The key factors behind a Monza thriller that left the winner speechless

Where the Belgian Grand Prix had been generally lifeless, the 2020 Italian GP that followed sizzled with action and emotion throughout. Where Mercedes was faultless at Spa, three errors cost it dearly at Monza. And where Pierre Gasly was a touch undone by race circumstances outside his control in the Ardennes, in Lombardy they - alongside his brilliant driving - set up a famous triumph.

The opening 18 laps of the Italian race did bare an unmistakable similarity to those of seven days before - as polesitter Lewis Hamilton initially dominated - but the rest were action-packed. There wasn't a dull moment from the very second Mercedes realised its error in pitting Hamilton when the pitlane was closed, which created a chaotic and brilliantly enjoyable Formula 1 spectacle.

But there were other several pivotal reasons why it was Gasly - giving the former Minardi squad, now AlphaTauri, its second magic Monza moment 12 years after Sebastian Vettel did so when it was Toro Rosso - who emerged victorious and not the other contenders.

Bottas blows his big chance

When Valtteri Bottas made the first costly Mercedes mistake, he wouldn't have known just how much it would go on to harm his team's result, and ultimately boost Gasly.

The Finn had qualified a close second to F1's fastest ever pole lap as Mercedes swept to its customary grid spots. But Bottas's start was a shocker.

"I feel like there's been some disturbance sometimes at the actual starts and it's not fully been representative," he explained. "I can't go much more into detail from my side, [but] again I nearly went [before] the lights - but luckily not as much as the other race I did it [Hungary]. And then for the actual start I was a bit late."

This meant Bottas was swamped by orange on the run to the Rettifilo chicane, with Carlos Sainz Jr blasting by, and Lando Norris getting in on the action. Norris and Bottas clashed lightly before the apex of Turn 2, before Norris audaciously and brilliantly barged by on the outside in the first part of the della Roggia chicane. They touched harder here, wheel-to-wheel, but Norris was through and Bottas left scrambling - then falling to sixth as he ran wide at the second Lesmo and lost momentum on the run to Ascari, suspecting he had a puncture.

This was a key factor in Gasly's triumph because it effectively removed Bottas from the lead fight from then on, despite all that was to come, as he struggled with a Mercedes being tight on cooling, which meant he had to lift and coast more on a day where passing was also extra tough.

Magnussen and the marshals intervene

Hamilton had roared clear of Sainz, ending the first lap 1.378 seconds to the good. Over the next 17 tours he set a blistering pace the McLaren driver couldn't touch in the 1m24s, going clear by 0.656s per lap.

But on lap 18 of 53, Hamilton's race - for it really was his to lose last Sunday - was changed. Kevin Magnussen, who had pitted on the first lap after being caught between Antonio Giovinazzi and Romain Grosjean at the first chicane and sustained wing damage that needed replacing, ground to a halt as he ran out of the Parabolica. He pulled over shy of the pits, where the barrier was not wide enough to allow the marshals to quickly get the car removed - they had to push the VF-20 to the pitlane.

Mercedes had managed to miss the message that the pitlane was closed, only noticing when a strategy engineer back at the team's Brackley base radioed urgently to sound the alarm

This was covered by the intervention of the safety car, which was called as Hamilton was just over 200 metres from the Parabolica. Mercedes immediately decided to pit Hamilton, and it was here that the mighty squad's second and third errors came in.

First, Hamilton, who admittedly only had a few seconds notice, missed the marker boards warning that the pitlane was closed as the removal of Magnussen's car had not yet been started. Just before he passed them he was calling for hard tyres to be fitted at the stop (Mercedes had prepared mediums, which were fitted). The two boards displaying red crosses were situated on the left-hand side of the Parabolica's super-fast exit, of which Hamilton later observed "if you're going through a right, you're not looking left".

But Mercedes had managed to miss the message that the pitlane was closed, only noticing when a strategy engineer back at the team's Brackley base radioed urgently to sound the alarm. It was too late, Hamilton was in to take on mediums.

"There was confusion, because you prepare yourself for the pitstop to make it good," said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff. "Everybody on the pitlane, including myself, we were looking at this situation - nobody looks at page four [of the FIA timing data] that the pitlane is closed. We can't see the signs, and this is just a sequence of events that screwed Lewis's race."

It certainly did. Hamilton and Alfa Romeo's Giovinazzi - who came in even as those far ahead of him stayed out - were quickly placed under investigation and were later handed 10s stop/go penalties.

But while Mercedes' pitlane errors ultimately boosted Gasly to victory, the timing of the safety car initially looked to have cost him - just as it had at Spa, where he couldn't pit when it appeared or his contra-strategy would've been utterly ruined. The Frenchman had started 10th after another strong showing in qualifying and had already had an eventful race to this point.

First he and Alex Albon had come to blows at the first corner, with the Red Bull knocked wide after a hefty second clash that was declared a racing incident. From there he'd chased Esteban Ocon hard for ninth before fading back slightly as his soft tyres began to wane. This put him under pressure from his team-mate Daniil Kvyat, who had tracked his team-mate closely in the opening phase on his hard starting tyres - the two AlphaTauris matching each other at an average of 1m26.248s per lap on the tours up to Gasly's stop on lap 19, moments before the safety car was called.

Gasly dropped to 15th, having taken on the hard tyres under green conditions. So when the safety car was called, he initially felt "we just pitted exactly at the worst time possible". But then the pitlane closure meant he could close up to the pack. He jumped to third when everyone else bar Lance Stroll, the two Alfas, Charles Leclerc and Nicholas Latifi pitted when the pitlane eventually reopened two laps after Hamilton's catastrophic call-in.

"In the end it turned out to be a very lucky move," Gasly said of his early stop.

The race restarted on lap 24, before Hamilton's penalty was confirmed, but with Mercedes already suspecting he would be punished. The return to full speed only lasted one more lap when the next critical moment of the race took place as Leclerc, who had nipped by the Alfas at the restart, crashed heavily at the Parabolica.

Not only did the impact smash the SF1000 to bits, but it damaged the safety and tyre barriers, and the conveyor - which then "needed to be prepared to ensure that the circuit was back to the same safety condition," according to FIA race director Michael Masi - and so the race had to be stopped, with the cars brought back to the pits. Hamilton headed the queue, his penalty soon confirmed, ahead of Stroll, Gasly, and Kimi Raikkonen - who had also stopped just before the safety car period - and Giovinazzi.

When the drivers returned to their cockpits, they got to experience another piece of F1 history. They left the pits at the start of lap 27, which was conducted as a second formation lap, and reformed the grid for another standing start

Sainz and Norris were suddenly sixth and seventh, with the former "angry and I had rage" about this sudden change of fortune. All of these drivers fitted mediums during the red flag (only Gasly and Stroll had new ones), except the Alfas, which had to take softs as they had already been running their respective single remaining mediums. The red-walled rubber gave them grip at the start, but they faded quickly thereafter, coming home 13th (Raikkonen) and 16th (Giovinazzi).

Hamilton climbed from his car and opened an investigation with the Mercedes team members that had reached his W11, at the opposite end of the pitlane to the squad's garage. He then scooted down to the pitwall to discuss things in more detail with the strategists and Wolff.

Next, in what was over a 25-minute delay, he went to see the stewards who "quickly showed me the onboard, and there were two signs that had an X on it", he explained.

When the drivers returned to their cockpits, they got to experience another piece of F1 history. They left the pits at the start of lap 27, which was conducted as a second formation lap, and reformed the grid for another standing start.

Stroll blows his big chance

And it was here that the next crucial piece of the puzzle fell into place for Gasly, as Stroll made it two bad getaways for the second-placed starter. Like Bottas over an hour earlier, Stroll was sluggish away as he "had a ton of wheelspin".

Gasly was ahead by the first corner and following Hamilton, who came in at the end of the second 'first' lap - actually the 28th tour - to serve his penalty. He rejoined 17th and last, half a minute off the lead that had for so long been his.

Stroll's restart got worse when he locked his right-front heavily and shot across the runoff at the della Roggia and had to stay behind the two Alfas that had passed him on the run to Turn 1. At the start of the next lap, Sainz blasted by to demote him further at Turn 1. His "amazing opportunity" to take his first F1 win was gone.

And so, it fell to two more drivers chasing a maiden F1 triumph to play out a battle for the ages, and that surely isn't putting too finer point on things. It was a tense and thrilling chase to the finish - with 19 laps still to go.

Gasly soaks up the pressure

Once he'd inherited the lead, Gasly never lost it. But it wasn't that simple.

By lap 34, when Sainz was finally back to the second place that he more than likely would've taken on merit even if Hamilton had waltzed to yet another victory given his pace in the first phase, Gasly was clear in the lead.

Sainz had to battle by Raikkonen - with Giovinazzi serving his penalty two laps after Hamilton and therefore dropping to the back in turn - and it took him four laps before he got by with a steamy lunge to the outside of Turn 1, plus a firm shove to claim the Turn 2 apex. That scrap had added 3.308s to Gasly's lead, which now stood at 4.344s.

Over the remaining distance, Sainz whittled Gasly's advantage back. The two leaders generally ran in the low-to-mid 1m24s, with Sainz occasionally dipping into the 1m23s. Over this period, Sainz was an average of 0.178s a lap faster than his rival.

"I knew the closer Carlos was getting, the more slipstream he would get," said Gasly, who tried weaving to disrupt the tow in the final laps. "I tried to push as hard as I could in the corners on the tyres, which obviously means you have more degradation but it was my only way to make lap time.

"The last few laps I had big moments through the Lesmos, through Ascari, just trying to give everything because I could see him becoming bigger and bigger in my mirrors."

Dirty air does for Sainz

The tow effect around Monza is part of its magic - and has been throughout its F1 history. Across the weekend, before the race, the drivers had been getting in each other's way in their desperation to sit in the optimum three-four second gap, which raised their top speed without giving up corner handling. Q1 was blighted, thankfully Q3 wasn't - for a second year in a row.

"This team have done so much for me. They gave me my first opportunity in F1. They gave me my first podium and now they are giving me my first win. It's crazy, honestly, it's just crazy. I'm so happy" Pierre Gasly

Sainz surfed this effect well as he relentlessly closed in on Gasly, but as he finally really reached the AlphaTauri's rear, the air suddenly became a problem.

"We've been very strong here on the straights this weekend," he explained. "The only thing I haven't done this weekend is get a tow - because I know that our car doesn't work very well in the tow, we are very affected by the dirty air.

"As soon as I got to within 1.5s I started feeling that dirty air, I started feeling the car was a lot more loose, a lot more difficult to get the lap time and the grip in the corners. I was trying to maximise the tow, maximise everything I could, but the car was starting to struggle a bit behind Pierre."

And that finalised the result. Only on the last lap was Sainz finally able to get into DRS range - but he could not reap its benefit, ruing that the race was not just one lap longer. Gasly was home, 0.415s ahead of Sainz, the recovering Stroll 3.358s back in third.

Hamilton recovered to seventh. He set a string of fastest laps once he'd emerged from his penalty pitlane trip, but once he caught the back of the pack he could not cut his way back to the top places. He still made eight passes - and finished 13s closer to Gasly than he had been at the start of the chase - but that was as far as he got.

"[The new engine mode rule was] why I wasn't overtaking a huge amount, or at a fast pace," he explained. "When I came out, I saw that I had a massive gap, and it wasn't really closing anywhere near as fast as I would like. And also I was running out of laps.

"I was sure I was going to catch them at some stage, but then I got caught up and I couldn't get by - so it didn't feel great, that's for sure. I had to use up a lot of my tyres to even catch the back of the train. But I did the best I could."

Gasly's return to joy

It was 13 months ago that Gasly found out he was being demoted from Red Bull back to Toro Rosso, and motorsport has just marked one year since his close friend and F2 frontrunner Anthoine Hubert was killed at Spa.

He impressed over his nine races back at Red Bull's 'B-team' in 2019, capping his season with that tremendous run to second in Brazil. He explained, after going one better last weekend, that he had focused on improving himself and simply enjoying the atmosphere at AlphaTauri - where he clearly thrives. His race performances in 2020 even before arriving at his team's home race have been outstanding.

"I've got no words," he said once he'd climbed from his car and leapt for joy. "This team have done so much for me. They gave me my first opportunity in F1. They gave me my first podium and now they are giving me my first win.

"It's crazy, honestly, it's just crazy. I'm so happy."