2024 Italian GP
Results
Race
Lewis Hamilton
1:21.512 Fastest Lap
53 Laps
5th
George Russell
1:22.036 Fastest Lap
53 Laps
7th
Qualifying
George Russell
1:19.440 Fastest Lap
18 Laps
3rd
Lewis Hamilton
1:19.513 Fastest Lap
18 Laps
6th
First Zandvoort, then Monza. Formula 1 returned from its summer break with two classic races in the space of a week. For the team, the Italian Grand Prix at the 'Temple of Speed' in the Royal Park of Monza was a rollercoaster of emotions.
From Lewis' fastest time in practice and Kimi's debut on Friday, to the announcement of the driver pairing for the 2025 season and a thrilling qualifying session on Saturday, to an exciting Grand Prix on Sunday where Lewis and George finished 5th and 7th respectively after a difficult start.
In an incredibly close qualifying session, with the top six separated by less than two-tenths of a second, George and Lewis qualified third and sixth respectively. George missed out on the front row by just four thousandths of a second.
Like the top six and the majority of the field, our duo started the race on Medium tyres. The two Red Bulls behind Lewis started on Hard tyres, as did Esteban Ocon, Yuki Tsunoda, Lance Stroll and Valtteri Bottas. Everyone else started on the yellow walled tyres.
The heat was blistering at the start of the race: 53°C on the track and 33°C in the air. However, there was a risk of rain.
George made a good start and attacked Oscar Piastri's McLaren before Turn 1, but had to avoid him in the braking zone and take the escape road. As a result, he dropped back to P7 behind Lewis and Max Verstappen.
George suffered damage to his front wing in the incident, but did not need to pit. Lewis, on the other hand, made up a position and was P5 after the first lap.
Lewis concentrated on tyre management for the first ten laps, but was then able to push a little harder.
George pitted for the first time on lap 12 to change his damaged front wing. He had previously lost pace and was pushed back to P8 by Sergio Perez. During his pit stop, he switched to the harder tyre compound. It was the first time the team had used this compound this weekend.
Four laps after George, Lewis also came in. He changed to Hard tyres and returned to the track in P10.
At this point, Oscar Piastri was leading the race ahead of Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc. Norris had successfully undercut the Ferrari driver. Meanwhile, Lewis and George were concentrating on bringing their tyres in gently, giving both the option of a one or two stop strategy.
Towards the middle of the race, both Red Bulls came in and changed from Hard to Hard, confirming their two-stop strategy. Verstappen came out ahead of George after a slow pit stop. Our duo were P5 and P8 at that point.
On lap 31, George caught Sergio Perez's Red Bull and attacked him at the first chicane. He was pushed off track and had to skip the chicane to get back in line behind the Mexican.
Shortly after that, George came into the pits for a second time to get new Hard tyres. His attempt to undercut Perez was unsuccessful, but he overtook the Mexican shortly after his stop in Turn 1.
At the same time, Lewis came in for his second stop to try an undercut on Carlos Sainz's Ferrari. He took fresh Hard tyres.
While Ferrari tried to get through with one stop, Verstappen stopped and rejoined the track on fresh Medium tyres, well behind Lewis.
Sainz opted for a one-stop strategy, but lost two seconds a lap in the closing laps, allowing Lewis to close in on him for P4.
Unfortunately, it was not enough to overtake the Spaniard. The same was true for George, who made up some ground on Verstappen towards the end, but was unable to overtake him.
The race was won by Charles Leclerc ahead of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
After the double-header immediately following the summer break, F1 takes a weekend off before resuming with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix (13-15 September), the first of back-to-back races in Baku and Singapore.
Lewis Hamilton
We didn’t have the pace today to fight for more. The McLarens and the Ferrari in particularly were strong. I managed to keep up with Sainz but couldn’t do the longer stint and the one-stop that he was able to. If we had started ahead of him, we might have been able to hold him off. Ultimately though, we needed a better balance with the car today to achieve much more.
It’s a shame to come away from a weekend where we were looking so strong without more to show for it. We looked good throughout practice and qualifying but couldn’t quite match that today. The field is so tight now and it will be fascinating to see what happens over the coming races. We will keep working hard and hopefully have a stronger race in Baku in two weeks’ time.
George Russell
It was a frustrating day today. Ultimately, we didn’t have the pace to fight for the podium, but my race came undone at the first corner. It is disappointing when that happens after all the efforts the team put in over the weekend. I made a good start but got caught in the dirty air behind Piastri. I locked up to avoid him and picked up some front-wing damage. That compromised my opening stint, and we lost time in the pit stop having to change the wing itself.
Our pace hasn’t been as strong as it was prior to the summer break, either here or in Zandvoort. As a team, we will go away, put the effort in, and find out why that is. Other teams seem to have taken a step forward so we will need to work diligently to get back onto terms with them.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO
Congratulations to Ferrari and Charles Leclerc on a well-deserved victory today. It is always a special moment when the scarlet red car wins here at Monza. Our own race was better than Zandvoort but still not good. We completed the two-stop strategy as we suffered from graining on the front left tyre, which made the one-stop unlikely. It was a difficult challenge to manage and hard to know whether to commit to the one-stop or push harder and go to the two-stop. Our pace today made it difficult to score much more than we did on either path though.
We have not performed at the level we did before the summer shutdown in the last two races. When you don’t have the pace, it makes strategy decisions difficult as we saw today. We have some time to analyse why that is now before Baku and aim to come back stronger.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
We didn't have a strong race today. Heading into the Grand Prix, we knew that the tyres were going to be fragile and likely require a bit of management in order to make long stints work. Unfortunately, we didn't have the pace to be able to both manage the tyres and keep up with our competitors ahead.
Lewis ended up P5 after lap one and came home in that same position. We tried the two-stop strategy against Sainz as it seemed unlikely we would be able to pass him on track. Unfortunately, we couldn’t recatch the Ferrari in the final stint. George meanwhile had a difficult first lap; he had to bail out at turn one when and then broke his front at the second chicane. That led to an early and long stop. We could have potentially gained a place on Verstappen if we had committed to the one stop but ultimately the opening lap damage was the bigger cost. It looks like we’ve lost some pace relative to our rivals since the summer break. We will go away and investigate why that is and what we need to do to put in a more competitive showing in Baku.
2024 Italian GP Result
1 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | |
2 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | +2.664 |
3 | Lando Norris | McLaren | +6.153 |
4 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | +15.621 |
5 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes-AMG | +22.820 |
6 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | +37.932 |
7 | George Russell | Mercedes-AMG | +39.715 |
8 | Sergio Pérez | Red Bull | +54.148 |
9 | Alexander Albon | Williams | +1:07.456 |
10 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | +1:08.302 |
11 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | +1:08.495 |
12 | Franco Colapinto | Williams | +1:21.308 |
13 | Daniel Ricciardo | Racing Bulls | +1:33.452 |
14 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | +1 lap |
15 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | +1 lap |
16 | Valtteri Bottas | Sauber | +1 lap |
17 | Nico Hülkenberg | Haas | +1 lap |
18 | Zhou Guanyu | Sauber | +1 lap |
19 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | +1 lap |
Yuki Tsunoda | Racing Bulls | DNF |