Gasly takes shock maiden F1 win in crazy Italian GP

Pierre Gasly resisted Carlos Sainz Jr’s McLaren to pull off an extraordinary Italian Grand Prix victory for AlphaTauri.

A penalty for stopping in a closed pitlane meant Lewis Hamilton could only finish seventh after dominating initially, with Max Verstappen retiring and Valtteri Bottas a subdued fifth in a race that had to be restarted after a huge crash for Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton had established a 15-second lead in the first part of the race and appeared to be cruising to victory.

He broke clear immediately as Mercedes team-mate Bottas lost second to Sainz with a slow start, was outmuscled by outside-line attacker Lando Norris through the Roggia chicane, then ran wide at the second Lesmo and lost out to Sergio Perez too.

A move by Daniel Ricciardo into the Ascaris completed Bottas’s misery by demoting him to sixth, where he remained stuck and complaining of potential damage and high engine temperatures.

Verstappen was just behind Bottas at this point, having made a slow start and then been overtaken by Stroll at the end of the first lap – though he soon repassed the Racing Point for seventh.

Gasly at this stage ran a quiet 10th, with AlphaTauri resisting radio calls from his chasing team-mate Daniil Kvyat to swap their positions.

The safety car under which Hamilton was penalised was caused by Kevin Magnussen – already at the back having picked up wing damage on lap one – parking his Haas on the grass approaching the pit entry.

A race control message quickly declared that the pitlane would be closed initially so the Haas could be retrieved, but Hamilton and Antonio Giovinazzi both came in.

Most of the rest of the field then pitted once the pits were officially open later in the safety car period.

That led to an extremely jumbled restart order with Hamilton first but under investigation, then Lance Stroll second having not pitted at all.

Gasly, Kimi Raikkonen, Leclerc and Nicholas Latifi benefited from having stopped before the safety car and rose to third, fifth, sixth and seventh respectively at that point, with Giovinazzi fourth.

Leclerc quickly passed both Alfa Romeos at the restart but then dramatically lost control mid-corner at the Parabolica and ploughed heavily into the barriers.

He was unhurt, and his violent exit completed an awful home race for Ferrari as team-mate Sebastian Vettel had already dropped out with a very early brake failure into the first corner while running 17th and under pressure from the two Williams.

Under F1 regulations Stroll was able to make his mandatory tyre change during the red flag and effectively begin part two of the race in the best position.

But he made a poor getaway at the standing restart and immediately fell behind Gasly and Raikkonen, before losing another place to Sainz by shooting off the road at the Roggia chicane too.

With Hamilton pitting for his penalty at the first opportunity and rejoining last, Gasly found himself leading the race over Raikkonen.

The Alfa Romeo had nothing for the AlphaTauri – bar a punchy effort on the restart lap from Raikkonen – and began a steady fall down the order, with Sainz more than four seconds behind Gasly when he overtook Raikkonen for second around the outside at the first chicane with 19 laps left.

Sainz then hacked away at the gap to Gasly, inching closer lap by lap and finally getting within DRS range with a lap and a half to go.

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But Gasly had just enough in hand to take a remarkable first F1 win by 0.415s, 12 years after AlphaTauri had famously won at Monza in its Toro Rosso guide.

With Raikkonen slipping right back to 13th, Stroll was able to at least take his first Racing Point podium.

Norris finished fourth in the second McLaren, resisting the muted Bottas, while Hamilton made it back through to seventh between the Renaults of Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon.

Kvyat and Perez, who had a slow pitstop, completed the scorers.

Verstappen tumbled into the midfield at the restart and retired soon afterwards, while his Red Bull team-mate Alex Albon was only 15th, having had a first corner clash with Gasly and picked up a penalty for a brush with Romain Grosjean.

Williams was led by Latifi in 11th in what was the founding Williams family’s final race in charge of the team.

Race Results