The heroic win that showed Leclerc's ruthless edge

The 2019 Italian Grand Prix was Formula 1 at its best - at least for the first 41 laps. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton didn't trade the lead once, but from the moment the race started until the Mercedes driver's mistake on the brakes at Turn 1 on lap 42 through to Valtteri Bottas's late chase, it was a race on a knife edge.

Tense, tight, briefly explosive and relentless, it had echoes of the legendary Michael Schumacher versus Fernando Alonso battles at Imola in 2005-06 (pictured below).

For 63 minutes, Leclerc could not let up. Save for the two laps on which first the Ferrari driver and then Hamilton pitted, there was never more than 1.589 seconds between them at the end of the lap. On average, the gap at the line was just 0.951s.

Leclerc's first win at Spa the weekend before might have been the breakthrough, but it was his victory at Monza under the most intense pressure from one of grand prix racing's true greats that signalled he has come of age in a race where team-mate Sebastian Vettel made yet another costly error.

Leclerc's defences could have been breached twice. But this victory was the consequence of a will of iron, a driver hitting his marks through the Parabolica to stay clear on the main straight lap after lap and a willingness to go to the edge in battle when required.

If winning grands prix was about being a nice guy, Bottas would have come through to win. But here Leclerc bared his teeth and showed a ruthless edge.

Leclerc took pole position in a messy qualifying session, with team-mate Vettel down in fourth and unable to screen him from the Mercedes drivers as he had at Spa.

Vettel's absence from the front row was not his fault, as on his first Q3 run he was at the front of the pack without a tow and was then part of the farcical scenes that prevented anyone improving. Without that, as he was due a good tow from Leclerc he might even have started from pole.

So Leclerc was isolated from the off. Despite his bullishness about Ferrari's race pace being stronger than it was at Spa, the Friday long runs suggested Mercedes would again have the edge on Sunday.

Any hope of Vettel contributing meaningfully to Leclerc and the Ferrari team's afternoon was destroyed on lap six

Hamilton briefly threatened to turn the tables at the start by getting a better launch and getting his front axle alongside Leclerc's sidepod. The pair almost converged before Hamilton inched to his right as his front-left wheel drifted back towards Leclerc's rear-right thanks to the extra poke of the Ferrari engine, and accepted second place into the first chicane.

During the first stint, Hamilton didn't drop to the customary two seconds behind and instead stayed with Leclerc. At this stage, it was about keeping Leclerc within range and under pressure while trying to keep the soft tyres alive. The gap throughout floated in the 1-1.5s bracket at the line.

Any hope of Vettel contributing meaningfully to Leclerc and the Ferrari team's afternoon was destroyed on lap six. He spun through the first left in the Ascari esses and onto the grass.

To make matters worse, in his eagerness to recover he drove onto the track at 90 degrees to seventh-placed Lance Stroll, clipping the Racing Point into its own spin. Justifiably, this earned Vettel a 10-second stop/go penalty.

Stroll pulled a similar trick in rejoining ahead of Pierre Gasly after coming to a halt at the exit of Ascari, but received a milder drivethrough penalty as he did not add causing a collision to the offence of rejoining dangerously. Vettel talked about lack of visibility making it difficult to rejoin, but the knowledge he had spun in front of as many of 16 cars early in a race should have made him more cautious.

Back at the front, with both Ferrari and Mercedes knowing the time for what would likely be the one and only round of pitstops was coming, the gamesmanship began. The Mercedes crew moved into the pitlane on lap 16 of 53 with no intention of bringing either car in. Ferrari did not respond.

Two laps later, Hamilton told the team "the rears are dropping off, we cannot overcut him" on the run to Ascari. He then tried to launch an undercut attack by calling for a stop while on the run to Parabolica, which the team rejected on the basis there was still traffic in his pitstop window - specifically Carlos Sainz Jr's McLaren, in sixth chasing the Renaults of Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg.

A lap later, Hamilton dived into the pits to take on medium rubber, heading back out after a quick turnaround. The plan was for him to force Leclerc into making a stop to cover the potential undercut. Bottas, who had a strong first stint and was never more than 1.471s behind Hamilton at the end of a lap, was left out to give him a tyre-life offset in the hope he could also challenge Leclerc late on - ideally once Hamilton was in the lead.

"That was the only play," said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff of the strategy. "We knew the overcut would not work because there was not enough left in the tyres.

"Sainz and the Renaults were in our window, so we were evaluating if taking the risk of having all three in the window would be viable and, in the end, we decided to give it a go with the two Renaults and [risking] being close with Sainz on the exit. Ferrari made the same move. There was no strategic option left."

A sharp turnaround ensured Hamilton emerged ahead of Sainz, but fifth on the road behind the two Renaults, with Bottas now temporarily in second behind Leclerc. Hamilton's out-lap was quick enough to put pressure on Leclerc, but a combination of the Ferrari driver's quicker in-lap and a similarly rapid pitstop meant he came out without having lost the position.

Crucially, while Hamilton was on the mediums Leclerc had taken the hards - encouraged to do so by team-mate Vettel's pace on the hardest compound after his enforced stop, combined with memories of his struggles on mediums at Spa - after being able to run longer in the first stint than Ferrari originally planned.

Unlike in the first stint, Hamilton knew the time was right to attack and he latched onto the rear of Leclerc. Mercedes had warned him about Leclerc's tyre choice and the resulting tyre warm-up disadvantage, and he was right on the leader's tail at the first chicane.

On lap 22, the second of Leclerc's stint, Hamilton was able to feint to the inside on the run to the first chicane in an attempt to distract his prey, but he wasn't close enough for a real attack.

Hulkenberg, temporarily in third place, then came into play at the end of the lap, with Leclerc deciding to pass him up the inside into the Parabolica. This compromised his exit and allowed Hamilton the run he was waiting for, forcing Leclerc to defend into the first chicane.

The defence worked, but compromised Leclerc's exit, something he compounded by picking up a little wheelspin at the exit. Again, Hamilton had a run, briefly checking up in the flat-out Curva Grande as Leclerc edged towards the outside of the track. This allowed Hamilton to duck inside the Ferrari on the inside of the corner, putting him on the outside for the second chicane.

"It was obviously very on-the-limit but I'm happy to race like this" Charles Leclerc

He drew alongside, his front axle only inches behind Leclerc's. A pass around the outside from there was a big ask, but Leclerc squeezed him and forced Hamilton to take a bite of the grass and cut the corner. Leclerc was hit with the black-and-white warning 'flag' that has been brought back into active use as F1's in-race yellow card system.

Hamilton was not happy, radioing immediately that Leclerc had not left him the car's width mandated in the rules. After the race, he stressed he had no problem with Leclerc but did feel the rule about not crowding a car off track risked being applied inconsistently.

"If that's how we're able to race then I'll race like it," he said. "As long as we know you're allowed to not leave a car's width and you don't have to do that now.

"As long as you're not contradicting us, as long as we've got a clear message, we're allowed to run wide if someone's there and you only get a warning flag then you only need that once to potentially keep the guy behind you. As long as it's clear and that's the way going forwards then it's fine. It's just so I know how to go into battle."

Hamilton also admitted that his status as championship leader encouraged him to yield, hinting things might have been different were he not protecting that advantage. Leclerc, who has taken this approach in battle since Max Verstappen got away with crowding him off the track while taking the lead late in the Austrian GP, was unapologetic.

"I knew he was on the right," he said. "He braked a little bit early, which I think was probably on purpose because he didn't want to try around the outside. I thought I had left a car width.

"Since Austria, it's clear that we can go a bit further in the way that we defend and overtake and the aggressiveness of us drivers. I believe that Austria helped me to change this approach and it's also thanks to this that I've managed to win. It was obviously very on-the-limit but I'm happy to race like this."

But Hamilton did not give up. Ricciardo did not offer a chance to attack as they cleared him, and once Bottas stopped for mediums at the end of lap 27 - giving him a seven-lap tyre-life offset advantage compared to Leclerc - Leclerc and Hamilton were back to the front. It wasn't until lap 36 that Hamilton had his second chance, when Leclerc locked up into the first chicane.

Leclerc cut the track, compromising his exit and compounded that with significant wheelspin as he got back on the power. This gave Hamilton a run through Curva Grande, this time attempting to go to the left of Leclerc before checking up when the Ferrari moved left to cover him. "There's some dangerous driving going on", he said over the radio.

Hamilton didn't know it, but that was his last chance. For the most part, Leclerc's strength through the Parabolica and good deployment of the available power on the main straight ensured he was out of reach.

Hamilton complained about the state of the tyres shortly after his complaint about dangerous driving, so perhaps it was no surprise when, while still on Leclerc's case but visibly struggling to keep the car within a second of him, he braked fractionally too late for the first chicane and bailed out of the corner.

The time it took Hamilton to weave his way through the marker boards and rejoin allowed Bottas to get ahead. The Finn had been rapid since his pitstop, taking on average just over half a second per lap out of the top two to end lap 41 just 1.2s behind Hamilton. His team-mate's mistake gave Bottas, with his fresher rubber, a clear run at Leclerc.

But he wasn't able to get as close as Hamilton had been, which Wolff put down to Bottas struggling a little more in turbulent air than his team-mate. But there was still a chance, which was created by lapping Lando Norris's 10th-placed McLaren. Leclerc had to follow the McLaren, at a distance but not enough to avoid any compromise, through the Parabolica but wasn't able to gain use of the DRS from the backmarker.

Bottas closed up and had the advantage of the DRS, closing rapidly on Leclerc at the start of the third lap from home. He wasn't close enough to attack, but he was as close as he'd been, only to go deep at Turn 1 and lose a second. That gave Leclerc a little respite and, although Bottas edged up again, there was never a better chance.

"I'm gutted," said Bottas. "I was trying everything I could to get him and there was no way past. Always when I was getting close enough I started left-front locking, because of the lack of downforce and they are so quick in the straights. But I tried and I think it was the best I could do."

Behind them, Hamilton rounded out the podium but, given the state of his tyres, wisely opted to make a second stop to bolt on softs. He also suggested he would have had to let the rapid Bottas past to have a go at Leclerc anyway even if he had not had his off. New rubber allowed him to take fastest lap by a second from Vettel, although there was never any chance of Hamilton getting close to the top two.

Winning for Ferrari at Monza is as good as it gets, and the significance of Leclerc doing so when Vettel made yet another major mistake won't have been lost on the tifosi

Vettel was only able to recover to 13th after his early mistake, costly penalty and second pitstop. This should have meant Red Bull driver Max Verstappen took fourth but, after starting 19th thanks to a back-of-the grid penalty for taking the spec-4 Honda engine, his race was immediately compromised when he was caught out by the first-corner traffic jam. This resulted in him clipping Sergio Perez's Racing Point as he attempted to swerve onto the grass, sending him into the pits.

Verstappen spent the rest of the race recovering to eighth. After stopping at the end of his first lap to change the nose and switch from mediums to soft tyres, he picked off Robert Kubica, George Russell, Kimi Raikkonen, Pierre Gasly and Norris - having already got ahead of Vettel and Stroll thanks to their spins and penalties - before making a second stop for softs on lap 28.

After rejoining 13th, he repassed Gasly and Norris, and overtook Antonio Giovinazzi in the final stint. This, on top of Daniil Kvyat's retirement on lap 30 and Kevin Magnussen's second stop, added up to eighth just behind the fast-on-the-straight Perez.

This meant a big pay-day for the Renaults. The slippery RS19 was closer to the pace than ever before at Monza, with Ricciardo and Hulkenberg starting fifth and sixth. Hulkenberg initially ran fourth having passed Vettel around the outside into Curva Grande - and being given room by a Ferrari driver who wasn't keen to repeat his 2018 error in the same situation.

Vettel easily repassed him on the run to Turn 1 on lap two, with Ricciardo then relegating his team-mate three laps later. From there, they never missed a beat on their way to fourth and fifth, ahead of Red Bull's Alex Albon, with only the intervention of the VSC exaggerating the gap between the pair.

Albon had survived a third-lap run through the gravel after trying to hang on around the outside of Carlos Sainz Jr's McLaren at the first Lesmo right-hander. Sainz's rear-end wobble caused the contact that spat Albon wide and cost the Red Bull driver two places, subsequently apologising for it. The McLaren driver's race was later to come to an end when his front-right wheel wasn't properly attached at his pitstop.

But these were all footnotes to Leclerc's day of days. Winning for Ferrari at Monza is as good as it gets, and the significance of doing so when Vettel made yet another major mistake in a race won't have been lost on the tifosi.

Leclerc emerged as their new hero, while the second victory in the week will give team principal Mattia Binotto some much-needed breathing space as the team heads into a run of races that will not favour its low-drag, short-on-downforce SF90.

The nature of Leclerc's drive under intense pressure with a few moments of very aggressive defence when things did go wrong, combined with a tyre call that Binotto described as "brave but the right choice", added up to a famous day at Monza. Leclerc's reaction when the pressure released as he took the chequered flag told you everything you needed to know about how tough a win his was to achieve.

And if Leclerc wasn't 'the one' after his Belgian Grand Prix win, this will certainly have cemented his place in the hearts of the Ferrari fans on a day when Vettel again threw it away.