Italian GP 2024: Leclerc one-stops past both McLarens at Monza

Charles Leclerc won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza from fourth on the grid, 2.664 seconds ahead of Oscar Piastri, with Lando Norris third. Ferrari were the only front-running team to make a single pit stop work, and it gave them their first home win since Leclerc's previous Monza victory in 2019. It was the seventh win of his career.

How Leclerc beat the McLarens

McLaren locked out the front row and lost the lead within a lap. Piastri forced George Russell wide at Turn 1, then passed his pole-sitting team-mate into the second chicane. Norris had a rear slide at the first Lesmo and Leclerc went by, so the man on pole was third before the race had settled.

McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull all planned two stops. Ferrari gambled on one. Leclerc pitted early for hards and ran 38 laps on them, keeping the graining seen in practice under control. When Piastri made his second stop, Leclerc took over at the front, and with eight laps left he was 11.5 seconds clear. Piastri cut more than eight seconds out of that on fresher tyres and simply ran out of laps.

Piastri vs Norris and the other duels

McLaren. Norris won the qualifying duel by 0.137% of a lap and lost the race one in the first two corners. He also fought understeer and a front-left problem, and needed a front wing adjustment at his first stop. McLaren never asked Piastri to let him by, even with Norris chasing Max Verstappen for the title. Their head-to-head stands at 13–3 to Norris in qualifying and 10–6 in races in our count, and the Sunday column is the closer one.

Ferrari. Leclerc out-qualified Carlos Sainz by 0.008% of a lap, fourth against fifth, about as close as a duel gets. Sainz stopped four laps after his team-mate, struggled with his front-left tyre and was passed by Piastri at Ascari. He finished fourth, 15.6 seconds behind the winner. Leclerc vs Sainz now reads 9–5 in races on F1 Duels.

Mercedes. Russell qualified third, three places ahead of Lewis Hamilton, but the Turn 1 squeeze cost him part of his front wing. He pitted early for a new one and hards, recovered to seventh and finished two places behind Hamilton, who had been unhappy with his own qualifying. One Sunday changes little: Hamilton vs Russell is 5–8 in races and 4–12 in qualifying in our count.

Haas. Nico Hülkenberg qualified tenth, three places ahead of Kevin Magnussen, then hit Yuki Tsunoda at Turn 1. The contact forced Tsunoda's RB out, so that duel does not count, and Hülkenberg's 10-second penalty left him 17th. Magnussen took the last point despite his own 10-second penalty for a collision with Pierre Gasly, but the penalty points that came with it rule him out of the next race in Baku. Hülkenberg still leads their duel 12–3 in races.

What it means for the title

Norris's third place and the fastest lap cut Verstappen's lead from 70 points to 62. Verstappen finished sixth in a Red Bull that never worked at Monza, though he still beat Sergio Pérez, eighth, and leads that duel 13–0 in races. McLaren are now eight points behind Red Bull in the constructors' championship, down from 30. Every verdict from the weekend is on the Italian GP duels page.