McLaren issues team orders while Verstappen sets another record | Italian Grand Prix Results 2025

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Top three moments from the race

1. Elbows out on the start

The start of the race was a nail-biter as the top four fought for podium positions. Max Verstappen defended the lead but had to go off track to defend his lead from an attack by Lando Norris. After giving the position back, Verstappen was on the chase, and it wasn't long before the Red Bull pulled an incredible overtake to regain the lead and carve a massive gap for himself out front. 

Behind them, the other McLaren of Oscar Piastri had a tense back-and-forth with the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc that saw the two trading overtakes across the first six laps. In the end, the straight-line speed of the Ferrari was no match for the cornering speed of the McLaren, and Piastri came out on top, maintaining his starting position.

2. McLaren issues team orders

After a disastrous five-second pit stop that saw Norris lose the lead over Piastri that he had maintained for the entirety of the weekend, the McLaren pit wall invoked team orders and told their drivers to swap positions. Tom Stallard, Piastri’s race engineer, came on the radio to deliver the instructions, reminding his driver of the awkward situation the team was put in during the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix, where pit stop trouble forced the team’s hand and Norris had to yield the lead to Piastri. Today, they found themselves in a similar situation where the leading driver in the championship standings had to step aside for his teammate due to a mistake made by the team. Neither driver was clearly happy with what had happened, particularly as tight as the fight for the title is, but Piastri did make light of the incident during his post-race interview, calling it a “little inchident at the end there.”

3. Verstappen’s dominant win

From start to finish, Verstappen was unstoppable on track today, finishing with a nearly 20-second gap between him and Norris in second place. This is Verstappen's third win of the season and his second in Italy after having won at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix earlier this year. Red Bull has been struggling all season long, and seeing Verstappen jump into the arms of his crew afterwards truly showed how much this win means to not just him but the entire team around him. He truly executed a flawless performance throughout, building on his record-setting lap for pole position from Saturday by setting the fastest time for a race win in F1 history. 

This also marks Laurent Mekies’s first grand prix win as the Red Bull’s Team Principal, and what better place to secure it than Monza.

Temperature check

Who rose above expectations? And who flopped? Here’s our temperature check for the Dutch GP:

Sizzling - Isack Hadjar. From a pit start to points, Hadjar built on a disappointing Saturday to regain the momentum from his first career podium last weekend in the Netherlands 

Ice cold - Yuki Tsunoda. From an excellent Saturday, where he consistently kept within 0.3s of Verstappen and made it to Q3 for the first time in 10 races, to a P13 finish on Sunday, Tsunoda’s race performance left much to be desired.

Radio of the day

“If we are not under threat why did we pit now? Just to know.” - Charles Leclerc

“We can discuss it later.” - Bryan Bozzi

Leclerc was the first of the front runners to peel into the pits for a new set of tires on lap 33 of the race, likely to cover off George Russell. Running in fourth at the time, Leclerc wasn’t under obvious threat but the team chose to pit him regardless. After Leclerc questioned the decision the mysterious response from his race engineer will likely have many speculating Ferrari's strategic choices at their home circuit.

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Cover photo by Rupert Campbell on Unsplash