Why Ricciardo was set for Monza F1 triumph even without Verstappen/Hamilton crash

“We earned it. We were leading. We were putting ourselves in a great position – the team made good pitstops. We put ourselves in a winning position and it wasn’t circumstances. We can sleep knowing that we earned every bit of this.”

Daniel Ricciardo was entirely correct in his assessment of McLaren’s 2021 Italian Grand Prix result. The Australian won the race in front of team-mate Lando Norris, while title contenders Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton controversially clashed twice – the second contretemps putting both out and leaving the Mercedes driver dangerously close to being seriously injured.

But, even without that clash at the Rettifilo chicane just before the race’s half-way mark, there are plenty of reasons to suspect Ricciardo and McLaren would have triumphed at Monza anyway.

Ricciardo had gone a long way towards earning some Sunday success with his excellent performance to take third in the sprint race, which of course became second on the grand prix grid when Valtteri Bottas’s penalty for taking a fresh engine pre-‘normal’ qualifying was applied.

Then, right at the start, Ricciardo’s main race was transformed.

He’d tried to banish thoughts of Hamilton’s terrible getaway from the second-place grid spot the day before – “sometimes you do get a grid offset, like left side is better than right or something” – but nevertheless didn’t feel his start was all that wonderful. This was thanks to the mediums all the leaders, bar Hamilton from fourth, had started on. The yellow-walled rubber just didn’t have the same bite off the line as the softs Ricciardo and Norris had used so well on Saturday.

Ricciardo got the better launch to grab the lead from Verstappen at the start

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

But in any case, Ricciardo’s launch then became better forward momentum against inherited-polesitter Verstappen. As they charged up the gears on the long run to the first part of the Rettifilo, the McLaren surged fully alongside the Red Bull, Ricciardo sealing the move at the right-hand apex.

As he shot clear, Hamilton accelerated around Norris’s outside emerging from the left-hand Turn 2 apex to move up to third. His speed was so great through Curva Grande and down the next straight, Hamilton had enough momentum to make a move to Verstappen’s outside under braking for the della Roggia chicane. It was a move similar to the pair’s clash at Imola.

And indeed, just as in the Emilia Romagna GP in April, this time in Lombardy in September Hamilton gave way when Verstappen forcefully stayed on the racing line – the Mercedes bumping over the kerbs before the chicane’s second apex and falling behind as Hamilton rejoined, with Norris repassing too. That decision was worth remembering 40 minutes later.

“Unless he sent a Hail Mary, it was going to be tough for [Verstappen] to pass” Daniel Ricciardo

Ricciardo didn’t get a chance to pull clear of the slightly compromised Verstappen as the race was soon neutralised by a virtual safety car period. This was to allow the Monza marshals to clear the debris resulting from Antonio Giovinazzi’s clash with Carlos Sainz Jr exiting the second chicane. The Alfa Romeo driver was penalised for rejoining in an unsafe manner, when his attempt to pass Charles Leclerc came unstuck as he locked up following the Ferrari into the chicane’s second apex.

The race resumed when Ricciardo was exiting the Rettifilo on lap two of 53 and Verstappen was soon all over the McLaren. When DRS was activated on lap five, the Dutchman was already in DRS range and had been for two laps before the system went live. But the heavy pre-race favourite could not find a way by.

McLaren’s overall lack of downforce compared to F1’s leading teams, combined with the MCL35’s excellent traction, which was on display earlier this year in Monaco and Austria in particular, means its package is very potent at Monza. Add in the DRS effect at the Italian track being significantly and critically smaller than at other venues because the rear wings are trimmed down so much to save drag and no wonder Verstappen was stuck. And so was Hamilton, for the second day in a row, behind Norris.

For 21 laps the status quo held – McLaren and Red Bull holding out on the ageing mediums to allow gaps to build to the pack behind before coming in for what was scheduled to be a single stop per car.

Ricciardo was comfortable in leading Verstappen through the first stint

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Hamilton’s hards eventually made the difference in his battle with Norris, the world champion getting by with a run around the outside into the della Roggia as his grip remained high on the white-walled rubber (which was actually good news for Ricciardo).

Ricciardo had been five seconds clear of the battle for third when he peeled in for his stop on lap 22, but Verstappen remained a threat and stayed out one lap longer.

“Unless he sent a Hail Mary [pass], it was going to be tough for him to pass,” Ricciardo said of Verstappen’s stint one chase. “I think where I felt I was a little vulnerable was at the end of that stint, where the tyres were going off, but I believe the others were suffering as well.”

They sure were. Verstappen told Red Bull his tyres were “f*****” as he tried to push in free air on lap 23 before coming for his own set of hards. But here things went wrong.

An 11.1s stop due to a problem with the front-right change – the cause of which Red Bull was unsure of as it departed Monza – meant the already faint hope Verstappen had of overcutting his former team-mate was gone. Ricciardo had lit up the timing screen with personal bests in the second and third sectors in any case.

Then came the crash.

Norris had pitted after being passed by Hamilton, and like Ricciardo displayed searing out-lap pace. It was enough to undercut the Mercedes when Hamilton came in at the end of lap 25 – the Briton having actually asked to stay out as he felt the “tyres are good”.

But Mercedes knew it had the chance to jump the delayed Verstappen and it wasn’t about to let such a chance go – also armed with the knowledge Hamilton had passed Norris once already and the younger Briton did not have a tow from Ricciardo by this stage (a crucial factor in Norris’s sprint race heroics to defy Hamilton in that event).

Verstappen's slow pitstop would have heavily compromised his race

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

A 4.2s stop from Mercedes was enough to get Hamilton out ahead of Verstappen – incensed and snapping at engineer Gianpiero Lambiase after the pitstop delay. But it wasn’t by much.

In fact, Verstappen had enough speed to send his car shooting to Hamilton’s outside as they braked for Turn 1, then stayed there around the first apex. Just like on the first lap, one contender held the racing line with the other forced onto the kerbs. But unlike Hamilton at the della Roggia earlier, Verstappen didn’t back out of the move.

He stayed half on the kerbs and was in fact launched off the raised orange ‘sausage’ variety, the Red Bull climbing onto the Mercedes’ rear wing, then engine cover, rollhoop, Hamilton’s halo and nose. Terrifyingly, Verstappen’s right-rear squashed Hamilton’s helmet – thankfully not to a fatal degree.

The stewards would later determine Verstappen was “predominantly to blame for the incident” as he arrived at Turn 1 “too late to have ‘the right to racing room’”, was never fully alongside Hamilton, and, crucially, could have turned out of the crash by cutting over the kerbs

Both were out in the gravel behind the Rettifilo. Hamilton tried to reverse out from underneath the Red Bull but was beached and ordered to switch off his car.

The stewards would later determine Verstappen was “predominantly to blame for the incident” as he arrived at Turn 1 “too late to have ‘the right to racing room’”, was never fully alongside Hamilton, and, crucially, could have turned out of the crash by cutting over the kerbs. Hamilton was “driving an avoiding line”, per the stewards, but could have given Verstappen a car’s width – hence why the Dutchman was “predominantly” and not wholly responsible for what happened.

Just at Silverstone, only the incident was judged and not the consequences. And just as in Britain the stewards blamed the right driver and gave the right amount of blame. But perhaps the worst part for Verstappen was that he cost himself points in the title fight – even if Mercedes boss Toto Wolff called it a “tactical foul” response to being passed. Christian Horner felt it was “a racing incident”.

The wreckage took four and a half laps behind the safety car to clear up. Then, ahead of lap 31, Ricciardo brought the pack back up to racing speed. He led Leclerc, who had gained enough time from stopping under the race neutralisation to get ahead of Norris, with Sergio Perez, Sainz and the sensationally charging Bottas following.

Safety car to retrieve damaged cars from the gravel allowed Leclerc to close, but Ricciardo was never threatened

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

As Ricciardo roared clear, Norris brilliantly and boldly passed Leclerc tight to the inside of Curva Grande (using a touch of grass) – with the Ferrari soon being (controversially) overcome by Perez and Bottas. In the second fight, Leclerc’s use of the tow from the Mercedes he’d let back by after cutting Turn 2 was cheeky, even if it soon didn’t matter given Bottas was ahead by the same spot a lap later.

Ricciardo lapped in the low-mid 1m26s bracket in the five laps after the restart, with Norris edging his team-mate on pace by 0.027s on average over that period. So, he urged McLaren to in turn tell Ricciardo to speed up.

Under orders to give maximum attack on the hards, the leader raised his pace into the 1m25s bracket on lap 36 and from there felt “it was in control”. He only slipped back to low 1m26s three times afterwards – plus one slow lap under VSC when Nikita Mazepin retired with an engine issue at the Ascari chicane – and then his 1m24.812s fastest lap on the final tour.

“There were definitely laps where I was going too slow,” Ricciardo explained. “So, then I would pick it up and just try to find that balance.”

The increased pace helped Norris keep a small cushion over Perez, who soon had a five-second time penalty hanging over him for his lap 32 pass on Leclerc being completed by cutting the della Roggia’s second apex.

Norris had abandoned any notion of attacking his team-mate because “the incident between Max and Lewis – I saw it quite well in my mirrors – was flashing up in my head when I thought maybe I’ll try [and] I thought, ‘Nah, maybe this isn’t the wisest decision’”.

And so, the biggest threat to McLaren’s position now came from Bottas who had put in a series of excellent passes in the race’s first half, where he was also running the hards, to rise from starting last on the grid thanks to his penalties.

Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL35M, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The soon-to-be-former Mercedes driver had been reminiscent of Hamilton charging back after his closed pitlane penalty in the 2020 Monza event. But he got stuck behind Perez – especially once a move that so nearly worked at the outside of the della Roggia on lap 43 went awry by Bottas going too deep and losing momentum. The medium tyres he’d taken under the safety car on lap 26 “started to drop” as the finish approached. From there fourth on the road became third in the final result, as Perez fell to fifth once his penalty was applied post-race.

McLaren’s aftermath joy was lengthy and immense – the ‘feel-good’ factor oozing. Ricciardo, who won by 1.747s over Norris, spent all of the post-race celebrations in his socks after losing his shoes to various ‘shoeys’ with the podium champagne.

All so well deserved. And, really, also inevitable.

Without Ricciardo’s tow Norris’s second place would have been very vulnerable, but the reduced DRS effect and faster degrading tyres would have worked against Hamilton in a theoretical battle with the eventual winner

If Hamilton had been able to stay ahead of Verstappen on his violently truncated out-lap, there are several reasons why he likely still wouldn’t have got to the front. Firstly, he’d have had to pass Norris again – only this time on the more fragile tyre. The hard compound showed almost zero degradation in the hottest temperatures of the weekend, meaning it was the best race rubber by far. And Hamilton had already run it.

Yes, without Ricciardo’s tow Norris’s second place would have been very vulnerable, but the reduced DRS effect and faster degrading tyres would have worked against Hamilton in a theoretical battle with the eventual winner. On the evidence of Bottas’s sprint race win, Verstappen likely never would have got back by Hamilton, and so wouldn’t have been a threat to Ricciardo’s race without fate somehow intervening again.

And so, in any case, things rightly ended with a first win for Ricciardo since his Monaco 2018 redemption story. Given his struggles since moving from Renault last winter, this triumph also had a distinct flavour of reclamation, as well as champagne and foot sweat. Plus McLaren finally ‘followed up’ on the 2012 Brazilian GP with its 183rd world championship race victory.

“It means everything,” Ricciardo reflected. “I definitely try not to dictate my life happiness around the sport, because it’s been three and a half years since I won – so I’d be pretty miserable most of the time if I just based my happiness on winning races. A lot has happened since, so to be back here in this moment that’s why we love the sport. It makes all those crappier days worth it. It’s as simple as that.”

Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren drinks from his shoe on the podium

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images