race ban after unfair penalty

There were plenty of skirmishes throughout the field and the race, not least between Ollie Bearman and Carlos Sainz. Bearman is now just two penalty points away from a race ban after various indiscretions, but I thought Monza was unfair on him. Sainz went down the outside into the second chicane, eventually clearly partly ahead, but Bearman couldn’t simply evaporate on the inside and they collided as Sainz swept into the apex. I think his job was also to at least compromise Sainz’s progress through the chicane and try to overtake him on the exit.

Sainz described it afterwards as a typical Monza racing incident and I believe it was, but Bearman took a 10-second penalty and two penalty points on his licence. The last driver to miss a race through totting up points was Kevin Magnussen, and his stand-in was Bearman…

But there’s a much bigger picture here for some drivers to consider, because it actually doesn’t matter whose fault it is, contact with other cars costs points and podiums, as likely happened in Monza for those two. It was the same a week earlier in Zandvoort when neither Sainz nor Liam Lawson would yield in Turn 1 and it cost them dearly. It’s like having a crash on the road which you could have avoided but didn’t because you were ‘in the right’, but also now in hospital with a written-off car.

If you want examples of what works, check out Norris and Vertsappen in Turn 1 in Zandvoort and Piastri and Leclerc in Monza.

There were some other stand-out performances from Alex Albon in his Williams in seventh, Gabriel Bortoleto in his Sauber in eighth, and Isack Hadjar in his Racing Bull in 10th from a pit lane start.

Max won by 20 seconds from McLaren, albeit four of those seconds lost with the pit stop and subsequent swaparound, but that’s still nearly a minute of net turnaround for Red Bull since last year. Impressive.

MB

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