Italian Grand Prix Report 2020 and Highlights: Pierre Gasly wins first victory in Monza from Sainz as Hamilton leaves P7 penalty kick

The spectacular Italian Grand Prix of 2020 saw Pierre Gasly of AlphaTauri win their first Formula 1 victory over the McLaren of Carlos Sainz and the Racing Point of Lance Stroll, where a violation under the safety car forced Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes on duty for a 10-second stop / go Penalty kick, leaving him in seventh place on the flag.

The race was turned upside down by a brought in safety car as the Haas injured by Kevin Magnussen had to be recovered. But with Hamilton diving into the pit lane when it closed (as did Antonio Giovinazzi of Alfa Romeo), he received a penalty – which he spent after the race resumed on lap 28 of 53, after a red flag period of 25 minutes thereafter. Charles Leclerc crashed hard in Parabolica.

WATCH: Italian Grand Prix raises the red flag as Leclerc moves away from a massive crash

That left Gasli on top of the field, having pitted before the safety car was taken out, with the Frenchman brilliantly continuing to score an impressive Formula 1 victory in the AlphaTauri home race, with McLaren’s Carlos Sainz finishing second, with Lance Stroll of Racing Point completing the podium.

Lando Norris finished fourth with McLaren, trailing Mercedes under Valtteri Bottas in P5, after the Finn suffered a bad start that left him sixth at the end of the first lap. To take the P7, with Renault Esteban Ocon, the second AlphaTauri by Daniel Kvyat and Racing Point of Sergio Perez from the top ten.

Both Ferrari retired from home racing, and meanwhile, Leclerc with his exit in Parabolica, while Sebastian Vettel had a brake failure on lap 6, While Max Verstappen is also retired on lap 31 – meaning it is the first time in the era of turbocharged hybrids that Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari have not finished on the podium.

As it happened

Starting with P2, Valtteri Bottas’ race started disastrously, With Hamilton doing a perfect distance from 1st place, while Carlos Sainz’s launch was impressive as he easily passed Bottas to finish second to Turn 1. Behind that, teammate Sainz Lando Norris was even more impressive, slipping through the pack from sixth on Grid to run alongside Bottas through the first mechanical streak.

He eventually had to concede to the Finn, but he took the outside streak to the second round and dramatically got his P3 from Mercedes, with Sergio Perez almost as well.

Fourth, Bottas’ fortunes will only get worse in the next few corners, with Perez securing a few corners on the road in Lismo 2, while Ricardo downgraded Bottas to sixth with his dash from the inside at Ascari.

As it happened – Formula 1 Gran Premio Heineken d’Italia 2020

Down the rankings, it wasn’t a great start for Red Bull, with Verstappen losing two places from fifth on the grid – and even falling briefly behind Lance Stroll’s Racing Point to P8 before re-overtaking the Canadian – while Alex Albon is flagged by Gasly’s AlphaTauri At turn 1 at the start and missed the corner, dropping it from P9 to P15.

With the pack steady, Hamilton was on lap 5 of the McLaren duo from Sainz and Norris, then Perez, Bottas and Verstappen in P7. At the other end of the field, tough tire-stricken Sebastian Vettel gained no positions from his start in P17 – while on lap 6, Ferrari driver bombing polystyrene panels On the escape route in Turn 1, his brakes failed. Meanwhile, Albon’s race took another hit, taking a five-second race penalty to pressure Romain Grosjean’s Haas into the first corner.

Things didn’t improve for Bottas either, who doesn’t seem to be making progress from sixth place, and the Finn had to cool down his Mercedes and loudly complain about the engine modes Mercedes chose to run. “I can’t race with these engine settings,” he said out loud on the team radio. “It’s a joke.”

Up front, by lap 20, Hamilton placed a 13-second gap between himself and Sainz, the Spaniard who had built his own pillow for more than 4 seconds to Norris, McLaren seemed relieved that they enjoyed having two cars in the top three for the first time since 2014. That pillow, though From that, it corroded in one fell swoop when Kevin Magnussen pulled his Haas VF-20 at the Parabolica exit on that lap, and pulled out the safety car.

READ MORE: After the Italian GP’s nightmare, Vettel says to Ferrari: “ It’s a blessing there’s no one in the stands.

Hamilton instantly instinctively shoved his car into the pits In order to change the tires to medium, Sainz stayed out to take the lead, with Giovinazzi following Hamilton at the back. It was a big mistake from Hamilton and Juvenazi, who both failed to discover that the pit pass was closed while retrieving the Magnussen …

Once the pit lane opened again, Sainz and Norris led the majority of the field, with Stroll choosing not to dig and grabbing P2, while swinging in front of the safety car, Gasly entered a promising P3, with Alfa Romeos Giovinazzi and Raikkonen P4 and P5 and Charles Leclerc in sixth. And Nicholas Latifi of Williams is seventh, while Sainz, Norris and Bottas finished in the top ten.

The green flag was raised again on the race on lap 24 of 53, with Hamilton taking the lead after the pit was stopped, while Leclerc quickly moved past the pair bypassing Alfa to take P4. However, he did not complete the lap, as the Monegasque suffered a twitch in Parabolica and counter-steering, before the SF1000 bounced back and hit the outer wall. she was Bad looking shuntBut Leclerc’s mercy came out unscathed.

There was no choice but to put a red flag on the race, and as the drivers approached the potholes and jumped from their cars, Hamilton received a 10-second stop / start penalty for his breach in the race lane, which equates to a net loss of around 30 seconds at Monza – Giovinazzi received the same penalty at a time Previous – While Stroll’s decision not to drill seemed to pay off, Al Kindi effectively took a free stop under the red flags.

WATCH: Leclerc destroys Ferrari in a massive accident in Monza

After a 25-minute hiatus, the second part of the race started at lap 28, and the top ten looked like this: Hamilton (with a penalty kick hanging above him, which he was obligated to deliver in three laps), Stroll, Gasley, Raikkonen, Giovinazzi ( Also with a penalty kick), Sainz, Norris, Bottas, Latife, Ricardo, while Max Verstappen P11, and Perez are down in P14.

From the start of his second stand-up in the afternoon, Hamilton has nicely moved away from “the pole”, as Gasly shines from P3, passing a slow-start stroll to finish second, with Raikkonen and Giovinazzi also moving to Canadian to downgrade to P5 – while running at Della Roggia chicane, Stroll switched positions several times with Sainz, before Sainz took fifth.

Hamilton sent the penalty kick at the end of lap 28 – and duly lost 30 seconds behind the leaders – leaving the standings as Jasly of Raikkonen, Sainz, Strut and Norris, while Bottas was sixth to Ricardo. Max Verstappen dropped to 14th after having trouble turning 1 on restart, but pulled into the pits and got out of the race on lap 31, The Dutchman angrily stormed from his car After he had a problem with the power unit.

Sainz was hitting P2 at Lap 34, with Raikkonen being subjected to a flick in Parabolica leaving him vulnerable to an attack at Turn 1, which Sainz introduced with a clinical maneuver – while Stroll, Norris, Bottas and Ricciardo followed on Finn in quick succession.

WATCH: Max Verstappen retires after Monza restart

With 10 laps left on the end, Gasley was holding on well at the group head, with an almost 3-second gap for the Sains, who had a similar advantage to Stroll, who was now hitting P3, with Norris holding Bottas in fourth – while Hamilton was It arrives at the P12, although both Mercedes drivers have had cooling issues in the W11s.

With the laps approaching, Sainz pulled back Jasley’s lead, telling race engineer Tom Stallard, “I want this to win.” Ultimately, though, he couldn’t get close enough to make it happen, traversing the line 0.415 seconds away from the Frenchman, as Gasly was stunned and scored an exceptional win first, 13 months after it was shot down by Red Bull. It was also France’s first win since 1996, while it was the second victory for AlphaTauri in Monza, after Vettel won for Toro Rosso again in 2008.

He might have let Lance Stroll think that the victory might have slipped his grip on race day, but he couldn’t be too disappointed with the second podium, as he returned home in third. The real shock was how Bottas was unable to recover higher than fifth, with Lando Norris easily fending off him to take P4 and meet with a great result for McLaren.

Behind Bottas, on a day when it was upside down like this, Ricardo would be disappointed that he was not in a mix of podiums, leading a steady race to sixth, ahead of Hamilton, who did well in getting him to seventh in the flag after his penalty. . However, on a day when victory was seen as almost certain for Mercedes, it was a modest race of silver arrows …

Driver of the Day: Gasly adds fan tributes to Monza’s victory

Ocon, Kvyat and Perez finished the top ten, while it was a shame that Last weekend for the Williams family in F1, Nicholas Latifi finished off the points in P11 – while Albon in the only Red Bull could not do better than 15 of the 16 runners left at the flag, after he sustained heavy damage to the floor at the start of the race. He finished the race only ahead of Giovinazzi, while P3 was at the start of the race, Raikkonen fell 13th by the end of the race.

So, not great for Mercedes, not great for Red Bull W. Really awful for Ferrari. But as the Italian national anthem was ringing over AlphaTauri’s sobbing mechanics; Future Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz took second place in his best career; And while the unbelieving Pierre Gasly sat alone on the podium glistening with champagne and contemplating his first Formula One victory at the end of a tumultuous 18 months, there was no doubt that race day in Italy had witnessed something very special in the history of the sport.

Key quote

“Honestly, it’s unbelievable. I don’t realize what’s going on right now. It was a crazy race, then we took advantage of the red flag.”

“I’ve been through a lot in the space of 18 months, my first podium last year, I was really like ‘WOW’ with AlphaTauri. And now my first Formula 1 win in Monza, I’m having a hard time realizing … I have no words.

“This team has done a lot for me, they gave me my first chance in Formula One, they gave me my first podium, and now they give me my first win. It’s crazy, honestly, it’s so crazy and I’m so happy I can’t thank them enough. It’s a wonderful day. ”- Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri

What then?

From Italy, we are now heading to … Italy. Yes, Formula 1 arrives on a new championship track in the form of Ferrari-owned Mugello, to open Tuscan Grand Prix. It will be Ferrari’s 1000th World Championship Grand Prix – so wait to see what the team pulls in this jewel from a circuit located in the beautiful Italian countryside, to follow what is certain to be one of the classic F1 racing games ever.