2023 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix highlights

Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team

Solid P5 and P6 finishes for the team in Monza on a day when we had the third-fastest car in the field behind Red Bull and Ferrari.

George made a solid start to run P4 for the early part of the race, defending vigorously from Perez until eventually ceding position to the faster Red Bull. George pitted on lap 19, incurring a five-second penalty when rejoining the race, but a robust and well-managed stint meant it cost him no positions. Lewis ran an offset strategy by starting on the Hard tyre, running longer than most runners before pitting to Medium tyres just after half the distance. Rejoining in P10, he could pass Alonso quickly, then close in on the battle between Albon and the two McLaren drivers. Minor contact with Piastri on lap 41 meant he incurred a five-second penalty. Still, the tyre offset said he could pass Norris and Albon on track for P6 and then build the necessary gap to maintain his position in the final standings. The team scored 18 points today and now holds a 45-point advantage over Ferrari, who climbed to P3 in the constructors’ championship today.

Lewis Hamilton

Every point and position we get through these races is incredibly hard-fought. We started on the hard tyre today, and it was nice to be offset but challenging at the beginning and not so easy to follow in the DRS train. I spent a lot of laps following the McLarens, so I knew that I had slightly more pace than them in the first stint and hoped I could get them on the second one. There was a big gap to catch after the stop, and I was worried my tyres would go off when I saw them, but fortunately, theirs did the same. I cleared Alonso immediately after the stop, which opened things up and let me close them down, but the incident with Piastri was unfortunate. I misjudged my gap, and it was my fault – I went and apologised to him straight after. So I think we maximised today, and now I’m looking forward to Singapore in ten days.

George Russell

Fifth place was probably the maximum today, and I think we’d have taken that result before the weekend. We’ve outpaced McLaren and Aston Martin here, but unfortunately, Ferrari was just a step ahead of us here – and then Red Bull out front. They were so fast in the high-speed corners today that I couldn’t keep Perez behind any longer than I did in the early laps. It was a tough race because the degradation was high, but the long pit-stop loss means that a two-stop strategy isn’t competitive; that means a lot of time in DRS, but it’s not easy to overtake with such minor pace differences between cars.

I’m looking forward to heading to Singapore next. We were competitive there last year, and I think our car will be better suited to that circuit, so hopefully, we can fight a bit closer to the front than we managed here.

Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

That was a pretty incident-filled race, and we maximised the points today. But, like always, we must be careful not to be too happy about finishing fifth and sixth. Looking back at them, I think both penalties for the drivers were fair, but fortunately, they both did a great job to make sure they didn’t have any consequence for the finishing positions; they both just took it on the chin, got their heads down and kept on racing. We know that these low-downforce circuits are not our strong suit, and I think we have seen progress over the season from Baku to Spa to here. The next race is Singapore, so back to high downforce and coming towards our direction slightly more. It will be essential for us to maximise that opportunity when it comes.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

We were the third quickest team today, so fifth and sixth was the best we could achieve. The car doesn’t have the pace of the Ferrari at this downforce level. Fortunately, the fight is much closer on standard tracks, but today was all about damage limitation. The team and drivers did an excellent job to minimise our points loss in the constructors’ championship. The hot conditions made it tricky with the tyres, and the one-stop became relatively marginal if you were pushing to defend or attack. We were expecting a tough race for the tyres. Usually, our car is quite kind to its rear tyres, but we’ve struggled to keep the temperatures down since Friday. We’re just sliding around a little too much and saying that we at least had the pace and straight-line speed to gain a few places at the end with Lewis. We’ve been some way off threatening the podium positions here, so we’re looking forward to Singapore, where, hopefully, we’ll be able to fight for the more prominent points positions.

Mercedes-AMG F1 Team best pictures:

2023 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, Friday – Sebastian Kawka

2023 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, Friday – LAT Images

2023 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, Saturday – Wolfgang Wilhelm

2023 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, Saturday – Sebastian Kawka

2023 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, Sunday – Steve Etherington

2023 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, Sunday – Steve Etherington

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