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Pierre Gasly holds on to take his first F1 win at Monza!

6 September 2020 at 15:48
Last update 6 September 2020 at 16:12
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  • Louis Shaw
  • Editor

Pierre Gasly managed to hold off a late attack from Carlos Sainz to take his first Formula 1 victory at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza. It was a thrilling race with safety cars, red flags and penalties meaning for the first time in a while there were no Mercedes, Ferraris or Red Bulls on the podium. Instead, it was Gasly P1, Sainz P2 and Stroll P3. Here's how the race played out... 

What a start!

It was an incredible opening lap at the Italian Grand Prix. Valtteri Bottas had an incredibly poor start which allowed Carlos Sainz to get past and get up to second place. The Finn continued to drop down the grid as Lando Norris managed to get past the Mercedes meaning that it was McLaren in P2 and P3 behind Lewis Hamilton who eased to a comfortable lead after the first lap. 

Bottas dropped down to sixth but wasn’t the only front runner to have a poor start. Both of the Red Bulls dropped places with Max Verstappen falling from fifth down to seventh. Alex Albon’s dropped down to 14th and was then given a five-second penalty for not leaving Romain Grosjean enough space. His race went from bad to worse as the incident left a lot of damage to the floor of his car. 

Penalty drama and red flag 

Kevin Magnussen had a problem which saw him retire and pull up to the side of the track. The safety car was brought out and due to the location of where the Hass had pulled over, the pit lane was closed meaning that nobody was allowed to pit. Despite this, Lewis Hamilton and Antonio Giovinazzi both came into the pitlane and were therefore penalised. Both drivers were given 10-second stop-go penalties. 

On lap 27 Charles Leclerc had an almighty crash which brought out the red flag. The Monegasque driver lost control of the rear and hit the tyre wall with incredible force. Fortunately, he was ok and got out of the car relatively unscathed but the race was put on hold whilst the car was recovered and the circuit made race ready again. 

With the safety car, red flag and penalties the order of the grid was all jumbled up. The race restarted with Hamilton P1, Stroll P2, Gasly P3, Raikkonen P4 and Giovinazzi P5.  

More disappointment for Ferrari  

Ferrari will be pleased that there were no fans at the circuit as it was a dismal weekend for the Italian team. On top of Leclerc’s crash, Sebastian Vettel suffered a brake failure and was forced to retire meaning that both Ferrari’s didn’t finish the race. However, Italian fans will be pleased as they did have an Italian team on the top step of the podium!

Race restart 

There was some great racing after the race restarted. Lewis Hamilton went in for his penalty leaving the battle for the front incredibly tight. Gasly led the race for a number of laps with Sainz hot on his tail. Kimi Raikkonen did his best at holding onto third position and put up a good fight but was overtaken by Ricciardo, Bottas and Norris. 

All of the cars were incredibly close and there was some really exciting wheel to wheel racing making the argument for reverse grid races even more appealing. 

Verstappen retired his car due to a mechanical failure and with Albon's 15th place finish, Red Bull come away from the Grand Prix empty-handed. 

It was a nail-biting finish but despite all of Sainz's best efforts, it was Gasly who was able to hold onto the lead and take his first-ever Formula 1 victory.