The Red Bull Hero
In an Italian Grand Prix that will go down in history for the first victory by an Italian in 60 years and for the on-track spectacle, much of the Monza crowd also celebrated Max Verstappen, who with his 3rd place secured his fifth podium of the season, finishing in ‘first position’ behind the Mercedes duo.
Read more Skoda Superb, future in discussion
Behind the Mercedes, but ahead of the McLarens
Throughout the weekend, the Dutch Red Bull driver indeed battled in the top 5 to achieve the goal of a first victory or a podium, with efforts rewarded after exciting duels with the McLarens and taking advantage of a weekend to forget for Ferrari, worsened by the disappointment for the home crowd: “For us, it was really nice to get back on the podium, it’s always a special achievement here at Monza – commented the four-time world champion – we had to fight to get it and it wasn’t easy, but I think overall we did a great job. The main limitation was that we struggled very early with power delivery on the straights compared to the Mercedes-powered cars and there were still some issues. We came back to the pits on hard tires and climbed well in the standings. The asphalt had lightened in turn two and, while driving, I went straight because of the gravel. So the McLarens came back on track to overtake and it took a while to regain the position. Despite this, I think we did a great job, maximizing our performance and we can be proud of today’s result. I tried everything possible and even led the race at one point, which was exciting. Unfortunately, we couldn’t match the Mercedes, but being on the podium was a really fantastic end to the weekend.”
Read more Incentives, here is “the Gazzetta decree”, new provocation BYD
A performance incomparable to that of his teammate Liam Lawson, called once again by Red Bull to replace the injured Hadjar. The New Zealander, starting from the back of the grid, tried to recover as many positions as possible, but finished in 14th place: “It was quite a tough race. I had a great first lap from the pit lane and gained many positions, but on the restart I lost part of the front wing after contact with Nico (Hulkenberg), so I had to pit and lost more than 30 seconds. It’s a shame because we had great race pace, but with how the strategies evolved after the restart, no one pitted except during the Virtual Safety Car, so unfortunately we had too much time to recover. Without these problems, I think we would have had good chances to climb up the standings. Overall, it was a difficult weekend due to the engine penalty, but we managed to solve many of the issues we had yesterday and today we had good speed, so there is a lot to learn from this weekend.”
Read more Ferrari, watch Mercedes: here’s how the pits managed the Russell-Antonelli challenge
