Late summer at Monza is supposed to be about long shadows, flat-out laps and the sound of V6 engines rattling the royal park. This weekend, the heat is doing just as much talking as the cars.
The Italian Grand Prix has been officially declared a heat-hazard race, only the second time this season that status has been triggered. Forecasts point to air temperatures climbing beyond 31C during Sunday’s race, with the region sitting in a stubborn heatwave that pushed the mercury to 36C near Milan’s Linate airport on Wednesday.
In a sport obsessed with grams and tenths, the response is stark. Drivers are allowed to run cooling tops under their overalls, with chilled liquid – typically glycol – flowing through a network of pipes. Use it, and you gain vital relief in the cockpit. Refuse it, and you must bolt 5kg of ballast to the car to ensure you don’t profit from running lighter.
At Monza, even comfort has a lap-time price.
Slipstreams, softs and a Ferrari engine boost
The opening exchanges of practice carried a slightly surreal air. Ten minutes into the session, five cars out, no lap times on the board. Only Carlos Sainz ventured out on soft tyres; everyone else played it cagey on mediums.
The reason? Tow games. Rebecca Clancy had watched the F2 qualifying chaos the day before, 22 cars tripping over each other in a desperate bid to find a slipstream. The same logic applies in F1 here. The Monza straight-line drag is brutal, and a well-timed tow can transform a lap.
That makes the Ferrari engine upgrade all the more intriguing. Andrew Benson reported that the new unit is worth about a tenth of a second per lap. On paper, that sounds modest. In reality, at a place like Monza, it can decide grid slots and strategy windows.
Ferrari have already shown this season they can live with the big hitters at power circuits. At Silverstone and Spa, their corner speed masked a shortfall in engine performance, and they still came away with wins – helped by a slice of fortune. Now they arrive at their home race with a little extra horsepower to back up that chassis. The hope in the paddock is simple: that extra shove drags them properly into the fight at the front.
For Alpine, Monza is familiar ground for more personal reasons. It’s where Franco Colapinto made his F1 debut and where Pierre Gasly took his maiden victory back in 2020. The pair look increasingly cohesive as team-mates, but their weekend has already been overshadowed by the courtroom.
Gasly’s Monaco podium wiped away
The long-running Monaco pit-lane speeding saga finally reached its conclusion, and it landed hard on Alpine.
McLaren and Red Bull have won their appeals against the original Monaco Grand Prix result, after a mess of incorrectly applied pit-lane speeding penalties. The outcome: Gasly loses the podium he thought he had reclaimed.
Gasly finished third on the road in Monte Carlo but was hit with two five-second penalties. Alpine argued the sanctions were incorrectly applied and initially succeeded in overturning them, promoting their French driver back onto the rostrum. McLaren and Red Bull refused to let it rest.
The FIA’s court of appeal has now reinstated the penalties. Gasly drops back to seventh, the position he occupied in the original classification. Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar is restored to third place, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri to fourth, with Racing Bulls pair Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad elevated to fifth and sixth.
The ruling bites in the championship, too. Gasly had been 10th in the standings with 44 points; he stays 10th, but his tally is cut to 35. Alpine’s constructors’ total takes a hit as well, a small but symbolic dent in a season where every point has felt hard-earned.
The legal battle sparked another flashpoint. Alpine boss Flavio Briatore claimed on Friday that one of the appeal court judges had “links” with McLaren, questioning the independence of the process. The FIA’s highest legal body hit back firmly, stressing that court of appeal judges are bound by strict independence and confidentiality rules, file annual declarations of interest with the FIA compliance officer, and sign a specific declaration of independence for each case.
The message from the governing body was clear: the integrity of its judicial system is not up for casual debate.
Hadjar sidelined again as Lawson steps up
Hadjar’s name features heavily in the paperwork this week, but he won’t be in the car.
The 21-year-old Frenchman, who broke his wrist while boxing during the summer, will miss a second consecutive race. Red Bull confirmed he will sit out the Italian Grand Prix as his recovery continues, stressing they will not take “unnecessary risks” with his return.
His absence opens the door again for Liam Lawson. The New Zealander, usually a Racing Bulls driver, steps back into the senior Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen after finishing seventh last time out. It is a rare, high-pressure opportunity for a driver whose stock has been quietly rising.
Lawson’s promotion triggers another shuffle. Yuki Tsunoda, the team’s reserve, slots back into the Racing Bulls cockpit. For a manufacturer currently sitting fourth in the constructors’ standings behind Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren, these weekends matter. Verstappen provides the benchmark; Lawson must show he can live somewhere in that orbit.
Cadillac, meanwhile, are still searching for their first point in their debut F1 season. On a track where power and efficiency are laid bare, that wait may yet continue.
Mercedes set the pace, Antonelli starts from the back
At the sharp end of the title fight, Mercedes continue to dictate the rhythm of the season.
George Russell’s sprint win in the Netherlands, combined with Kimi Antonelli’s six victories, has kept the team clear at the top of the constructors’ table. Ferrari lurk in second, less than 100 points adrift, while McLaren’s surge – fuelled by Lando Norris’ back-to-back race wins – has dragged them firmly into the conversation.
The drivers’ standings tell a similar story of tension rather than dominance. Antonelli leads by 59 points over joint second-placed Russell and Lewis Hamilton, with Russell ahead courtesy of his two wins. Norris sits 83 points off the top but is closing fast, his recent form turning what looked like a two-man duel into something far more nuanced.
Monza, though, hands Russell a golden chance. Antonelli will start Sunday’s race from the back of the grid after an engine change, a strategic decision that could reshape the title narrative. Russell topped second practice on Friday, laying down a marker as he tries to chip away at his team-mate’s cushion.
If he converts that pace into a big points haul while Antonelli fights through the pack, the championship could tighten dramatically. If Antonelli somehow limits the damage from the rear, it will feel like a victory of its own.
Behind the lens and beyond the fences
Away from the timing screens, Monza’s paddock has its own choreography.
The photographers form a moving, sweating ecosystem, lugging thousands of pounds’ worth of equipment in the heat, jostling for the clean shot as drivers arrive. Sometimes, they wait at the main gate. Sometimes, they sprint across the paddock in a pack after whispers that a seven-time world champion has slipped in behind the motorhomes.
On Saturday, that champion, Lewis Hamilton, managed to evade most of them, screens shielding his route as only one or two lenses found a gap for a long-range frame. Back at the main entrance, the crowd thickened again, only for a Ferrari driver to ghost past a second time, leaving a sea of missed chances and muttered frustration.
It’s a reminder that Monza is not just about speed traps and delta times. It’s theatre. It’s cat-and-mouse. It’s a festival, as Jay Freeman put it, with the late-summer sun baking the asphalt and the Tifosi ready to turn the grandstands into a wall of red.
A title race meets the Tifosi
So the stage is set. A heat-hazard race. A Ferrari engine upgrade. A Mercedes title leader starting from the back. A rival team scenting opportunity. Alpine nursing a legal hangover. Red Bull juggling line-ups and chasing consistency. McLaren riding a wave of form.
Russell has the clearest shot at Antonelli’s lead he has had in weeks. Norris arrives as the man in form. Ferrari carry the hopes of the Tifosi and a little more power under the engine cover.
Monza has a habit of exposing the truth about a season. By Sunday night, will it still look like Antonelli’s championship to lose, or will this be the weekend that blows the door wide open?
