Italian Grand Prix – Unexpected but well-deserved win for Scuderia Alpha Tauri and Pierre Gasly


 

Monza, 6 September, 2020

 

Weather: sunny, 27.9-27.6°C air, 45.5-36.1°C track

 

  • Congratulations to Scuderia Alpha Tauri and Pierre Gasly on an unexpected but well-deserved win
  • Valtteri dropped to sixth on the opening lap after a difficult start and multiple contacts; he finished P5 after struggling with the car handling through the race
  • Lewis led the early stages but dropped to last place after serving a 10-second stop/go penalty for entering the pit lane when it was closed, eventually fighting his way back to P7
  • Lewis set the fastest lap of the race, which is his 50th in F1
  • Lewis (164 points) leads the Drivers’ Championship by 47 points from Valtteri (117 points)
  • The Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team (281 points) leads Red Bull Racing (158 points) by 123 points in the Constructors’ Championship

 

In a topsy-turvy year, Sunday's Italian Grand Prix will be remembered as one of the most interesting of the new decade as Scuderia AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly took his Honda engine to the first win of his young career.

Gasly took the lead on Lap 29 when Lewis Hamilton pitted to serve a penalty for entering a closed pit, and never looked back. He held a four-second lead over Carlos Sainz when he took the lead but was never rattled, even as the Spaniard closed the gap to less than a second with a lap to go. Weaving his way down the long Monza straights to break the effect of the aerodynamic draft, Gasly fought off Sainz and earned his first win.

The Frenchman benefitted from a timely pit stop for tires on Lap 20, coming in while everyone else had yet to make their first stops. It paid off a lap later when Kevin Magnussen's car rolled to a stop just near the entrance to Pit Lane, bringing out the Safety Car. The field pitted, promoting Gasly toward the front of the field. Two laps later, Charles Leclerc triggered a red flag after a heavy crash in the fast Parabolica turn, necessitating a rare mid-race standing start.

Starting third after the red flag, Gasly immediately dispatched Lando Norris to move into second, and then took the lead when Hamilton pitted. But if fortune put Gasly up front, Honda power and a heavy right foot kept him there. The 24-year-old driver never put a wheel wrong in outracing Sainz and Norris to the flag over the last 26 laps.

The win was the 76th in Honda's F1 history, and made Honda the first engine manufacturer in F1's hybrid era (2014 - ) to power race winners from two different teams. It also made the Honda-powered AlphaTauri team the first outside the ‘Big 3' (Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull) to win a race in the hybrid era. It also made Gasly the first French driver to win an F1 race since Oliver Panis took Monaco in 1996.


Safety-Car

A safety car and red flag were amongst the major incidents in the frenetic 52-lap race, which completely transformed the flow, and the order, of the Grand Prix.

On lap 18, Charles pitted to switch from Soft to Hard tyres, rejoining in 17th place. On the next lap, Kevin Magnussen had to park his Haas at the side of the track with a problem, just before the pit lane entrance. This brought out the Safety Car, so that all the other cars took the opportunity to pit. Charles thus found himself sixth. At the restart, Leclerc was on a charge and passed the Alfa Romeos of Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi to move up to fourth. Unfortunately, on the next lap Leclerc lost control of his car, crashing heavily into the barriers at the Parabolica corner. It was a frightening accident, but fortunately, Charles was not hurt.




Pierre Gasly #10
This is amazing! I've been through so many things in the past 18 months and it's better than anything I expected. I focused hard when I re-joined Scuderia AlphaTauri. Day by day, race by race, we improved ourselves and got stronger and stronger – this team gave me my first podium in F1 last year in Brazil and today, these guys gave me my first win in Formula 1, in Italy, in Monza, with an Italian team. When I was fighting the last few laps to keep P1, I knew how gutted I would have been if I had lost it, I wouldn't have been happy with P2. I gave it everything I had - it was difficult - I pushed hard at the start of the stint to not give anyone the slipstream behind, then the last five laps were so intense, I almost shunted 10 times. My tires were gone but I wanted that win so much, it still feels weird to say I'm an F1 race winner.'

 

Daniil Kvyat #26
"It was a very eventful race. I'm very happy for Pierre, congratulations to him and to the team, it's a great day for us. Looking at my race, P9 was the maximum we could achieve today with the timing of the safety car and the tire choice we went for at the start of the race. Everything that could have gone wrong with the strategy, unfortunately did, but at least it was the opposite for Pierre. It was amazing for him to take the opportunity and I'm happy for him. I'm disappointed not to have had the same opportunity but I'm satisfied with my race, I'm honest with myself and I think I drove a good race."

 

Alex Albon #23
"That wasn't a fun race and P15 clearly isn't reflective of our package. We had a lot of damage with the left side of the floor missing after contact in Turn 1 and then with the time penalty our race was basically over. It's obviously a much better day for AlphaTauri so we're happy for those guys but for us, we need to put our heads down and focus on Mugello in a week's time."

Max Verstappen #33
"I think pretty much everything that could go wrong today did go wrong. I had a very bad start with a lot of wheel spin when I dropped the clutch and from there I was stuck in a DRS train which makes it almost impossible to overtake around here. After the red flag I had a problem with the engine at the restart which didn't go away and we had to retire the car. It may not have been our weekend but I am very happy for Pierre as AlphaTauri have been very fast all weekend and to win here in Italy is very emotional and a great result for them. They are a great group and I hope they are going to enjoy this one tonight because they all deserve it."

 

 

 

Valtteri Bottas #77
F1 W11 EQ Performance /03

That was a difficult day out there. The start was pretty poor and on the first lap, I had a bit of contact and thought I had a puncture, but it turned out I didn’t. I had massive understeer and the car was pulling to one side. It recovered but then I was suffering some overheating issues with the engine running in traffic, so there wasn’t much I could do. Every time I got close to another car, I had to back off due to the overheating or look for clean air on the straights, which meant I couldn’t get the tow. It felt a bit better after the red flag and towards the end of the race, but there’s lots of things for us to review and understand. We’ll debrief and then move onto Mugello. We should have a good car there but it’s going to be tough to overtake, so Qualifying will be crucial.

Lewis Hamilton #44
F1 W11 EQ Performance /01

Huge congratulations to Pierre, it’s a fantastic result for him and it’s great to see such a young podium. Obviously, I’ve seen what Pierre’s been through, being dropped from a top team and then beating that top team today. It’s fantastic to see him recover and see him grow, so I’m very happy for him. My race wasn’t meant to be. I didn’t see the boards saying the pit lane was closed because I was following the safety car delta on my dash, so I take responsibility for that and it’s something that we’ll investigate and learn from. That stop/go pit stop was long, and I had 26 seconds to catch up to the next car. I was giving it absolutely everything. I honestly didn’t expect to get seventh and fastest lap at that point in the race. I took a lot of life out of the tyres closing the gap and there was a lot of turbulence from the other cars, which made it hard to follow them. But once I caught up to everybody, it was a fun battle and I still got some good points. I’ll definitely take the result and am grateful for it. We’ll move onto the next one and I look forward to it.

 




Toto Wolff
This is a loss for Mercedes and the big teams, but it’s a victory for the sport. That was great entertainment today and it was fantastic to see the young guys fighting out front. Congratulations to Pierre and Alpha Tauri, they deserved the win. It was obviously a disappointing race for us. With Lewis and the penalty, it was a weird sequence of events. We should have spotted earlier that the pit lane was closed, by the time that we did, the car was entering the pit lane. It’s a tough result to take but we must take it on the chin. The recovery drive that Lewis did was very good. It is difficult to overtake in Monza, particularly now with the new Technical Directive on engine modes, so with that in mind, to recover to P7 was very strong. On Valtteri’s side, we need to see what happened with the car, as it wasn’t turning well into the right-handers and that was making it hard for him to make progress. We were also marginal on cooling, which made things even tougher for him out there. We’ll take all the learnings we can from this weekend and come back fighting in Mugello.

Andrew Shovlin
Well done to Pierre on his first win and Alpha Tauri on an amazing result at their home race! The top three finishers and their teams all did a great job celebrating the podium and it’s a good reminder to us to never take the wins for granted. We could have handled the race better, with Lewis we got caught with the pitlane closing as we were on the way in. That’s something we need to be sharper with in future, as it clearly made his afternoon hugely challenging and he did well to get back to seventh after serving the penalty. Valtteri had a difficult afternoon, he’d lost places off the start and initially thought he had a puncture as the car wasn’t turning well to the right. We could see the tyres were holding pressure, so stayed out but throughout the race he was struggling to get close enough to make a pass. Part of that was due to us running a bit hot in traffic, but also the tyres were getting hot with the car sliding and he couldn’t make the progress through the field that we hoped for. Overall, this was a day for the others to enjoy and be proud of. We’ll go off and look at how we can improve in future, but we’re really looking forward to Mugello next week, it’s an amazing track and we’ve got the fastest F1 cars of all time which will be really impressive round there.

Daniel Ricciardo #3
That was a crazy race. It reminded me of Baku in 2017 with a similar, tense feeling and it being very unpredictable. Congratulations to Pierre [Gasly] for his first win. I know the feeling from winning for the first time and it’s crazy. Sixth isn’t bad for us today, I felt I couldn’t have done anymore in the situation. We weren’t the only ones, but the safety car and red flag did not go our way today. After a good start and good pace, the timing wasn’t on our side, but that’s something we can’t change. I’m happy with how it went today, we had a great start, good pace and we move onto next weekend.

Esteban Ocon #31
I have mixed feelings today as we had a good race on track and took some solid points, but also it was one of those races when you see the podium and wonder what could have been. We didn’t have luck on our side with the pit-stop before the red flag and that meant a free stop for the others. The race was strong, I passed three cars at the start and had good race pace to be competitive inside the points. It’s strange as I passed Gasly at the start and he won the race! We probably didn’t match our expectations on the pace we thought we would have in Spa, but it was still a good effort.

Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN and CEO Sauber Motorsport AG
“It was a very bizarre race, one that has given us the full spectrum of emotions. We made a good start and our race pace was good in the first stint. The Safety car shuffled the pack and we found ourselves towards the front of the field, but unfortunately we picked up a penalty for Antonio at his pit stop, which compromised his race. Under the red flag we had to choose between the only tyres we had left available, the used hard tyres we had on or new softs, as we had no more mediums left. We went for the softs: they helped us at the restart, with Kimi running up to P2, but unfortunately our rivals’ tyre advantage in the long run meant we ended up losing ground as the race progressed. We were close to a good result but it is what it is: we made progress both in terms of qualifying and race pace and we need to keep pushing to improve.”
 
 
Kimi Räikkönen #7
Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN C39 (Chassis 05/Ferrari)

“It was a very disappointing result in the end but there was nothing we could really do. We only had soft tyres left at the red flag, after using mediums at the start, which effectively put us in a very difficult position. The soft tyres were good to fight and defend in the first few laps after the restart, but when they faded away we were left exposed. Until the red flag we were in a good position: the car felt good and things had turned pretty positively for us, but after that we really couldn’t fight.”
 
Antonio Giovinazzi #99
Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN C39 (Chassis 04/Ferrari)

“We end up without points after such a crazy race, which is a shame as things looked good at the beginning. In hindsight, knowing how things unfolded, we know that a top ten finish would have been unlikely, but it’s still disappointing to have a penalty put you far at the back of the field when running in the top positions. We will need to investigate how the situation that led to the stop and go unfolded: in the moments after a safety car is called, everything happens really quickly and you react to what’s happening around you: I was just focused on getting back to the pits. Afterwards, I was too far back to do anything, but this is racing. I just need to put this behind me and focus on next week race, another home Grand Prix for me, to try to do a better job.”


Charles Leclerc #16

“It was a very difficult race and I struggled quite a lot with the balance. I thought at first we were unlucky when the safety car came out, but due to the fact the pit-lane remained closed, we were actually pretty lucky. We were in a very good place at that point, but I was struggling a lot on the hard tyres. I tried to push but then I made a mistake, lost the rear and crashed at Parabolica.
The crash was quite a big one but I am ok. A bit of pain here and there, which is quite normal.
We have had two difficult weekends for the team, but it’s like this at the moment and I hope we can bounce back, so I am looking forward to Mugello.”


Sebastian Vettel #5

“This is a very difficult moment for the whole team and as part of it, I am suffering along with everyone else. But this is our reality right now and we need to try and do the best we can, to have a worthwhile final part of the season with still plenty of races to go. We have a lot of work to do and we have to be focused on that.
As for my race it was very short as almost immediately I had an issue with brakes. I went on the brakes in the first chicane but the car didn’t slow and I had to drive through the run-off area. Actually it was the best possible spot to have the issue.
We have to keep our heads up, even if it is difficult. Now we head to Mugello, a completely different track and maybe there we could be in a bit of a better place. Hopefully we can have a clean weekend.”

Mattia Binotto Team Principal
“Retirement for both cars is the worst possible end to a very difficult weekend. After Belgium, we knew that here too we would struggle a lot and so it turned out. That was clear in yesterday’s qualifying but failing to get either car to the chequered flag really hurts. It’s even more disappointing that Sebastian’s retirement was down to a lack of reliability on the car. Problems like that, in this case with the brake system, should not happen.
It’s a very hard season but it’s by facing up to difficulties like these that you get stronger. We must look ahead and there are useful lessons for all of us to take away from this to build for the future. Having said that, we must absolutely not give up and we will be giving our all next weekend at Mugello which is a special event for us, being our one thousandth Formula 1 Grand Prix.”


On to Mugello
The busy season continues and next weekend, still in Italy, the final race of this third triple header of the year, the Toscana-Ferrari 1000 Grand Prix, the Scuderia’s 1000th race, takes place at Mugello.



1

10

Pierre Gasly

AlphaTauri

1:47:06.056

53

2

55

Carlos Sainz jr.

McLaren

+ 0.415

53

3

18

Lance Stroll

Racing Point

+ 3.358

53

4

4

Lando Norris

McLaren

+ 6.000

53

5

77

Valtteri Bottas

Mercedes-AMG

+ 7.108

53

6

3

Daniel Ricciardo

Renault

+ 8.391

53

7

44

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes-AMG

+ 17.245

53

8

31

Esteban Ocon

Renault

+ 18.691

53

9

26

Daniil Kvyat

AlphaTauri

+ 22.208

53

10

11

Sergio Pérez

Racing Point

+ 23.224

53

11

6

Nicholas Latifi

Williams

+ 32.876

53

12

8

Romain Grosjean

Haas F1 Team

+ 35.164

53

13

7

Kimi Räikkönen

Alfa Romeo

+ 36.312

53

14

63

George Russell

Williams

+ 36.593

53

15

23

Alexander Albon

Red Bull

+ 37.533

53

16

99

Antonio Giovinazzi

Alfa Romeo

+ 55.199

53

NC

16

Charles Leclerc

Ferrari

Left track

23

NC

33

Max Verstappen

Red Bull

Power unit

30

NC

20

Kevin Magnussen

Haas F1 Team

Retired

17

NC

5

Sebastian Vettel

Ferrari

brake

6