Bottas Wins Sprint But Verstappen To Start On Pole
Calum Gill 16:44 11/09/2021
Red Bull's Max Verstappen will start the Italian Grand Prix from pole with title rival Lewis Hamilton only fourth. Valtteri Bottas won the 'sprint' event, but will start from the back after incurring an engine penalty.
Hamilton finished behind McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris after an uncharacteristically poor start. Verstappen now leads Hamilton by five points in the title race after taking two points for second in the sprint. Bottas took three points for first and Ricciardo one for third. The usual qualifying was replaced by a half-hour, 18-lap race to decide the grid for Sunday's 53-lap grand prix, and produced drama right at the beginning. Alpha Tauri's Pierre Gasly - the winner at Monza last year - collided with Ricciardo at the first Rettifilo chicane which eventually sent him careering into the barrier after his damaged front wing failed.
The Frenchman did a great job to minimise a high-speed impact by turning a badly damaged car away from the barrier as much as possible as it skipped across the gravel at more than 100mph. Verstappen said: "The race was better than expected - we had good strategy and scored nice little points and I'm starting on pole for tomorrow. I'm going to give it a try and stay close. We did trim our car to have decent top speed, so I'm not worried about out top speed in the race, but Mercedes have a very good pace in the whole lap, so I'll try."
Behind Hamilton were the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in sixth and seventh, with Alfa-Romeo's home boy Antonio Giovinazzi a respectable eighth. Sainz, in particular, will be relived after crashing heavily in morning practice and requiring a medical check, and Leclerc recovered from feeling unwell and having to curtail his practice session. Red Bull's Sergio Perez and Aston Martin's Lance Stroll rounded out the top 10.
Where did it go wrong for Hamilton?
The seven-time champion had a terrible start, his car swamped by Verstappen and the McLarens by the time they reached the first chicane. He then lost out to Gasly as he was squeezed into Rettifilo with Norris on his right-hand side before the Frenchman came to grief as he negotiated the Curva Grande. Hamilton cut a dejected figure afterwards, blaming a poor launch away from the line. He told Sky Sports that Mercedes have "got to try to figure out how to get by the McLarens tomorrow and limit the damage". He added: "You saw the pace of Red Bull - I don't know if they are quicker than Valtteri, but it should be easy win for (Verstappen). They've got more pace, and from what I understand they bring upgrades to every race."
The fast, low-downforce Autodromo di Monza is believed to suit the characteristics of the Mercedes car slightly better than the Red Bull, which has been superior at most other tracks this season. Of the top 10 only Stroll and the McLarens used the faster soft tyre, with the others opting for the medium compound, which tyre supplier Pirelli believe is around 0.4 seconds a lap slower. But there did not appear to be too much of a difference between the two as the McLarens did not suffer a loss of pace through tyre wear towards the end, nor did they have an impact on Verstappen or Bottas once positions were established early on. Teams are free to start on any compound for Sunday's race.
The rest of the grid
Fernando Alonso again drove well to pick up two places in the Alpine, ahead Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel & Alonso's teammate Esteban Ocon. Nicholas Latifi managed to outqualify his Williams teammate George Russell for the first time in fifty-one attempts, with the duo ahead of AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda. Nikita Mazepin placed seventeenth for Haas, with him and teammate Mick Schumacher sandwiching Alfa-Romeo stand-in Robert Kubica in eighteenth place. Gasly will start from the pit-lane following his crash, as well as everybody moving up a place thanks to Bottas' penalty.
