After a fantastic race weekend at Monza, the fastest track on the entire Formula 1 calendar filled with victory, triumph and disappointment, Charles Leclerc was able to snatch a home crowd victory for Ferrari. After going long on his tires, edging out second place Oscar Piastri, who continues to not only cut into Red Bulls lead in the constructors championship but his own teammates (Lando Norris) lead in the drivers championship against Max Verstappen who continued to lead, by a margin. 

The display we saw the previous race it’s still very much anyone’s game, but the favorites seem to be the Ferrari and Mclaren drivers who are showing strength over Red Bull and Mercedes in the later stage of the season. With the season growing ever closer and exciting, between the top four teams (Red Bull, Mclaren, Ferrari and Mercedes) the Formula 1 grid heads to Azerbaijan for the 17th round of the F1 championship on Sunday, September 15. 

After Kevin Magnussen faced a race ban for accumulating 12 penalty points, Oliver Bearman was taking his place throughout the race weekend making his second F1 appearance with HAAS this time instead of Ferrari. 

Red Bull was able to show solid pace after Perez topped the timing sheets in free practice one, after Leclerc crashed into the wall after a lockup into turn 15. Despite the crash in the previous session, Leclecr was able to boast the fastest lap in Free Practice 2 edging out Perez in his Redbull by just six thousandths of a second. In the third and final practice session, Oliver Bearman tagged the wall in the first turn, after bailing late, ripping the front wheel off of his Haas. 

At the end of the session, Goerge Russel, in his Mercedes  was able to take the fastest time proving that this is still very much a four-horse race for the constructors championship.

As qualifying rolled around, Mclaren was expecting to have both cars in Q3 and starting in the top 10 for the next day’s race but unfortunately, that was not in the cards for second place championship contender Lando Norris. 

On his final push lap, in Q1, a yellow flag appeared in the final sector of his lap causing him to slow down, pull into the pits and abort the lap, therefore he started 17th for the race, with Riccardo in 16th, Bottas in 18th, Zho in 19th and Oconin 20th. 

Following an uneventful second session of qualifying, the eliminated drivers were Bearman starting 11th, Tsunoda 12th, Gasly 13th, Hulkenberg 14th, and Stroll 15th. For the final qualifying session Alex Albon in his Willaims was sent out of the pits with the airbox cooler still attached to his car causing him to pull over and remove it throwing it to the trackside marshals, but fortunately was able to continue after the uncharacteristic mishap from the pit crew.  At the end of the session, Leclerc and Piastri duked it out for the top spot but at the end of the day Leclerc was able to take his fourth consecutive pole at the track with Piastri taking second, Sainz in third, Perez taking fourth out qualifying teammate Verstappen for the first time this year.

Russel was able to split the Red Bulls taking fifth, Verstappen sixth, Hamilton Seventh Alonso Eighth and both Willaims making top ten appearances by qualifying ninth and tenth. 

Onto race day, as the drivers took their assigned spots on the grid the feeling of raw anticipation hung in the air, as the drivers waited for the lights to go out and the culmination of a weekend’s work to start. Leclerc held his lead into the first turn as Perez was able to jump to second passing Sainz and Piastri. 

Up front the drivers were able to play nice with each other and stay cordial avoiding contact, however at the back it was a different story. Lance Stroll attempted to pass Tsunoda on the inside by making a last second lung that Tsunoda was unaware of, causing a collision that damaged Tsunodas car, which led to a retirement later in the race and a puncture for Stroll soon after the contact causing him to pit. 

All of this mayhem greatly benefitted Norris who was given positions throughout this ordeal, as he was sprinting through the pack trying to catch championship rival Verstappen. After just eight laps, he had already catapulted into the top ten from his 17th place starting position. 

On lap 15, Mclaren took advantage of Norris’s rather unfortunate position and used him as a blockade to slow Perez to ensure teammate Oscar Piastri could leave the pits ahead of him. Norris’s efforts proved successful as Piastri rejoined just ahead of Perez and held that position for the remainder of the race. 

With many teams, including Mclaren, opting to do the one stop strategy, Piastri was told to go easy on his tires and maintain his second place position in order to preserve them, however Piastri did not like the sound of that and on lap twenty decided to do what he said in his own words was “a 50/50” move and take the lead. Leclerc tried to fight back in the subsequent corners but it was to no avail. 

A few laps later Verstappen made a charge at Norris after falling behind him due to pitstop cycles, but the Red Bull bugs reared their ugly head again in the midst of this battle causing Verstappen to bail out of the corner, due to braking issues he was not satisfied with. 

In the late 20s and early 30 lap marker of the race, Leclerc continued to make a valiant push to reclaim his first place on Piastri coming within a tenth of a second down the front straight and attacking heavily into the first handful of corners, but Piastri was able to just edge him out and maintain the lead fractionally. 

The Mclaren go long strategy final came to an end as Norris came in for his first pitstop on lap 38 to put on a fresh set of tires to last him to the end of the race and get ahead of Verstappen. 

Throughout the closing laps of the race, viewers could tell how badly Piastri and Leclcerc wanted the race win, with both drivers routinely lighting up the rear tires out of the last corner and sliding the car trying to get every last scrap and then some from the car in hopes to edge the other out. Perez lurked in the shadows not too far off them ready to pick up the scraps if one or both drivers made a mistake. 

In the midst of the nail biting battle up front Norris was able to pass Verstappen on lap 49 with relative ease due to his newer fresher tires and continue to chip into Verstappen’s lead. Around this time is when Leclerc’s tires finally hit the cliff and what was a few tenths of a second gap to Piastri quickly grew to a few seconds as he fell back into the clutches of Perez and now Sainz. 

As the trio clawed for Position Perez tried to pass at the start of the last lap trying to sweep around the outside into turn one, but Leclerc was having none of it, and held his line on the inside forcing Perez wide, giving Sainz a window through into third. Into the second turn Sainz tried to make a move around the outside of his teammate Leclerc to no avail, heavily compromising his exit allowing Perez to get to his back tire down the following straight. 

In a move of last lap racing aggression Sainz swept across the track to the left as Perez drifted slightly to the right and the two collided sending both into the wall with a shower of carbon fiber, lost points and emotions. A huge hit to Perez, not just in raw impact, but his overall career, which has been on the fence for the better part of the season and has been costing Red Bull not only in points but money in crash damages. 

The extravagant collision caused the race to be finished under virtual safety car conditions giving Piastri his second win this season and Mclaren the constructors championship lead for the first time since 2016.

Leclerc finished second and Goerge Russel was able to scrounge up a third place from the Sainz and Perez mishap. The crash also made it possible for Bearman to be the first driver ever to score points in his first race with two different teams and gave Franco Colapinto his second points finish in his second ever F1 race giving Williams another double points finish and ten points from a single race.  

Despite the crash Perez was able to prove that he doesn’t feel done at Red Bull just yet and will make them think long and hard if they do decide to fire him. As for the other teams and drivers, everyone has made it clear that we are done with the days of the RedBull runaway and any of the top four teams (Mclaren, Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes) have a shot at the win, or at least a podium on nearly every race weekend.