Max Verstappen claimed his fifth pole position of the season at the Italian Grand Prix, showcasing exemplary skill in managing a Red Bull whose DRS flap was trimmed during the final practice session. The RB21 was blisteringly fast on the straights, but McLaren opted for a compromise setup aimed at maximizing their race performance.
The challenge Monza poses to every team’s engineers is finding the perfect compromise—a seemingly simple task that becomes extremely complex when battles are decided by hundredths of a second. Yet there’s also the driver variable, which actively contributes to achieving the optimal balance, because ultimately the person interpreting a car’s behaviour on track is always the one behind the wheel.
At the end of a fiercely competitive qualifying session, the best compromise was clearly achieved by Max Verstappen and Red Bull—a result that may have surprised many given the weekend’s early indications. Before heading to Italy, Verstappen had suggested that Monza could offer slightly better chances to challenge McLaren, and indeed, he delivered.
His fifth pole of the season came at the culmination of a very “racing” effort that involved all of Red Bull’s engineers. In motorsport, the term “shaving thousandths” is often used to describe the final push demanded from a driver in braking zones or along a racing line. At Monza, Red Bull applied a few “shavings” of their own, trimming Verstappen’s rear wing in a desperate attempt to gain a few extra kilometers per hour on the straights. There was a risk of losing time in sector two or making the car harder to handle through the two Lesmo corners, but Max approved the setup at the end of FP3, and the decision was made.
Ultimately, the gamble paid off with pole position and a new track record, giving Max Verstappen the ideal opportunity to lead from the first corner tomorrow. However, predicting whether he can convert pole into a third race win of the season is not straightforward. Surprisingly, even within the paddock, the favorites for victory at the Italian GP remain the two McLaren drivers. One telling statistic: Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris rank sixteenth and eighteenth, respectively, in top speed on the main straight.
While this might seem like a major disadvantage, the qualifying lap gap between Norris and Verstappen was just 0.077 seconds, and 0.190 seconds between Max and Piastri. The two McLarens will start from second and third, featuring setups that trade straight-line speed for greater efficiency through the chicanes and Lesmo corners. McLaren engineers hope that what was lost in qualifying performance will translate into an advantage over the 53-race laps.
Charles Leclerc’s victory twelve months ago reinforced the belief among teams that the optimal strategy—barring safety cars or unforeseen events—will be a single-stop race, with the challenge of managing the medium tyres for around twenty laps after the start.
This is where McLaren aims to excel. If they can better preserve rear tyres, they should achieve a cleaner exit from the Parabolica, a key advantage either for attacking or defending. “I think Max showed in Q3 that he had that extra tenth on us,” said McLaren team principal Andrea Stella. “He was faster on the first set of softs and then confirmed it with the second set, so credit to him and Red Bull. But I believe tomorrow we are in a strong position. The race pace will be extremely tight, and degradation—though not expected to be excessive—could appear if the race is run at a high tempo. And then it’s Monza, so we have to hope everything goes smoothly at the first corner and the opening lap, while also being aware of the potential for an ill-timed safety car. Historically, this track has many variables, so we need to work at our best and hope there are no unexpected events.”
Leave a Reply