Monza has seen its share of miracles. This one belonged to Kimi Antonelli.
From 19th on the grid, burdened with a 30-place power unit penalty and talk of “damage limitation” ringing in his ears, the young Italian tore through his home Grand Prix to claim a first victory in front of the Tifosi. On a day built for Ferrari romance, it was a Mercedes driver in silver and black who owned the royal park.
Antonelli’s charge and Russell’s missed chance
Mercedes came into Sunday expecting to limit the damage from Antonelli’s penalty and lean on George Russell’s track position. Within a handful of laps, that plan lay in pieces.
Antonelli exploded off the line, slicing through traffic with a mix of raw pace and razor‑sharp judgement. By the time Charles Leclerc’s heavy crash triggered a red flag, the Italian had already climbed to 12th. The restart only sharpened his intent. He picked off cars with clinical precision, and before the race had reached halfway, he was staring at the back of his team mate’s car.
Russell had started from the sharp end and initially controlled the pace, but the balance of power shifted around a mid‑race Virtual Safety Car. Mercedes split their strategies: Antonelli dived in for fresh medium tyres, Russell stayed out on used hards. From there, it felt inevitable.
Antonelli’s first serious lunge for the lead came on Lap 18, a warning shot that Russell managed to repel. The second wave was decisive. With grip on his side and momentum behind him, the Italian swept past and never looked back, his lap times underlining what Mercedes boss Toto Wolff later summed up bluntly: “Nothing would have stopped him.”
By the flag, the home hero had not just won a race. He had tightened his grip on the championship. Antonelli now leads Russell by 66 points, just nine shy of a three‑win cushion. For the Briton, it sets a brutal equation: find an answer quickly, or watch the 2026 title disappear in a blur of Italian blue and silver.
Ferrari’s “devastating” homecoming
While one Italian celebrated the race of his life, Ferrari’s weekend unravelled in front of their own fans.
The build‑up had been full of optimism. An engine upgrade, Monza’s long straights, and the emotional pull of home all pointed towards a serious victory bid. Lewis Hamilton spoke of “strongly” believing in Ferrari’s chances. Charles Leclerc aimed openly for “a very special weekend.”
The first cracks appeared on Saturday. Both drivers felt the team had misjudged qualifying strategy, leaving Leclerc and Hamilton only fourth and fifth on the timesheets. Oscar Piastri’s penalty nudged them up to third and fourth on the grid, but it was a thin silver lining.
Then the lights went out.
Into the second corner on Lap 1, Leclerc and Hamilton went wheel‑to‑wheel, neither willing to yield in front of the grandstands painted red. Hamilton ran wide into the gravel and tumbled down the order. “Charles pushed me off!” he snapped over the radio, the frustration immediate and raw.
One lap later, Ferrari’s day went from bad to catastrophic. Leclerc lost control of his SF‑26 and slammed into the barriers, triggering the red flag that reshaped the race. Afterward, he spoke of having to come “off and on throttle” on that first lap and needing to “look into” what had gone wrong. On the scoreboard, the damage was already clear.
Hamilton tried to salvage something from the wreckage. He climbed back into the points and eventually crossed the line in sixth, but his verdict was stark. “A bit devastating,” he called it. “Tough to swallow.” The early clash with Leclerc, the lost positions, the sense of a home race slipping away inside two laps – it all hung in the air as the Tifosi watched another Italian stand on the top step.
Gasly shocks Monza with a fairytale pole
The weekend’s first jolt of electricity had arrived on Saturday, courtesy of Pierre Gasly and Alpine.
Slipstream games at Monza often promise chaos in qualifying, but few in the paddock genuinely expected to see Gasly on pole. Fewer still thought he would top both Q1 and, when the pressure peaked, Q3. Yet that is exactly what he did, leaning on a strong Mercedes power unit and a hooked‑up Alpine to deliver one of the shocks of the season.
It was his first pole in Formula 1, and it came at the very track where he scored his first – and still only – Grand Prix win six years earlier. “I’m so happy. It’s been nine years [in F1] trying to chase and get the opportunity to take pole position,” he said, soaking in the moment. Monza, once again, had given him something special.
Holding off the heavyweights over 53 laps was always going to be another matter. Gasly led the opening lap and spent a good spell in the leading group, but the relentless pace of the front‑running cars eventually dragged him backwards. He slipped to seventh by the finish, 27 seconds behind Antonelli, though still comfortably ahead of the midfield.
For Alpine, it was far more than a one‑lap party trick. Team mate Franco Colapinto joined him in the points with ninth place, having briefly run as high as third at the restart. A trip off the road at Lesmo 1 cost him dearly, but he regrouped and launched a late charge, overtaking Yuki Tsunoda’s Racing Bulls in the closing laps.
Colapinto could not quite reach Arvid Lindblad in eighth, yet the double‑points haul mattered. Alpine trimmed the gap to Racing Bulls in the fight for fifth in the constructors’ standings to 13 points. On a weekend defined by Antonelli’s heroics and Ferrari’s anguish, Alpine quietly walked away as one of the big winners.
Duerksen dominates as F2 and F3 light up Monza
The undercard matched the main event for drama.
In Formula 2, Joshua Duerksen produced a statement weekend for Invicta Racing. He won the Sprint, then backed it up with a commanding drive in the Feature Race, heading home team mate Rafael Camara, with Campos Racing’s Noel Leon completing the podium.
Those two victories lifted Duerksen to a record‑equalling eight wins in F2, underlining his authority around Monza and propelling him to eighth in the championship. Camara’s podium, meanwhile, tightened the pressure on series leader Nikola Tsolov in the title battle.
Across the board, the message from Monza was clear. The old temple of speed still chooses its heroes, still punishes its dreamers, and still shapes championships. This time, it crowned a 19th‑to‑first home winner and left a famous red team searching for answers.
