For many years the 16th round of the world championship marked the end of the season. Over its 75-year history, 16 rounds is its modal length.
But in this, the longest ever championship schedule, round 16 marks only the end of the ‘European’ mid-season. The championship is two-thirds done, with eight grands prix still remaining.
While Max Verstappen won five of the first eight rounds, he’s taken just two of the last eight. With Ferrari’s resurgence last weekend, four teams can now consider themselves realistic contenders for victory.
Those four teams have now won three races each: Three apiece for Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes, while Red Bull have the other seven. This is the first time four different teams have taken at least three wins each since 1978.
This was not possible in the early years of the championship when fewer than 12 rounds were scheduled, which first happened in 1968. Since then there have only been three occasions when four different teams won three races in a season: 1974, 1977 and this year.
Two of the triple-winners are the same teams again: Ferrari and McLaren, who won four and three times respectively in 1977. Lotus enjoyed more success, with five wins, while newcomers Wolf also won on three occasions. Two other new teams also took their first wins – Ligier and Shadow – this being long before the days when incomers were barred on the presumption they would not be “competitive”.
It was a joyous occasion for Ferrari, who scored their 20th Italian Grand Prix victory in the world championship era. This was their first win at home since 2019, though they have also raced at Imola and Mugello since then without success.
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It was their second consecutive home win courtesy of Charles Leclerc. He scored the seventh victory of his career and the first which has come from outside the front row of the grid.
He won at an average speed of 246.431kph in a race which ran without interruptions from start to finish. This was the third-fastest grand prix of all time, behind two victories of the V10 era, both also at Monza: Juan Pablo Montoya’s 2005 win and Michael Schumacher’s 2003 record-setter, won at 247.586kph.
Of the top 10 fastest races of all time, only one did not take place at Monza: Pedro Rodriguez’s final victory on the daunting original Spa-Francorchamps layout on the last time F1 used it in 1970.
Leclerc now has as many wins as Montoya – which also means Monaco and Colombia now have the same number of race wins – and Rene Arnoux. The latter took 22 pole positions during his career and therefore has one of the lowest ratios of wins to poles of any driver. But despite this latest win, Leclerc still has the lowest ratio of wins to poles, at just 28%.
In another indication of how competitive the season has been, Leclerc is the fourth driver this year to win from outside front row. This was also achieved by Lando Norris in Miami, George Russell in Austria and Lewis Hamilton in Belgium.
Norris is another driver with an unwanted career record: He once again failed to lead the first lap of an F1 race after starting from pole position. He has never managed this in seven attempts across five grands prix and two sprint races.
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Oscar Piastri took the lead from him but wasn’t able to keep Leclerc from victory. He did, however, extend his personal best run of consecutive points finishes to 10 races for the first time in his career.
Norris’ fifth pole position means he now has as many as his former team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr as well as Giuseppe Farina, Chris Amon, Clay Regazzoni, Patrick Tambay and Keke Rosberg.
Although Norris has led the most laps of anyone over the last five grands prix, he did not officially lead at Monza, where five different drivers took turns in the lead. Unusually, the only other race to feature five leaders this year was at Spa, where Norris also did not lead.
Sergio Perez did lead a lap at Monza, however. This was the first time he has headed the field since the Las Vegas Grand Prix last year. His team mate Verstappen has led 534 laps during that time.
That was the only highlight of a poor weekend for Red Bull. McLaren out-scored them for the sixth event in a row, and the ninth out of the past 10. They are now just eight points behind and are poised to take the constructors’ championship lead off Red Bull at the next round.
It could get even worse for Red Bull if Ferrari’s resurgence continues, as they are only 39 points behind. Could the reigning champions fall to third in the constructors’ championship?
Finally, Franco Colapinto made his official debut as a grand prix driver, ending Argentina’s 23-year wait for a representative on the grid. Their last was Gaston Mazzacane in 2001, but the South American nation is of course far better known for the great Juan Manuel Fangio, who clinched the fourth of his five titles at the same venue where Colapinto’s career began.
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2024 Italian Grand Prix
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