What Alpine got right at Monza and everyone else got wrong
The Race • • sports
Key Points:
- Alpine's Pierre Gasly secured a surprise pole position at the Italian Grand Prix, marking a rare dry qualifying underdog pole, last comparable to Pastor Maldonado's 2012 Spanish GP pole.
- Mercedes, favored to take pole with George Russell, faltered due to poor preparation and traffic issues on his final lap, narrowly missing out by 0.060 seconds despite having faster potential lap times.
- Ferrari's qualifying session was chaotic, with coordination issues between their drivers, but both cars still managed to start on the second row, benefiting from others' mistakes and a slight speed deficit.
- McLaren underperformed relative to its qualifying pace due to execution errors, including a penalty for Oscar Piastri and suboptimal slipstream positioning, which cost them better grid positions.
- Red Bull faced technical problems with Max Verstappen's car affecting ride height, and team slipstreaming strategies were compromised by Liam Lawson's failure to reach Q3, impacting their qualifying performance.
