F1 2020 Italian Grand Prix

© J. Francois Barnard – September 6, 2020

The Formula 1 Gran Premio Heineken d'Italia 2020 race was held in Monza, Italy, on September 6, 2020. If you thought that Mercedes would dominate again and win this race, think again. Several hungry dogs were waiting for them to make a mistake, and... but let me not get ahead of myself.

The first practise session saw Max Verstappen crashing at the Ascari chicane. Bottas finished first ahead of his teammate Hamilton and Albon third. The second session was concluded with Hamilton fastest, Bottas second, and Sainz third in his McLaren.

Qualifying went as expected. Hamilton qualified first, 0.069 seconds ahead of his teammate Bottas. His qualifying lap was the fastest in Formula 1 history at 1:18.887 - two tenths faster than the lap record set by Kimi Räikkönen in 2018. Carlos Sainz qualified third, ahead of Pérez and Verstappen.

The race got underway with Hamilton on a clean start, but Bottas had a dismal start. He dropped from second to sixth on the first lap, reporting problems with his car. On lap six, Vettel's brakes overheated and failed, and he went through the polystyrene chicane, sending them flying. He retired from the race.

On lap 18, Magnussen slowed down, reporting that something broke on his car. He pulled off to the side of the pit entrance, and the race director deployed the safety car. Lewis Hamilton and Antonio Giovinazzi jumped into the pits, not realising that the pit lane was closed to recover the stranded Haas. Both received a 10-second stop-and-go penalty, and Hamilton also got two penalty points on his FIA Super Licence for this infraction.

Gasly moved into third place behind Hamilton and Stroll. Stroll was the only driver who did not stop. The safety car came in on lap 24, and Hamilton held onto his lead ahead of Stroll and Gasly.

After the restart, the remaining Ferrari of Leclerc crashed in the Parabolica corner, damaging the tyre barriers. This incident brought the safety car out again, but the race was red-flagged soon afterwards so that the marshalls could repair the tyre barriers.

The race resumed with a standing start on lap 28. With the tyres cooled down, Stroll went wide on turn four, and Gasly inherited second place behind Hamilton. Hamilton served his stop-and-go penalty at the end of the lap, and Giovinazzi did the same one lap later. The penalties dropped them to the back of the pack.

Gasly led the race ahead of Räikkönen and Sainz. Räikkönen fell back to finish 13th, while Stroll fought back to third place.

Picture credit: Motorsport.com

On the podium was Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz, and Lance Stroll. It was Gasly's first Formula 1 victory, and AlphaTauri's first win as a constructor, albeit that in Torro Rosso format, they had won before. Gasly's win also marked to be the first French driver to win since Olivier Panis won in 1996.

It was also the first time that Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull all failed to score a podium finish since the Hungarian Grand Prix of 2012.

The race classification: