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MONZA, Italy — The Italian national anthem echoed throughout the Autodromo Nazionale Monza from a thousand voices.
Two massive red banners accentuated with yellow and a Prancing Horse logo covered the start/finish straight near the podium. Vibrant red smoke filled the air. Smaller flags fluttered across the sea of people gathered on the straight, eyes fixed toward the podium at a 26-year-old Monegasque driver clad in a carbon-colored race suit.
Charles Leclerc beamed back at the crowd, sharing a moment with the Ferrari faithful and Formula One team that few of them expected to win when the weekend began.
McLaren entered the Italian Grand Prix weekend as the favorite and looked like it could pass Red Bull in the constructor standings after locking out the front row in qualifying. But Ferrari and Leclerc managed to pull off a perilous strategy, executing a one-stop race and risking the hard tire falling off at the end. For the first time since Leclerc’s win at Monza in 2019, Ferrari was again victorious at home.
“(It is) just as sweet as the 2019 one. I thought the first one was always going to be more special if there was a second one ever happening, but actually it’s not the case,” Leclerc said. “The second one just feels as special.
“Today I did not expect it going to the race.”
A Hail Mary at Monza
Leclerc’s Ferrari ties date back to 2016 when he joined the team’s driver academy, but he didn’t join its F1 driver lineup until 2019, his second season on the grid. His first race win came at Spa that year, and a week later, he was victorious at Monza. Similar to Sunday, the crowds went wild. But could the magic of that kind of win be recreated?
McLaren has become a force to be reckoned with this season. Red Bull looked strong at Spa, which also has long straights. Even Mercedes showed a competitive pace on Friday. Given Leclerc and Carlos Sainz’s dissatisfaction after qualifying on Saturday, many fans likely wondered whether a Ferrari podium, much less a win, would be possible with McLarens and George Russell lining up ahead. But Sainz believed Sunday would “be all about who manages the graining better, and normally, in that case, it is who gets clean air does a better job.”
He was right.
Leclerc said Oscar Piastri was quicker at the beginning of the race, and Lando Norris’s pace was hard to judge because Leclerc got past him. The Ferrari driver said he felt his car was in “a good place” after a few laps.
But then Norris undercut Leclerc, pitting on Lap 14. “I was like, ‘OK, maybe we are losing the win there,’” Leclerc said. Ferrari called him in a lap later, and it became a waiting game. The mechanics fitted his SF-24 with the hard tires with 38 laps to go.
McLaren controlled the race but opted for a two-stop strategy like nearly the rest of the grid – The hotter temperatures and pushing cooked the tires. However, Ferrari managed to navigate through the graining phase of the hard tires better than everyone else, meaning they became quicker once again.
It was a go-for-broke moment.
Leclerc’s win surprised and delighted the Ferrari faithful. (Sipa USA)
“Once (the McLarens) pitted, I actually picked up quite a lot of front grip, having the free air in front. Being the last car, I didn’t have much to lose by trying the one-stop,” Leclerc said. “But we did a really, really good job with that front left, which has been very, very tricky for everybody. We had a lot of front graining but managed to take that front grip again. And that helped us to win today.”
Leclerc wanted the one-stop strategy even before the race began. But after feeling out 10 laps and seeing Red Bull struggle on the hard compound, he doubted the idea. He said, “We thought that it would be a lot more difficult because we thought that the hard would be a more difficult tire to bring to the end. However, as soon as I put it, I still thought that this was a possibility.”
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An end to a ‘tiring’ week
“To stand up on that podium in front of all the tifosi after such a week, because it’s a very tiring one,” Leclerc said. “It’s an incredible feeling to be racing for Ferrari in Monza, but it’s also very tiring.”
Racing in Italy as a Ferrari driver comes with added pressure and responsibilities. There are countless media and marketing requests, partner commitments, engineering debriefs and preparation, and making time to greet their fans. Just outside the gate of their hotel, crowds of Ferrari fans stood waiting, hoping to get a glimpse of their team.
Leclerc said drivers are used to the pressure to perform; however, it also exists for the team.
“They all have at least one family member or very close friend in the grandstand and that adds a lot to it. Everybody wants to do super well in Italy. Lots of Italians traveling from all over Italy just to see Ferrari and to cheer for us. So you also want to do well for the big support we have here, and that adds a little bit to the pressure.”
Leclerc said his second Italian GP was as special as the first. (HOCH ZWEI)
Every time Leclerc drove down the pit straight, the grandstand crowd roared. He needed to remain focused, keeping Piastri at bay as the Ferrari driver’s tires wore away. However, like his 2019 victory, Leclerc admitted it was sometimes difficult to keep his eyes on the track.
“It’s a very special feeling. I could also see some red smoke at one point. So I knew everybody was super excited, but I also knew that I had to finish the job and that I had to stay on it because Oscar had a really good pace,” Leclerc said. “But yeah, in the last five, six laps, I felt like we had it. The tires felt good, and I could see that Oscar was not that fast to catch me before the end of the race if I was not doing any mistakes.”
Leclerc’s Monza win marks Ferrari’s third this season, keeping it within 31 points of second-place McLaren. It can be easy to get caught up in a win, let alone an emotional one at home. Ferrari’s competitiveness comes in flashes; even Leclerc said resets after races are necessary.
“We learn from it, and we try to analyze everything, but we should leave emotions aside and reset as a team and go again in Baku, not having crazy high expectations because that’s not where the team is at the moment,” Leclerc said, adding that Monza is a fairly specific kind of track. Just because Ferrari won in Italy doesn’t mean this will translate to the remaining eight races.
“Have we done a step forward? Yes. Is it enough to go and win races until the end of the season? I don’t think so yet, but we did a good step in the right direction.”
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Top photo: Sipa USA
