Max Verstappen threatens the next defeat in Monza: double pole for McLaren at the Italian Grand Prix, George Russell in P3 the first pursuer
Zandvoort winner Lando Norris continues his run of success in Formula 1 at the 2024 Italian Grand Prix in Monza. On Saturday, the McLaren driver secured pole position for Sunday’s race, while his great world championship rival Max Verstappen (Red Bull) was unable to get past 7th place.
For championship leader Verstappen, qualifying did not go according to plan. After the first Q3 run, he was 0.671 seconds down in 8th place, even behind his team-mate Sergio Perez. “I had no grip at all with this set. Shocking,” he wondered on the pit radio, having previously complained about ‘understeer in 6/7/8’.
On his very last lap, he failed to make any personal improvement in the first and second sectors. However, he still managed to overtake Perez. Perez, for his part, complained about a “peaky” tire, with which no flower pot could be won in the final. Perez finished eighth.
For McLaren, however, there was even a double pole: Norris edged out Oscar Piastri (“The last lap wasn’t good enough”) by 0.109 seconds. As he crossed the finish line, he said on the pit radio: “That was a crap lap. I’m sorry.”
Then his race engineer informed him of the pole, and Norris changed his mind: “Cool! I actually wanted to say the lap was outstanding!”
He later explained in the press conference: “It just didn’t feel like a well-taken lap.” The first corner in particular was faulty, as was Piastri’s. The Australian also said: “The first lap in Q3 was solid, but the second lap wasn’t as good as it should have been.”
In the end, six cars were within two tenths of a second of each other. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) finished fourth, although he had complained in Q2: “This car doesn’t steer at all.” Carlos Sainz finished P5. An okay result for Ferrari, even if they had secretly hoped for more in their home race.
Mercedes had the best speed of the qualifying session at times, but when they dropped their pants in Q3, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton lacked the very last bit. The bottom line was P3 for Russell and P6 for Hamilton – and a starting position very similar to that of Ferrari.
How does Red Bull explain another weak performance?
The dominance from the beginning of the season, as Monza now provides the final proof, is gone. And team boss Christian Horner is slowly running out of explanations: “We just don’t understand it. The balance is not there. It must be something very fundamental that we don’t have under control at the moment.”
Helmut Marko expressed his “lack of understanding” for the result to Sky when he said: “Perez was just as fast on used tires as Max was on new ones. Something doesn’t add up at all.” And he adds: “If we have the same underperformance in the race, then it looks bad. ”
Why was Yuki Tsunoda so angry?
The cut in Q1 was exactly between the two Racing Bulls: Daniel Ricciardo (1:20.901 minutes) just made the cut in 15th place, Yuki Tsunoda (1:20.945 minutes) retired in Q1. The Japanese driver cursed on the pit radio afterwards, saying the handling was “ridiculous” – for which he was promptly admonished by his race engineer: “Let’s keep it clean on the pit radio.”
Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), rookie Franco Colapinto (Williams), Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou (Sauber) also had to retire.
Colapinto, who replaces Logan Sargeant at Williams, had delivered a solid weekend so far. In Q1, however, he made a driving error on his decisive lap in the Lesmos, meaning that it was no longer possible to improve his time in the end.
In the end, the Argentinian was 0.519 seconds down on his team-mate. Albon finished eighth in Q1. “Sorry about that,” apologized Colapinto on the pit radio. He later said in the first interview: “Q2 would have been possible without the mistake. That shows that I still have a lot to learn. “
How did it go for Nico Hülkenberg?
Hülkenberg was 0.075 seconds faster than teammate Kevin Magnussen on his first Q1 lap. But then Magnussen came off the line in the Alboreto corner (formerly Parabolica) and understeered into the gravel in a “very bizarre way” (David Coulthard). Ultimately, neither Haas driver was able to improve their time.
Hülkenberg came into the pits, but his time was good enough to be allowed to compete in Q2. There he set the fastest first sector at the time and a best time of 1:20.411 minutes, which was just enough to qualify for Q3 – 0.010 seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin.
After his first Q3 lap, Hülkenberg said: “The used tire doesn’t actually feel bad at all.” At that point, he was four tenths of a second ahead of Albon in 9th place, but he still had to let the Williams driver past. The fresh tires at the end did not work to Hülkenberg’s liking.
Qualifying was “not quite perfect”, says the German, but he is “still happy to have made it into Q3 again. I think we can build on that tomorrow. We’ve done well so far this weekend. Now we have to keep it up for tomorrow and just stay clean. “
Who got caught out in Q2?
Apart from Alonso, who was only narrowly beaten by Hülkenberg. “I think eleventh place is better than expected,” the Spaniard radioed on his final lap – with an undertone that suggests he is not happy at the moment.
Daniel Ricciardo (Racing Bulls) finished twelfth, ahead of Magnussen, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon (both Alpine). Ocon complained afterwards on the pit radio: “Look at the entry switch. We messed that up.”
That left the top four teams, Albon and Hülkenberg for Q3. Probably the ten favorite drivers of this weekend anyway
Where can you watch the Italian Grand Prix live?
First of all: Even if you haven’t seen the sessions live, you can still get your fill of Formula 1 in the evening.Christian Nimmervoll and Frederik Hackbarth will be analyzing the day in Monza on Saturday at 22:30, supported by a nine-strong team of journalists on site at the race track.