Five Winners, Five Losers: Italian Grand Prix

Written by Peter Johnson, Edited by Meghana Sree

Max Verstappen took a dominant victory at Monza, but who were the winners and losers behind him?

Max Verstappen claimed his third victory of the season at Monza | Credit: Formula One

Ferrari’s home race, Red Bull and Max Verstappen breaking records, and McLaren shooting themselves in the foot: the Italian Grand Prix had plenty of storylines. But who fared best and worst?

Winner: Max Verstappen

A month to the day since Max Verstappen claimed that he and Red Bull would not take another victory all season, the four-time World Champion took the most dominant victory of the season at Monza.

Leading second-placed Lando Norris home by 19.207 seconds, Verstappen won by more than double the previous largest winning margin this season, which was Oscar Piastri’s victory by 9.748 seconds in China.

Add to that his race time, which with an average speed of 250.706 km/h was the fastest of all time, and his qualifying lap which was the fastest single lap of all time, it was quite the record-breaking weekend for a man who had failed to win since May.

Winner: Red Bull

Laurent Mekies’ Red Bull tenure has started positively | Credit: Formula One

The team may have lost Adrian Newey and Jonathan Wheatley and acrimoniously split with Christian Horner, but Red Bull have not forgotten how to race.

Yes, Yuki Tsunoda’s performance, or lack thereof, remains an issue, but the Verstappen-Red Bull combination that has dominated the ground-effect era still remains the class of the field on its day.

Laurent Mekies admitted that Verstappen had pushed the car in a direction on set up that the team was not completely comfortable with, but the faith both driver and team have in each other was rewarded.

Winner: Isack Hadjar

There is no room for romance in sport, and just a week on from Isack Hadjar’s glorious podium at Zandvoort he was unglamorously dumped out in Q1 for the first time in his career.

Fast forward 24 hours, though, and after a pit lane start the young Frenchman scythed through the field to finish 10th and collect a singular point.

It may be 14 fewer than he managed in the Netherlands, but in the space of seven days Hadjar has demonstrated he can do it all. He held both his position and his nerve at Zandvoort, surrounded by theoretically faster cars and multiple race winners, and charged from the back at Monza in a superb display of pedal-to-the-metal driving.

Hadjar is seriously hot property and inevitably will shortly have to decide whether he wants to make the step to Red Bull for 2026.

A tough choice indeed.

Winner: Alex Albon

Alex Albon achieved his 11th points finish of the season in Italy | Credit: Formula One

Charging from a disappointing 14th place on the grid to finishing well inside the points, Alex Albon delivered a typical 2025 Alex Albon performance at Monza.

The Thai-born driver rose to seventh in the championship with his six points, solidifying his claim to being “best of the rest” this season. With 11 points finishes in the 13 races he has seen the chequered flag, Albon has delivered the consistency and, frankly, speed that new teammate Carlos Sainz has not been able to unlock.

After several seasons of comfortably beating Nicholas Latifi and Logan Sargeant in the same car, many questioned how he would fare against Sainz, a known quantity (a quick one at that) with a point to prove following his exit from Ferrari.

It is not a stretch to say that Albon’s reputation was at stake this season, but he has risen to the occasion.

Winner: Gabriel Bortoleto

He may have had to wait 11 races for his first points in F1, but Gabriel Bortoleto has got a real taste for it now.

Over the last six races, a run which includes teammate Nico Hülkenberg’s podium at Silverstone, the young Brazilian has outscored the veteran German by 18 points to 17. 

Loser: McLaren

Andrea Stella is trying to keep things fair for his drivers in the title battle | Credit: Formula One

Just seven days ago, everyone was lamenting the possibility that the F1 title might be decided by an incident out of the protagonists’ control, namely Lando Norris’ retirement at Zandvoort.

Fast forward a week and McLaren’s command to Piastri to cede position to Norris following the Briton’s slow pit stop has not quite elicited the same reaction.

Perhaps without Norris’ Dutch DNF, such a call would never have been made, and two errors on the part of the team negatively affecting the same driver probably did leave a nasty taste in Andrea Stella’s mouth.

However, a man who knows a thing or two about managing two title rivals is Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, who put it best when he said McLaren have now “set a precedent that is very difficult to undo”.

For a team which once had to watch Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost slog it out tooth and nail as teammates, only for the title to be settled by a collision (the first of two) at Suzuka, it is in a sense understandable that they are trying to play fair.

But where do you draw the line? And furthermore, does Norris now think the two drivers are square? Was this, as Tom Stallard told Piastri, a repeat of Hungary last year, meaning the two drivers are now quits, or will Norris be expected to return the gesture should Piastri suffer a slow stop in Baku? Should such a scenario unfold and he refuses, what happens then?

McLaren’s commitment to playing by the rules and keeping everything fair for the two drivers is commendable, but all it takes is for either driver to go rogue on a single occasion from here on out and the touchpaper will be lit.

Loser: Kimi Antonelli

Wolff was not shy of dropping bombshell one-liners after Sunday’s race and his young protégé Kimi Antonelli found himself in the firing line of one such statement.

In a first show of public criticism for the Italian rookie, Wolff described his performance at his home Grand Prix as “underwhelming”.

Kimi Antonelli has collected just three points in the last six races | Credit: Formula One

A crash in practice did not help Antonelli, now with just three points finishes in the last 10 races and still without a contract for 2026.

However, he did qualify a creditable sixth (factoring in Lewis Hamilton’s penalty), just one position and half a tenth behind teammate George Russell - pretty much the closest he’s been all season.

Come race day, though, a poor getaway off the line saw Antonelli settle into the race in 10th position. From there, it was always going to be an uphill struggle, trying to cut his losses rather than building on his solid starting position.

Wolff is clearly determined to find his own Verstappen, to such an extent that he has made no secret of wanting to sign the man himself. It is of course far too early to write Antonelli off as a top-class racing driver, but it is maybe the moment to say that he is not soaking up the pressure with such ease.

Loser: Oliver Bearman

He may only have 19 race starts to his name, but Oliver Bearman is already only two penalty points shy of a race ban.

The British rookie was on the receiving end of the latest dubious stewarding decision following his Lap 41 incident with Sainz. Sainz himself received a harsh 10-second penalty for a collision with Liam Lawson at Zandvoort, but this time around was arguably responsible for cutting across Bearman and not leaving him racing room at the second chicane.

The stewards ruled: “Car 55 [Sainz] attempted to overtake car 87 [Bearman] on the outside into turn four and had its front axle ahead of the front axle of car 87 at the apex, thereby earning the right to the racing line.”

By this definition, a car needs to be fully alongside in order to be entitled to racing room, which is at least consistent with the logic that gave Sainz his penalty in the Netherlands.

However, such a stance does seem rather restrictive when it comes to going for an opportune move, knowing that unless you are fully alongside the other car you will be penalised. 

Back to Bearman, though, who is potentially only one more incident away from a race ban until the two points that he acquired in Brazil last year drop off his license in November. He needs to keep his nose clean for the next four rounds or he’ll be forced to sit one out.

Loser: Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso was running eighth before his retirement at Monza | Credit: Formula One

Fernando Alonso described himself as the world’s unluckiest driver following the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola in May, and F1’s latest visit to Italy surely left him feeling a similar way.

The veteran Spaniard was running comfortably in the points at the midway stage of the race at Monza before a suspension failure on the exit of the Ascari chicane halted him in his tracks, which he described as “very frustrating”.

Just a week on from his “unlucky race” at Zandvoort, it has been a challenging couple of weeks for Alonso.

Loser: Carlos Sainz

Luck is really not on the side of the two Spanish drivers of late - in fact, Sainz’s good fortune has been pretty scarce all season. The victim of a harsh penalty last weekend (an appeal against which Williams will present to the FIA on Friday), this time out he was arguably the perpetrator of his collision with Bearman. 

While avoiding a penalty was perhaps his biggest stroke of luck all season, he ultimately had to settle for 11th, missing out on the top 10 by less than a second.

Over the Zandvoort-Monza double header, teammate Albon managed to earn more points (18) than Sainz has achieved all season (16), with the Spaniard now failing to score in the last six races.