No penalties, no safety cars, no traffic. There is seemingly nothing that can stop Max Verstappen’s determined march towards a second world title. The win at Monza this week makes it five in a row for the Dutchman who is driving and performing to an unmatched level of excellence.
The vociferous Tifosi was buoyed by a stunning pole position from Charles Leclerc on Saturday. And with Verstappen relegated to seventh, thanks to penalties, they would’ve believed it possible that a Ferrari driver may just stand on the top step of the famous podium come Sunday. But such was the pace of Verstappen that it all be negated his five-place grid drop within a handful of laps.
Leclerc started cleanly from pole with George Russell, promoted due to several penalties applied to others, challenged briefly. Ultimately, the Mercedes driver simply didn’t have the pace to live with either Verstappen or Leclerc.
For the first time in quite a while Ferrari’s woes cannot be blamed on a bizarre strategy call. As Verstappen slotted into P2 by lap 5 it was clear that the Red Bull pace wouldn’t be beaten in a straight-out fight. As it were, Vettel’s retirement from the race, with a suspected ERS issues, on lap 12 prompted the deployment of the Virtual Safety Car (VSC). It gave Leclerc and Ferrari the opportunity to opt for alternative strategy and they did. The Monegasque swopped his soft tyres for mediums while Verstappen stayed out. Being on the alternate tyre gave Leclerc at least some chance to upset the Red Bull apple cart, even if it was a long shot.
Verstappen would swop his softs for mediums on lap 26 and hand the lead of the race back to Leclerc. Again, Ferrari made a clever call to pit Leclerc for second time, this time giving him fresher, and hopefully quicker, soft tyres. With 20 laps to go Verstappen stayed out on his older mediums. But despite Leclerc’s tyre advantage he simply was not able to close the gap to Verstappen. A late race retirement from Daniel Ricciardo prompted the deployment of the full safety car on lap 48. The seemingly innocuous retirement of the McLaren became slightly more complex as the car remained stuck in gear and therefore unmovable by marshals. As it were, clearing the McLaren took longer than expected and the race eventually finished behind the safety car.
While ending a race behind the safety car is not the optimal conclusion there was little else race control could do. There are some who say that a red flag should have been brought out, however this option is reserved only for serious incidents and as the very last resort.
Behind the top three of Verstappen, Leclerc, and Russell the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz recovered, yes from penalties, to a solid fourth place. Lewis Hamilton and Checo Perez, also felled by grid penalties, were fifth and sixth ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris in seventh and Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly in eighth. But the drive of the day was delivered by ninth place finished Nyck De Vries. The Dutch Formula E champion was drafted in on Saturday morning after regular Williams driver was told to be suffering from appendicitis. With very little time behind the wheel De Vries delivered a stunning drive to finish with points on debut. He surely hasn’t done his chances of being in that Williams for 2023, any harm either. Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu was tenth at the chequered flag.
After a sprint of three consecutive races Formula 1 takes a collective breath before heading to Singapore in two weeks’ time. Remarkably, such has his dominance been in 2022 that Verstappen will arrive in South-East Asia with a chance of wrapping up the driver’s world title.
