Race Report: Brilliant 1-2 at Monza

• Kimi Antonelli won Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix with team-mate George Russell P2.

• It was a thrilling drive from Kimi as he charged through the field from P19 to become the first Italian to win their home race since Ludovico Scarfiotti in 1966.

• It also marks Mercedes 250^th Grand Prix victory as a power unit manufacturer and the marque’s eighth victory at Monza; it’s first since 2018 at the ‘Temple of Speed’.

• Starting out of position, Kimi started on the Hard tyre but was able to change to the Medium compound under an early race red flag. By that point, he had already gained seven places to run P12.

• George meanwhile ran the conventional one-stop from P2 by starting on the Medium and taking the Hard under the red flag, with the clear goal to run to the end on that tyre as he led.

• Kimi’s progressed continued once the race restarted and cycled through to battle his team-mate for the lead.

• A mid-race Virtual Safety Car gave the team the option of pitting Kimi for a new Medium tyre, with signs suggesting that his original Medium tyre wouldn’t have the life to get to the end of the race.

• He rejoined in P6 but made short work of cars ahead; in the final stages he closed the gap to George before making the pass for the lead with three laps left.

• Our duo took the flag comfortably ahead of the rest of the field to secure the win, and the 50^th for an Italian in F1.

• Deputy Technical Director Simone Resta represented the team on the podium at his home race.

• The team now leads the Constructors’ Championship by 122 points with Kimi heading the Drivers’ standings by 66 points from his team-mate George.

George Russell

It’s frustrating to be so close to victory and not to achieve it but that is racing sometimes. Despite that, it is a brilliant result for the team, and I want to say massive congratulations to Kimi on winning his home race. There are many positives both I and the team will take away from this weekend. We showed great pace all weekend and fought hard throughout.

The Virtual Safety Car was definitely a moment where the race changed. At the time, no one could have known what the right call was. The team chose to split strategy between the two cars and that was the best decision we could have made. We will never know how the race might have unfolded otherwise but Kimi did an amazing job. We raced each other hard but always with respect, and it was good fun fighting wheel-to-wheel for the win.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

Today was a well-executed race by the whole team and overall, a strong weekend throughout. Even with Kimi starting near the back, we were confident that he could move forward and potentially fight for the podium. We had done a lot of work to optimise our race pace on Friday and that showed in the Grand Prix. Both Kimi and George were significantly faster than their competitors and that was brilliant to see.

The decision to either pit or stay out under the Virtual Safety Car was a close one. Ultimately, we decided to split strategies across cars to give ourselves the best chance of victory. Pitting Kimi was different to what most of the top 10 did but enabled us to cover threats from the opposition. At that point, the one-stop looked like the slightly stronger strategy, but Kimi’s pace really made the two-stop work. He carved past cars we thought he may struggle to pass; both Kimi and George were incredibly quick but once Kimi had caught, the tyre age offset meant he was able to pass quickly.

Our pace this weekend has been encouraging. We know we are out of sync with our rivals in terms of updates so to take a 1-2 and increase our lead in the championships is pleasing. We know that Monza is an outlier as a track though and we cannot expect this form to continue into Madrid next week. That will be a much tougher fight; we will once again focus on executing a clean weekend, maximising the package we have and bringing home good points.

Race Result