“Hijacking.”
Well… that was wild. Welcome to the second edition of the DRR Triple Stack, and on this edition of the show, we’re going to have a chinwag over F1’s Italian Grand Prix and another race where McLaren seemingly had it in the bag and under control… until they suddenly didn’t. Let’s get into it on this one.
Ti-Fo-Steal
It was all coming up McLaren. Lando Norris wasn’t even happy with his final qualifying lap and he still got pole, with the Top 6 covered by less than two-tenths of a second, and Max Verstappen only managing seventh alongside his teammate, with him unable to tie either of his laps together. On any level, another huge opportunity to take some heavy points out of both Championships Red Bull leads in.
They didn’t even botch the starts this time either! The problem this time was that Norris was completely caught out by a surprise pass on Lap 1 from his teammate. A brilliant move by Oscar Piastri had him take the lead, and for the first two-thirds of the race, he was in control. After their first scheduled stops, it turned into a cycling time trial where despite being a couple of seconds apart on the track, they likely hurt their tyres more than needed to by trading fastest laps back and forth. All this going on while Charles Leclerc stayed in range and started racking up laps on the hard tyre, despite being mad he lost second place on the road due to a powerful undercut.
Lando Norris had to come in early because the McLaren had bad left-front tyre wear and he couldn’t handle it, and across the aisle, Piastri was asked if he could do a one-stopper but the Aussie said no with less than 15 laps to go. McLaren two-stop, Leclerc takes the lead and has an 11-second lead to defend, and while Piastri is immensely fast on the new rubber, spending an extra lap to clear Carlos Sainz (Also 1-stopping), he falls short by two, maybe three laps.
Charles Leclerc went so under the radar until the final 20 or so laps of this race, but it was a magnificent piece of driving. Ferrari won a race by legitimately out-strategising the field, despite being undercut early on. It was an inspired move to switch to the 1-stopper, something most of the other teams were uber-scared about given the risk of graining on Monza’s new track surface and the risk of locking up tires.
It’s wild that Ferrari put their faith in their driver and ultimately won, while McLaren put their faith in their drivers constantly, and they lost, again. That’s the power of Charles Leclerc – And as much as so many want to pretend like Carlos Sainz deserves more flowers for his time in red, this is Charles’s team and a reminder as to why he’s one of the best racing drivers in the world.
Sadly because of the next section, it feels like Leclerc’s performance has been underbaked. You have to also remember, this was the first great Ferrari performance since Monaco, Ferrari’s form had been pretty wretched since then. For Charles to come out of nowhere and score three straight podium finishes, topped off with a team home win, is exceptional driving. McLaren had their pants pulled down yesterday, and it was down to he, Leclerc.
Papaya Rules
As for McLaren… they still come across as a naive team. They had the pace to win this and a better-managed race from them brings home a 1-2 finish. And if we’re evaluating them as the Constructors Champions-elect, qualifying 1-2, beating each other up and ignoring the threat from behind turned it into a 2-3. On any level, that’s unacceptable. Norris couldn’t run a 1-stopper if he tried, and Piastri should have covered off the threat knowing he had track position. Force Leclerc to pass you on track to win, something he couldn’t do when he had DRS in the first stint.
McLaren will likely get away with this in the end. It’s been clear for a good half-dozen races or more that they have the best car in the field, but they still race like a very naive team. How much have they left on the table via questionable decision-making? From Canada’s extension on Inters to Silverstone’s wrong compounds when the track dried, to the Hungary debacle despite the 1-2 finish. I reckon there’s been nine winnable races for McLaren this year and they’ve only taken three of them. And please miss me with this Zak Brown branding exercise of “Papaya Rules” talking about rules of engagement. It’s so cringy. It sounds like a substitute teacher who’s desperately trying to control a class. And given how Hungary went down, the boot fits.
Oscar Piastri’s opening gambit was bold, it was brave, it was fair and brilliant racing. McLaren publicly talking about whether it fit “Da Rules” says one thing to me – You want to publicly back Lando Norris but you’re too afraid to publicly pull the trigger because as Will Joseph (Lando’s Engineer) desperately pleaded during the Hungarian GP, McLaren feels like it needs to keep Oscar on side to help Norris and have the Aussie be in the way to take more points off of Max.
Piastri is 44 points behind Lando and 106 behind Verstappen with eight rounds left. He’s not winning the Championship this year barring a miracle, but he’s now good enough with a peaky car that he can beat Lando straight up when the chips line up his way. And this is going to be a problem because McLaren may have already left it too late to keep him onside. McLaren 2024 is a prime example of why team setups with two “Number One” drivers only work when you have such a margin on the field that it ultimately doesn’t matter, like the McLaren of the early 90’s, or the Mercedes of the twenty-tens.
McLaren needs to sit down and make a serious decision. Do you settle for the Constructor’s title you almost certainly win and placate your drivers, or are you backing Lando all the way and making a run for the Driver’s title too? Because if you have your boys trading wins and points, that stems the bleeding and could be enough for Max to hold onto his title.
Papaya Rules? Please.
The Antonelli Weekend
One of the other stories of the weekend was the homecoming of Kimi Antonelli. He made his FP1 debut and well… it certainly captured some headlines, rightly and wrongly.
He was told to “have some fun”, and he pushed right out of the gate. Went fastest on his first hot lap, and he pushed even more for his second, taking corners at a ludicrous speed. According to my Autosport colleague Jon Noble, he was going 7kph faster at the Lesmos and 14kph faster than anyone else managed in the session at the Ascari chicane. But the car couldn’t handle that pace, and when he got to the Parabolica, he lost the rear tyres that were begging for mercy and spun into the outside wall, ending his session after… about 12 minutes.
My thoughts? Well, it’s hard to argue that the kid isn’t fast. But it’s that speed that got him into the mess he ultimately ended his session on. Covering Antonelli has been strange in the last year or so. I think it’s abundantly clear that he’s an all-or-nothing kind of driver, with some thinking he’s a generational talent on Verstappen’s level, or that same hype is so over-the-top he’s not that great.
Firstly, F2 is not the metric we should be using. From the sketchy stewarding to Mechachrome’s overbearing input into a spec series that often doesn’t feel spec, Antonelli being 6th in F2 isn’t the fairest yardstick, especially when Prema has no future with both him and Ollie Bearman. Antonelli’s pristine karting and F4 record is probably a fairer metric, and his F1 debut was eyebrow-raising, but I’ve never seen more fans, journalists and TV pundits alike praise a driver for wrecking a car on his second hot lap, normally the cardinal sin for a young driver having a test.
It’s the nature of sports fandom. From a Victor Wenbenyama to a Caitlin Clark, we want the new shiny hood ornament to be as glistening as possible because getting excited about the future is the cool thing to do. And while I get that throwing someone in at the deep end in terms of pressure can make people, it can also break them, which is why I’ve always been cautious about dumping more glaze than a Krispy Kreme original dozen on an 18-year-old taking a top-end seat on debut and being the heir to Lewis Hamilton’s throne.
It makes me even more concerned that Kimi’s impact was 42G’s on that practice crash, his media availability was cancelled after the man himself was described as suffering from dizziness, but still got into his F2 car moments later and qualified like nothing happened. Deeply concerning and more worrying signs that Motorsport is behind the 8-ball once again when it comes to concussions and head injuries, with the admittance of Verstappen racing with one still largely fresh in the memory.
I’ve mentioned it before on this site, but will again – We’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to head injuries in sport, and the leaders of it such as Rugby have mandatory removal periods if an independent doctor suspects there’s one. I get that so often conflicts with the sporting nature of wanting to play through pain and not wanting to lose their spot (or even their job), but concussions can have delayed symptoms, and second-impact syndrome can kill. What would the explanation be if the worst happens on track via a crash either by himself or another driver in a 200mph F2 car?
Kimi Antonelli being confirmed at Mercedes was the worst-kept secret in F1 and had been for months already. I can see why people gush about what he could be. I for one just hope he has the best people around him to utilise his talent, because the way this Monza weekend went, I have my doubts.
The Lightning Round
Red Bull is in serious trouble. Their performance platform is not where it wants to be in comparison to McLaren and is now as Horner describes: “In a vicious cycle” when trying to figure out what to compromise to get more speed. They’re taking bigger and bigger gambles and extremes on strategy and nothing seems to be working. Max was seventh on merit and Red Bull was the fourth fastest car in Monza, a track they should have run far better on, and the medium tyre stint at the end of the race was a disaster, actually making Max vulnerable from George Russell.
The Constructors is lost. Second isn’t secure with Ferrari only 40 points back. They’ve gotten away with the Driver’s so far because McLaren have been indecisive and taken points off the table with Lando. That 62-point gap will get whittled down if Red Bull are still in this much turmoil for the rest of 2024. Alarm bells should be ringing in that camp.
Kevin Magnussen is banned from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku after picking up two more penalty points for a collision with Pierre Gasly. It was a stonewall penalty, K-Mag locked up and hit Gasly into the Roggia chicane. It is hilariously K-Mag though that despite picking up a race ban, he got a point for Haas with a brilliant hard-tyre stint to fend off Fernando Alonso by just two-tenths of a second.
It does beg the question though – With Ollie Bearman likely to step in for Baku, and with everyone knowing that Bearman’s there for 2025, why not just let K-Mag go now and Haas gets a leg up with its new driver early? Bearman has nothing to race for in F2, I don’t know why Ferrari would stand in the way of it, and while Magnussen’s been a great servant, the future is now. Still, god bless that arbiter of chaos.
Salute to Franco Colapinto as well, a very solid Williams debut in P12. Kept it clean, made some passes, made the one-stopper work on the track, and only finished 15 seconds behind Alex Albon on merit. As much as anyone could reasonably ask for. Sorry Sargeant fans, this is why he was cut.
Dre’s Race Rating: 6/10 (Decent) – Not quite the crescendo of a finish we were hoping for with Piastri likely two laps short of a grandstand finish, the surprise of Ferrari making the one-stopper work and beating McLaren straight up was worth the price of admission alone here. Drama makes good racing, and I am a sucker for decent strategy-based races. Don’t come here expecting thrilling action, mind. See you in Baku.
