F1: Verstappen Coasts To Italian GP Win Behind A Safety Car

The Ricciardo DNF that initially promised to bunch up to field and give Leclerc a chance for a plunge on Verstappen disappointingly ended under Safety Car conditions.

By Mihir Barve

12 mins read

Published on September 12, 2022

Highlights

The 2022 Italian GP unfolded piece by piece, as the battle for the lead was not over right until the second last lap. Charles Leclerc started the race on pole position, but P2 starter George Russel gave him a run for his money going into turn 1. Leclerc fended off the challenge and went comfortably in the lead. Max Verstappen meanwhile started the race in P7, and made up ground quickly to reach P2 in the opening laps.

Leclerc led the initial stages of the Grand Prix.

Anticipating Verstappen's strong pace, Ferrari decided to go on a two stop strategy, pitting Leclerc to change from Softs to Medium tyres on Lap 12 itself. Verstappen and Russel on the other hand went long on their first tyres, and pitted deep in the race. Later on, Leclerc pitted from the lead of the race for Soft tyres with less than 20 laps to go, and came out about 20 seconds behind Verstappen. The chase was on.

Ferrari elected to go on a two-stop strategy, pitting Leclerc for a set of softs with less than 20 laps to go.

However, Leclerc's pace on the soft tyres was underwhelming, and he could reduce the 20 second gap to only 16 seconds, before his tyre advantage neutralised. But to throw a curveball into the race, Daniel Ricciardo's car stopped in the middle of the two Lesmos from a suspected engine failure, triggering a Safety Car. This meant that the field would be bunched up, and multiple drivers stopped for fresh soft tyres anticipating a chaotic restart.

Daniel Ricciardo had a mechanical failure and had to retire from the race.

But to everyone's disappointment, the restart never happened. Ricciardo's car was presumably not in neutral and needed a tractor to be picked up off the track, elongating the safety car period. Interestingly though, the race control chose not to red flag the session despite the tractor being on the track, which is the usual protocol, and the race ended behind the safety car, with Verstappen bringing home Leclerc and Russel. “We had a great race. We had really good race car and we were controlling the gap and then the Safety Car came out. Unfortunately we didn’t get a restart", Max Verstappen said after the race.

Nyck de Vries impressed on his F1 debut by scoring P9 for Williams.

Following them were their teammates Sainz, Hamilton & Perez, who finished the race in P4-P6 respectively. After a poor start to the race saw him drop many places, Norris finished seventh ahead of Gasly. Substituting for Alex Albon, Nyck de Vries brought home an impressive P9 for Williams in his Formula 1 debut, and the former Formula E champion also received driver of the day, having shown great pace and racecraft despite driving the Williams car only for 30 minutes in FP3, before Qualifying. Zhou wrapped the top 10 with yet another points finish.

2022 Formula 1 Round 16 Italian Grand Prix: Race Results

Pos.	Car No.	Drive	Team	Laps	Time	Points
1	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	53	1:20:27.511	25
2	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	53	2.446s	18
3	63	George Russell	Mercedes	53	3.405s	15
4	55	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	53	5.061s	12
5	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	53	5.380s	10
6	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	53	6.091s	8 (+1 Point for Fastest Lap)
7	4	Lando Norris	McLaren	53	6.207s	6
8	10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	53	6.396s	4
9	45	Nyck De Vries	Williams	53	7.122s	2
10	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	53	7.910s	1
11	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine Renault	53	8.323s	0
12	47	Mick Schumacher	Haas	53	8.549s	0
13	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	52	+1 Lap	0
14	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	52	+1 Lap	0
15	6	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	52	+1 Lap	0
16	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	52	+1 Lap	0
NC	3	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	45	DNF	0
NC	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	39	DNF	0
NC	14	Fernando Alonso	Alpine Renault	31	DNF	0
NC	5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	10	DNF	0

2022 Formula 1 World Driver's Championship Standings After Round 16 - Italian GP

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	335
2	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	219
3	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	210
4	George Russel	Mercedes	203
5	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	187
6	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	168
7	Lando Norris	McLaren	88
8	Esteban Ocon	Alpine Renault	66
9	Fernando Alonso	Alpine Renault	59
10	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	46
11	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	22
12	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	22
13	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	20
14	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	19
15	Mick Schumacher	Haas	12
16	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	11
17	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	6
18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	5
19	Alex Albon	Wiliams	4
20	Nyck De Vries	Williams	2
21	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	0
22	Nico Hulkenberg	Aston Martin	0