The Chimera trophy bearing the number one, designed by Italian artist Nico Vascellari for Pirelli and Pirelli HangarBicocca, ended up in the hands of Max Verstappen after the Italian Grand Prix.

This was the four times world champion’s third win of the season, following on from those in Suzuka and Imola, as well as his third in this race, to add to those in 2022 and 2023, all with Red Bull Racing. It’s the Dutchman’s 66th career win while the Anglo-Austrian team is now on 125 wins, five of them here in Monza.

This race goes into the record books as the fastest ever Formula 1 Grand Prix. Verstappen’s average speed was 250.706 km/h, beating the previous record set in Monza by Michael Schumacher in 2003 with an average speed of 247.586 km/h. In fact, the drivers who finished second to seventh today also got under the Ferrari driver’s winning time.

Just as they did a year ago, the two McLaren drivers were on the podium, with Lando Norris second and Oscar Piastri third. The Englishman also set a new outright average speed record when he set the race fastest lap on lap 53 in 1’20”901, at a speed of 257.781 km/h.

THE DAY ON TRACK
As expected, the majority of drivers had opted to start the first stint on Medium tyres, while five, Stroll, Gasly, Ocon, Hadjar e Albon went with the Hard. Lawson was the only driver to start on Softs. The C5 made a further appearance in the closing stages when five drivers - Norris, Piastri, Stroll, Gasly and Ocon – fitted it for the final few laps, having extended the opening stint much further than expected. The longest stint of all came courtesy of Ocon who did 51 laps on the Hard, while Norris went furthest on the Medium completing 46 laps. Lawson did the most laps on the Soft (9).

MARIO ISOLA - MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR
“In this Grand Prix, all the excitement was condensed into the opening laps, with drivers overtaking and repassing each other with some thrilling moves. Then, once the situation stabilised, the race became very linear with all drivers trying to extend their first stints as much as possible, depending on which compounds they had chosen for the start. Unlike last year, there was practically no graining today and on this very smooth track surface, performance degradation was pretty much zero. This meant that all the drivers could more or less chose the moment to pit based on their track position, while others gambled going much longer than the window predicted based on how free practice had gone, in the hope of a possible Safety Car, having nothing left to lose.

“We saw some cases of blistering across the front axle, but not enough to have a significant impact on car performance. In terms of wear, it’s clear that those drivers who went beyond the 40 lap mark on their first stint, came very close to or in some cases, even exceeded the wear limit, but without losing performance.

“All in all, evaluating tyre performance in this Grand Prix, I would say they were too good. It will be important for us to analyse the data very well to understand how to proceed with the development of compounds for next year. On this topic, it’s worth noting that in less than 48 hours, we will be back on track in Monza for two days of testing of 2026 tyres, working with Red Bull Racing (Verstappen/Tsunoda and Aston Martin (Drugovich) on Tuesday and with Williams (Albon/Sainz) and Racing Bulls (Lawson/Hadjar) the following day."

FORMULA 2
Luke Browning (Hitech TGR) claimed his maiden Formula 2 victory in the Monza Feature Race. The Englishman won a race that featured several appearances from the Safety Car. He took the chequered flag ahead of the Paraguayan Joshua Durksen (AIX Racing) and Spain’s Josep Maria Martì (Campos Racing). Browning thus moves up to second in the Drivers’ standings, 21 points down on Italy’s Leonardo Fornaroli, (174 points), who won the Sprint yesterday and finished fifth today. Third is the Dutchman Richard Verschoor (MP Motorsport) on 144.

FORMULA 3
The last race of the season had to be neutralised several times and was won by Thailand’s Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak who took the chequered flag ahead of his Campos Racing team-mate, the Bulgarian Nikola Tsolov. Thanks to this one-two finish, the Spanish team has clinched the Teams title, beating Italy’s Trident team by 11 points, (314 to 303.) However, the runners-up can take consolation from the fact their driver Rafael Camara, fifth today is the Drivers’ champion. Prema Racing’s Mexican driver Noel Leon was on the third step of the podium.