Key events
Norris speaks to TV:
On qualifying struggles: “It was quite a session for me, just up and down and too many mistakes here and there. To put it all together on the last lap was pretty good, so happy with P2.”
On grid position: “P2 is not a bad position to be off the line. I want to be ahead of everyone. A good position for tomorrow and excited for the race.”
On Verstappen: “To get past Max I’m sure will be a challenge. I don’t expect any magical things and we have some Ferraris behind who I’m sure will want to come through as quickly as possible.”
Piastri speaks to TV:
On qualifying: “I felt like I executed a pretty good session, built up a little bit at the start, found my feet but I think it has been incredibly tight this weekend …The result is not a big surprise, but obviously we would have loved to have been a little bit further up.”
On Verstappen: “Max and Red Bull looked quick this weekend – to be honest a lot of teams looked quick, it’s not been quite as comfortable for us. “
The qualifying standings in full – Hamilton will drop to 10th and Hadjar will start from the pit lane tomorrow:
Hamilton will start 10th on the grid because of his five-place grid penalty for an infraction at Zandvoort last weekend.
Relief may well be the overriding feeling for Norris after those struggles in Q2. He’s ahead of Piastri, who says “there’s still a long way to go”.
Here are the Q3 standings:
1 Max Verstappen
2 Lando Norris
3 Oscar Piastri
4 Charles Leclerc
5 Lewis Hamilton
6 George Russell
7 Kimi Antonelli
8 Gabriel Bortoleto
9 Fernando Alonso
10 Yuki Tsunoda
Norris’s final hot lap was also a Monza record … but it lasted for only a few seconds as Verstappen stole in to go 0.077s faster!
Verstappen takes Italian GP pole
Dutchman sets a new lap record at Monza with a time of 1:18.792 to wrestle pole back off Norris, who perhaps thought he had got it. Piastri (3rd), Leclerc (4th), Hamilton (5th) and Russell (6th) make up the first three rows.
Leclerc and Hamilton fail to dislodge Verstappen, with Piastri also behind the Dutchman.
Verstappen’s first lap was 0.036s off the fastest lap ever recorded at Monza.
A provisional top five after the first flying laps:
Verstappen 1:18.923
Leclerc +0.084
Piastri +0.133
Hamilton +0.201
Russell +0.234
Norris was the first out and has seen his time fall to seventh fastest as Russell and Bortoleto also go quicker.
Monza erupts as Leclerc goes fastest on 1:19.007 … until Verstappen posts 1:18.923 to go top. Piastri and Hamilton also post competitive times.
Q3 gets under way
Pole position is up for grabs!
The top 10 were covered by a third of a second in Q2:
1 Max Verstappen
2 Kimi Antonelli
3 Oscar Piastri
4 George Russell
5 Lando Norris
6 Charles Leclerc
7 Gabriel Bortoleto
8 Fernando Alonso
9 Lewis Hamilton
10 Yuki Tsunoda
Racing Bulls say that Isack Hadjar will take a new power unit for the race tomorrow and will start from pit lane.
The bottom five from Q2:
11 Ollie Bearman
12 Nico Hülkenberg
13 Carlos Sainz
14 Alex Albon
15 Esteban Ocon
Norris makes Q3 after scare
The McLaren driver’s final hot lap is good enough for fifth place (0.153s slower than Verstappen’s quickest time), meaning Bearman drops into the bottom five.
Hamilton escapes, moving up to eighth and Norris now has work to do. Bearman is 10th.
Bearman and Alonso jump out of the bottom five. Hamilton drops to 11th and Norris is 10th.
Norris climbs out of the bottom five and into seventh. Bearman drops into 11th, with Sainz and Hamilton in the danger zone.
Alonso, Ocon, Albon, Hülkenberg and Norris are in the bottom five as it stands. Norris is back out on a fresh set of soft tyres.
Piastri is third fastest, 0.151s slower than Verstappen. Leclerc and Hamilton are in the top 10.
Norris pits after cutting a corner and has his lap time deleted. He is yet to post a time. Seven minutes remain.
Russell is 0.147s slower than Verstappen and Antonelli 0.313s slower.
Verstappen goes fastest on 1:19.140, three-tenths faster than he did in Q1.
Sainz and Albon head out straight away. Sainz posts 1:20.239 and Albon is over a second slower after some understeer in the final corners.
Q2 gets under way
The cars are back out on track at Monza.
The top five from Q1:
1 George Russell
2 Max Verstappen
3 Lando Norris
4 Yuki Tsunoda
5 Carlos Sainz
Q2 has been delayed as the stewards clear gravel off the track.
Hadjar fails to make it into Q2 for the first time in his career and it is fair to say he sounds disappointed on the team radio.
The bottom five from Q1:
16 Isack Hadjar
17 Lance Stroll
18 Franco Colapinto
19 Pierre Gasly
20 Liam Lawson
Hadjar exits after Q1
After the high of a third-place finish at Zandvoort, Hadjar’s final hot lap is not enough as he drops to 16th. Albon escapes the bottom five. Russell fastest.
Antonelli and Ocon are out of the bottom five. Lawson, back in the pits, will start back of the grid.
As everyone heads back out on track, Russell stays in, clearly thinking he’s done enough.
Hadjar, Albon, Tsunoda and Bearman are safe for now but could find themselves in danger.
Gasly, Antonelli, Colapinto, Ocon and Lawson occupy the bottom five spots heading into the final five minutes of Q1.
George Russell goes fastest on 1:19.414 as Gabriel Bortoleto and Sainz move up to more comfortable places in the leaderboard.
Fernando Alonso jumps up to second, 0.047s off Norris, as Albon lifts himself clear of the bottom five.
The Williams drivers are struggling. Carlos Sainz had his first time deleted after coming off the track entirely and Alex Albon also left the track after locking up.
Norris goes top on 1:19.611 and Piastri comes in one-tenth of a second behind.
Max Verstappen’s first time is 0.011s off Leclerc’s fastest lap.
Leclerc and Hamilton occupy the top spots so far, Leclerc on 1:19.801 and Hamilton 0.105s slower.
The tifosi bring the noise as Leclerc and Hamilton begin their first hot laps!
Q1 gets under way
The Autodromo Nazionale pit lane fills up with cars, Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari among them.
The championship leader, Oscar Piastri, is coming increasingly under the spotlight as his lead at the top extends. He’s played down title talk this week:
I’ve had a much bigger gap than this [in junior categories] and had it pretty much erased before the final round. It’s still far too early to be kind of calculating and settling for positions that aren’t first.
So for me, the approach is still exactly the same. And yeah, that won’t change until the gap is pretty significantly bigger or the amount of races is significantly smaller.
Here’s a reminder of how the top of the drivers’ standings looks.
The cars will be heading out for Q1 in five minutes’ time.
If Hadjar gets on the podium again tomorrow, let’s hope he takes better care of his trophy after what happened to his Dutch vase in Zandvoort …
Isack Hadjar, who earned his first podium finish last weekend, was investigated by the stewards after third practice after skipping the chicane at turn four and failing to take the required escape route.
Despite this being a repeat offence this weekend, the Racing Bulls driver avoided a penalty because of his low speed and the fact that no danger arose. He came away with just a warning.
Norris will be hoping to bounce back this weekend after the engine failure that left him pointless at Zandvoort. While that mechanical fault may prove costly in the title race, he’s been keeping spirits up this week:
I can literally only look ahead to the next few races and try and do more than I’ve ever done. But that’s it, if I lose the championship by those points, then I just have to keep my chin up, my head held high and try and do it again next year.
The team have done an incredibly good job so it’s unfortunate timing that it’s on what is probably the most important year of my career.
Here’s how third practice finished earlier on, Lando Norris leading the way:
As with any Italian Grand Prix, Ferrari are the star attraction. They have performed well so far in practice, with Charles Leclerc – who won here last year – second fastest in all three sessions. Lewis Hamilton was fastest in the first run yesterday. But as Giles Richards has been warning, they will find it tough to compete with McLaren this weekend:
All season Ferrari have been off the pace and Hamilton in particular is struggling as he adapts to a new team and car. It has been hard, at times volatile, as even he conceded this weekend in Monza, where he will take a five-place grid penalty from an infraction in Zandvoort but was at least honest about how both sides had perhaps been taken aback by the work their partnership required.
Gasly signs new Alpine deal
First, some news. Pierre Gasly has signed a contract extension with Alpine until the end of the 2028 season. The Renault-owned team stand last in the constructors’ standings after 15 of 24 rounds and the French driver has scored all of their 20 points so far, with a highest placing of sixth at Silverstone. A race winner, with victory at the 2020 Italian Grand Prix with Red Bull-owned AlphaTauri, the former F2 champion joined Alpine in 2023.
Preamble
And so, to Monza. The Italian Grand Prix is the last race of the F1 season to be held on European soil before its final eight fixtures elsewhere across the globe.
The dynamic of the drivers’ championship shifted quite dramatically last weekend in the Netherlands as Oscar Piastri opened up a 34-point lead over Lando Norris at the top of the standings. The Australian, who won his seventh race of 2025 in Zandvoort, has played down the significance of such a gap, which is the biggest it has been all season.
McLaren may not have long to wait to be crowned constructors’ champions – it is mathematically possible in Azerbaijan in two weeks – but a lot of the focus, of course, this weekend is on Ferrari.
Before qualifying gets under way in Monza in just under an hour’s time, let’s have your thoughts and predictions on this weekend and what the rest of the season might have in store. You can get in touch with me right here. Andiamo!
