The Unchained Verdict: Who Delivered at Monza — and Who Let It Slip

One race. Eight verdicts. My take on who seized Monza’s biggest opportunities—and who let one of Formula 1’s most unforgiving stages expose what went wrong.

By Miki | F1Unchained

Monza produced a result that looked straightforward at the top and anything but underneath it. I’m not judging these drivers and teams only by where they finished. I’m judging what they did with the opportunity in front of them—whether that meant fighting for a home victory, converting a shock pole, recovering from a compromised grid position or simply bringing both cars home in the points.

DELIVERED

KIMI ANTONELLI

Starting 19th after a power-unit penalty should have turned Antonelli’s home race into damage limitation. Instead, he fought through the field, hunted down George Russell and completed the decisive pass on Lap 50. He then set the fastest lap on his final tour and extended his championship lead to 66 points.

Becoming the first Italian driver to win at Monza since Ludovico Scarfiotti in 1966 made the result historic. The way Antonelli achieved it made the performance even more impressive.

PIERRE GASLY

Gasly could not convert his maiden pole into a podium, but I still consider this a delivered weekend. He led the opening lap, restarted from second and fought drivers in machinery that was ultimately much faster over a full race distance.

Once the front-runners came through, Gasly focused on maximising what remained and finished seventh as the best driver outside the leading teams. Pole position and six points from that Alpine represented an excellent return.

MAX VERSTAPPEN

This was much closer to the Verstappen performance we expect. Starting fifth, he attacked immediately, briefly led the race and made both Mercedes drivers work for their positions.

Red Bull lacked Mercedes’ straight-line speed, but Verstappen remained involved in the lead fight and recovered to finish third after the Virtual Safety Car reshuffled the strategy. Sometimes the simplest description is the right one: Max being Max.

LANDO NORRIS

Brake problems compromised Norris throughout qualifying and left him eighth on the grid. His race was not immediately convincing either, as he struggled to bring the hard tyres into their operating window after the restart.

But once the tyres came alive, Norris found his pace. He fought through to the McLarens ahead, passed Piastri during their late battle and beat his teammate by just 0.197 seconds. It was not a spectacular result on paper, but he delivered when the opportunity finally arrived.

RACING BULLS

Gasly’s surprise pole gave Alpine a major opportunity to gain ground, but Racing Bulls limited the damage by bringing both cars home in the points.

Arvid Lindblad finished eighth after another composed midfield performance, while Yuki Tsunoda recovered from 15th to take tenth in only his second race back with the team. Neither result will dominate the headlines, but scoring with both cars when a direct rival started from pole was strong execution.

LET IT SLIP

FERRARI

Ferrari’s home race began badly and unravelled almost immediately. The first-lap fight between Leclerc and Hamilton sent Hamilton through the gravel and down the order, although the stewards treated it as a racing incident.

One lap later, Leclerc lost control at the final corner while fighting Piastri and crashed heavily into the barriers—an uncomfortable echo of his accident at the same circuit in 2020. Hamilton recovered to sixth, but that was little consolation after Ferrari had started with both cars on the second row.

This was not simply an underwhelming result. It was a painful home-race collapse.

ASTON MARTIN

Aston Martin left Monza with two retirements and very little encouragement. Alonso damaged his car after hitting a kerb, while Stroll stopped with a hydraulic problem that triggered the race-changing Virtual Safety Car.

The failures were different, but the outcome was the same. For me, Monza exposed how far Aston Martin still has to go when straight-line efficiency and power-unit performance become decisive.

OSCAR PIASTRI

Piastri was third-fastest in qualifying, but an avoidable impeding penalty dropped him to sixth on the grid before the race even began.

His performance was stronger than it had been in recent weekends. He spent much of the race ahead of Norris and remained competitive during several close fights, but he could not finish the job against his teammate. Norris passed him late, leaving Piastri fifth by only 0.197 seconds.

There were clear signs of progress, but this was still an opportunity that slipped away.

THE FINAL VERDICT

Monza rewarded the drivers who kept creating opportunities even after the race appeared to move against them. Antonelli turned a back-of-the-grid penalty into history. Norris recovered from a difficult qualifying session and a slow start to his final stint. Verstappen forced himself into a fight Red Bull did not look quick enough to join, while Gasly and Racing Bulls extracted valuable points from very different circumstances.

Ferrari showed the other side of that equation. Starting both cars on the second row should have created a platform for a strong home result, but the opportunity disappeared within two laps. Aston Martin left with nothing, while Piastri allowed a better weekend to end behind the teammate he had spent much of the race leading.

That is the difference The Unchained Verdict is designed to capture. The classification tells us where everyone finished. It does not always tell us who made the most of what they had.

Some seized Monza. Others let it slip.

— Miki

What’s your take: which Monza verdict do you agree with most—and who would you move to the other side of the list?

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