Why Sainz was able to make F1's 2023 Italian GP as good as it was

“Car-los! Car-los! Car-los!” Simple, but effective. The Tifosi’s cheers for Monza third-place finisher Carlos Sainz rather drowned out the Dutch and Austrian national anthems being played to celebrate the actual winner of Formula 1’s 2023 Italian Grand Prix.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen might have achieved a unique piece of F1 history with his record-setting 10th consecutive win, but he is so remarkable it has almost become unremarkable. Sainz was this race’s clear star.

The Spaniard had just edged Verstappen to pole for Ferrari’s home race and he got to enjoy the first-place grid slot for rather longer than he would have expected. That was because the race start was delayed by over 20 minutes thanks to Yuki Tsunoda having to stop his smoking AlphaTauri ahead of the Parabolica on what should have been the sole warm-up tour.

Instead, as the AT04 was stuck in gear and couldn’t be quickly recovered, the start had to be aborted twice. And due to a problem with the LED screen that accompanies the F1 starting lights gantry, everything got spun out even longer.

This delayed the mechanics being able to get back onto the grid as it impacted F1’s grid security procedures. Two Alfa Romeo mechanics were so concerned by the hold-up, they jumped over the pitwall – such was the fear over climbing engine and brake temperatures in the hottest conditions of the weekend in northern Italy. Eventually, it was time to try the formation lap again at 1520 local time, with the hold that followed all five starting lights coming on for the getaway lasting barely a beat.

When they did launch, the leading duo got away almost in unison, with Sainz having enough time to swing ahead of Verstappen on the long run down to the first part of the Rettifilo chicane. Here he covered first place off nicely, with Ferrari’s hopes that Charles Leclerc would be able to attack Verstappen and force Red Bull off its ideal strategy correspondingly dashed.

Sainz held onto the lead at the start ahead of Verstappen, with Leclerc forced to slot into third

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Instead, the second SF-23, starting from third, was forced into defensive action against Mercedes driver George Russell. This tussle lasted until the pack reached the Roggia chicane a few seconds later and, now safe in third, Leclerc was able to shoot after the top two.

Russell was quickly dropped but not massively as he led Sergio Perez’s Red Bull RB19 in fourth, while Sainz pulled out a 0.8-second gap on the first lap of 51 (reduced from 53 by the extra formation tours). He extended that to 0.9s on the second time around, but critically did not build enough of an advantage to break Verstappen’s DRS threat.

Therefore, when the overtaking aid was activated, Verstappen promptly reduced the difference by nearly a third. He still, however, had Leclerc lurking just under a second further back – the second Ferrari being towed along very nicely.

"I tried everything I could to keep [the Red Bulls] behind, especially that first stint in front of Max. It probably nearly cost me a podium, because it meant that I was wearing my tyres a lot" Carlos Sainz

“I was just trying to stay patient,” Verstappen later explained of the race’s opening phase. “It was still a very long race. I could see them struggling a lot with the rear tyres, so I just had to pick my moment.”

The first one he plumped for occurred on lap six, when Verstappen – having been thrillingly close to Sainz’s rear running through the famous Ascari chicane – got such a good DRS run down the main straight that the leader was forced to cover the inside line at Turn 1. In an effort not too dissimilar to his disastrous move against Lewis Hamilton at the same corner here in 2021, Verstappen attacked on the outside line, except this time he backed out of contact.

He declared Sainz’s firm shutting of the door “naughty” over his cockpit radio, but a racer as hard as Verstappen could have little real complaint. In any case, it was becoming obvious that he would soon get another chance.

“I tried everything I could to keep [the Red Bulls] behind, especially that first stint in front of Max,” Sainz said afterwards. “It probably nearly cost me a podium, because it meant that I was wearing my tyres a lot.”

The podium point is still to come, but the tyre wear was really becoming an issue, especially on Sainz’s left-rear. Plus, as Pirelli motorsport manager Mario Isola explained to Autosport, with “40C track temperature, degradation was higher than expected”.

Sainz rebuffed Verstappen's first attempted move around the outside of the first chicane, but couldn't hold the Red Bull man forever

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Unlike in 2022, when front-left tyre wear was Ferrari’s undoing against Red Bull, this time the attention was on the rear axle. On tyres a compound step softer than last year (in this case the leaders had started on the medium C4s), the traction demands of the Monza layout of few corners and long straights was putting the pressure on the rear rubber. Plus, the 2022 Pirellis famously had a tendency to introduce understeer. Now strengthened, they make the handling better balanced, which in turn increases the rears’ sensitivity to on-throttle sliding out of corners.

This was what Sainz had to do – blast out of the corners and try to get as far ahead of Verstappen as possible. But it came at a cost. It made him “very vulnerable towards the end of the stint”, which on the mediums was expected to be around 20-laps long. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves once again…

After his first passing attempt had been rebuffed, a second close run out of the Parabolica at the end of lap eight caused Sainz to cover the middle of the road heading towards Turn 1 on the rapidly following next tour.

“When he was putting the car in the middle under braking into Turn 1, it's almost impossible to do something,” said Verstappen. “Because if I go for it and he just moves a little bit to the right, there is no space anymore. So, for me, there was never really an option to actually fight in the braking zone.”

Instead, having grown audibly frustrated at the top speed prowess Ferrari was displaying, Verstappen had to wait for the circumstances to fall his way. As he did so, engineer Gianpiero Lambiase helpfully insisted his rival was “struggling with the rears – a lot”.

And so, after another tense six laps with Sainz at the head of the pack – during which Leclerc critically fell out of DRS reach to Verstappen on the 11th tour – Verstappen’s moment arrived. With the Red Bull feinting to the inside before really heading the other way, Sainz slightly snatched his right-front brake.

It wasn’t a massive lock up, but it was enough to send him deep for Turn 2 – and, powering out of the Rettifilo chicane, Verstappen kicked off the winning move, shooting his car alongside on the run through Curva Grande. Here, something fascinating happened, which was key to understanding just how good Ferrari and Sainz were last weekend: the Spaniard started to edge his nosecone back ahead of Verstappen.

Sainz wore out his rear tyres quicker than Verstappen who pounced on his opportunity

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

There were several reasons for this. The first, and simplest, being Ferrari’s decision to fit new engines into its cars for this event. “They were running those engines pretty hard as well,” claimed Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, indicating what his squad was calculating from the GPS traces logged by the red cars.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur gave short shrift to that theory, saying, “We didn't take more risks than Zandvoort” the week before when it came to engine mode power settings. In any case, the Ferraris suffered no engine ill-effects, even with the extra baking of the longer start time.

What Ferrari did certainly do, however, was run a rear-wing package so slender, senior team performance engineer Jock Clear had explained ahead of the race was a “bespoke package” for Monza. Previously a common ploy in the pre-cost cap eras, this had been produced based on the Scuderia’s observations from earlier in 2023 that “the lower downforce was suiting us better, it would have been silly of us not [to have taken this approach]”, per Clear.

The skinny wings here simply opened less than with the barn doors fitted for Zandvoort. There just wasn’t the downforce surface to dump and big boost to be had. But this was still Verstappen and the RB19

As could be seen clearly in qualifying, and in the speed trap figures, Sainz had the edge on top speed. But Verstappen’s bigger wing – actually still the smaller of the two Red Bull had tried in opening practice – was providing enough downforce to given him an advantage in the fastest corners: Lesmo two, Ascari one and the Parabolica. That, and being able to use DRS to stay close on the straights, meant he didn’t have to spend additional tyre life in those places too.

But Verstappen wasn’t using DRS to blast by Sainz as might have been expected given Red Bull’s prowess in this area everywhere else in 2023. This was because the skinny wings here simply opened less than with the barn doors fitted for Zandvoort. There just wasn’t the downforce surface to dump and big boost to be had.

But this was still Verstappen and the RB19. And from alongside Sainz through the Curva Grande, he pressed home his hard-won advantage – sealing the lead he would only again lose through the pitstops to cars well out of the lead fight with a neat move on the inside at the second chicane.

By the end of lap 15, Verstappen had shot clear to lead by a second, with Sainz under massive pressure from Leclerc behind. The Monegasque driver might not have had Verstappen’s cornering speed, but he was already getting DRS from his team-mate. And soon Perez was an additional factor, as he finally battled by Russell on the run to the first corner on lap 16.

Perez moved into contention after passing Russell, quickly latching onto the Ferraris ahead

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Ferrari had decided against pitting Sainz as soon as Verstappen powered by because, according to Vasseur, “we were all a bit worried with the life of the hard, but we were a bit blind because we didn't do so long stint before [in practice]”. He was referring to the FP2 long runs lasting, generally, just four-five laps for the frontrunning squads thanks to Perez’s late Parabolica crash, when in any case conditions were cooler. With this in mind, Vasseur said Ferrari also felt “it was also a risk to stop very early [due to subsequent stint length]”.

“It did feel high deg for me,” Sainz explained of his tyre life throughout the event. “It did feel more like a two-stop than a one-stop. In the end, we committed to a one-stop because that's what our numbers suggested before the race. But, honestly, I was probably five laps short in each of these stints. The last four laps I did on the medium I did it with zero rubber left.”

Sainz was pulled in at the end of lap 19, just before the one-stop target lap, but had to wait for nearly a full second longer in his pitbox than ideal because Russell also pitted and nipped by into the waiting Mercedes mechanics. This meant, when he stopped a lap after his team-mate to also take hard tyres Ferrari intended to go to the end, Leclerc very nearly overcut his team-mate on a day when the undercut was very much the more likely outcome of pitstop chess movements. But Sainz stayed ahead at the first chicane, then was unruffled by Leclerc’s feint at the Roggia’s outside.

Verstappen was by now also on the hards, as he’d stopped on the same lap as Leclerc and was soon busy extending his lead from the four-second margin he’d had pre-pitstop with a run in the mid-1m25s. He’d been over half a second slower than that just after he rejoined, which allowed Sainz to briefly steal a few tenths back as he pressed on with Leclerc bearing down.

Perez came in at the end of lap 21 having “decided to stay out” when he saw Sainz pit, going against Red Bull’s wishes. Perez was instead “thinking that we could extend a little bit more, to build a little bit more of a tyre delta”, but then “we were in the risk of undercut to George and we ended up behind the Ferraris” when he did stop two laps later than planned.

Through the phase leading up to halfway, Hamilton held first place thanks to starting on the hards and running deep before stopping on his way to a controversial sixth-place finish behind his similarly penalty-addled Mercedes team-mate, with Verstappen easily taking back the lead with a main straight DRS blast on lap 25.

Two laps later, Sainz passed Hamilton heading into Ascari just before the Briton finally pitted and entered his period of pack racing and penalty pain. At this point, Perez was just 0.6s behind Leclerc, who was trailing his team-mate in turn by 0.8s.

Perez made short work of Leclerc after the Monegasque lost DRS on Sainz, who then had to soak up pressure from another Red Bull

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

But on lap 31 heading to Turn 1, having barely managed to hold DRS the lap before, Leclerc critically lost the overtaking aid he’d been using to keep up with Sainz on the hards and defy Perez. What followed was very Monza 2019 and Leclerc’s uber-aggressive defence against Hamilton to seal his so far only Ferrari win on home soil.

As Perez used DRS to attack on the outside of the second chicane, Leclerc swung right and, after the barest hint of contact, the Red Bull jinked right and put its wheels on the grass, so close to shunting. But Perez held on, somehow, and the next time down the main straight made certain of third even before the braking zone against the DRS-less Leclerc.

Sainz here was 2.0s ahead of Perez – 6.8s behind Verstappen – and it took eight laps before the Mexican was finally able to haul himself into DRS range of the lead Ferrari. Now he had that back behind Perez, Leclerc was still closely behind in fourth.

"We were both moving a bit too much under braking but, at the end, I don’t complain. This is what I love about racing, the adrenaline that you feel when you are fighting each other" Charles Leclerc

Like Verstappen so much earlier, Perez was struggling to mount a pass pitted against Sainz’s end-of-straight speed, even with DRS. On laps 41 and 43 he tried around the outside at Turn 1, but was firmly shown to the edge of the track and opted to cut Turn 2. He fumed on the radio to little avail.

When this happened again on lap 45, this time Perez emerged from his shortcut ahead and was forced to hand second back. But at the end of that tour, a wider, sweeping line out of Parabolica aided his momentum down the main straight and finally Perez had enough speed to shoot ahead of Sainz even before Turn 1’s braking zone. He actually had to defend the corner’s inside line, all of which added up the trio being re-established, as Leclerc arrived at Sainz’s gearbox once again.

Verstappen led by 12.4s, but come the race’s end that was down to 6.1s. Vasseur theorised that “Max, the last couple of laps, had some [tyre wear] issues I think and not too much margin”. But Red Bull claimed Verstappen was actually managing engine overheating and so did not want to reach the gaggle of cars running ahead of Pierre Gasly’s 16th place and have a long period running in hot air.

“We just didn't want to take any risk,” Horner said of this. Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko also suggested “it was also good because of this his fastest lap idea couldn't come up…”. Whatever, history was still well and truly made.

Concerns about engine overheating prompted Verstappen to ease off towards the closing stages

Photo by: Paolo Belletti

But that won’t be the main memory of this race until the cold hard facts of history books stand out. Right now, the vivid, red-on-red, no-holds-barred battle between Sainz and Leclerc is overriding. That’s because it was just so savage and just – just – so brilliant. Had either Ferrari driver put their car barely a fraction differently at any of several spots an embarrassing crash was surely on.

The first move of the thrilling tete-a-tete was Leclerc’s DRS run along the main straight at the start of lap 47, with Sainz unable to stick with Perez long enough to get that advantage himself – his hards this time with “with zero rubber left” approaching a stint’s conclusion.

But Leclerc locked up at Turn 1 and went deep, with Sainz perfectly judging the chicane’s exit to run alongside through Curva Grande. This became the inside for Roggia, where Sainz this time locked his left-front and both cars cut the complex – Leclerc appearing to lightly tap his team-mate’s right-rear as it sailed unexpectedly close to his right-side front wing endplate.

A second Turn 1 Leclerc attack didn’t come off despite Sainz locking his left-front on lap 49, after which Sainz begged Ferrari to “bring this home”. But Leclerc was allowed to carry on attacking under Vasseur’s instruction, “no risk at all”.

That seemed to be forgotten on the last lap, so desperate was each Ferrari driver to be “fighting for a podium in Monza”, per Sainz. Heading into Turn 1 for the final time, Leclerc dived late from outside to inside, at which Sainz jinked slightly right as they braked. When Leclerc had to veer left to avoid contact, he locked both front wheels and only just avoided wiping out his team-mate.

“We were both moving a bit too much under braking but, at the end, I don’t complain,” Leclerc said after coming home just 0.2s adrift of third and the intense podium reception Sainz would go on to enjoy. “This is what I love about racing, the adrenaline that you feel when you are fighting each other. This was really fun.”

Well said.

Sainz took the adulation of the tifosi after beating Leclerc to the line in a hectic final lap

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images