Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen produced as strong Q3 lap to qualify 2nd for Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza, less than two hundredths of a second behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. However, a five-place grid penalty for receiving new engine parts means that the Dutch driver, who leads the Drivers’ Standings by 109 points, will start Sunday’s race from 7th place.
Team-mate Sergio Pérez drove his RB18 to a fighting 4th place in the Qualiying session, but the Mexican driver also received a grid penalty, this time 10 places, and so will start from 13th on race day.
There were mixed fortunes for Scuderia AlphaTauri, who saw Pierre Gasly deliver a strong performance throughout practice and qualifying to make it into Q3 and set a time that will see him start the Italian Grand Prix from an excellent 5th, while Yuki Tsunoda showed good pace, but will start from the back row of the grid due to penalties.
Oracle Red Bull Racing
MAX VERSTAPPEN – 2nd (will start from 7th)
“I think qualifying went well. The Ferraris have looked strong all weekend, so we knew it would be close today. We set up the car for the race, opting for a little bit more downforce; over one qualifying lap it wasn’t the best, but I think tomorrow it will be strong. Regardless, we were still quite close, so that’s a positive. It will be an interesting battle tomorrow. I’ll try and stay out of trouble and just make my way forward. We won’t be taking any crazy risks, though. I know that we don’t need to win every race from now until the end of the season, but if I clear all the cars in front of me, then of course I’ll go for the win.”
SERGIO PÉREZ – 4th (will start from 13th)
“It is still a good result today and we can fight for it tomorrow. With the race pace we have, we can close up the gap, so I’m looking forward to it. It wasn’t a great lap for me, but it didn’t feel bad either. Now we need to maximise for tomorrow and focus. We knew the Ferraris were going to be very fast around here, so their result wasn’t much of a surprise. I think in the race they will also be strong. We’re lacking a bit of pace at the moment, so there are a few things to review from today before the race – we have to make the most of what I have. The DRS straights can be very painful around here, you can sit for a couple of laps and that can impact your race a lot. It will be difficult to pass, you must have a good strategy and use your pace properly, that will be very important to progress.”
CHRISTIAN HORNER – Team Principal and CEO
“We knew in qualifying Ferrari would be particularly strong and that proved to be the case. We had to compromise qualifying slightly to give the drivers a better race car tomorrow, so we’ll see if that trade pays off. I think it’s still tricky to overtake here, but theoretically we should be able to get into an overtaking position, although it’s certainly not going to be straight forward.
“We’ve strategically taken the penalties at the best race we can considering where we are in the season, as we didn’t want to do it at Singapore or Japan given the difficulty in overtaking. We have a strong race car, though, so hopefully we can make some good progress tomorrow. A mixed up grid could mean a very exciting race tomorrow. We’ve taken two sets of new softs and so have Ferrari, and it will be fascinating to see how that plays out.”
Scuderia AlphaTauri
PIERRE GASLY – 5th
“Overall, I’m very pleased to make it into Q3. There was still some sliding in the high-speed corners, so I couldn’t fully commit, but the track is amazing to drive. We made some changes after yesterday and they seem to have paid off, but there’s still more to get out of the car for tomorrow. There are some faster cars starting behind us tomorrow, due to a number of drivers having penalties, but we’ve seen that it might be more difficult to overtake in the race compared to past years, because the slipstream effect is less with the new cars. Our aim is to stay in the points and, as we’ve seen in the past, anything can happen here.”
YUKI TSUNODA – 20th
“Of course, we have the penalties this weekend, so our focus has been on our race pace rather than Qualifying, but I’m happy with the short-run pace we’ve had this weekend. I’ve felt quite comfortable in the car and we looked strong in Q1. I stayed in the car for Q2 in case I needed to help out my team-mate – as tows can sometimes be useful around this track – but we decided that this wasn’t necessary for Pierre in the end, so we didn’t run. I will now focus on tomorrow’s race. It’s going to be difficult, but it’s possible to overtake here in Monza and there’s a lot of people out of place tomorrow, so you never know what will happen.”
JODY EGGINTON – Technical Director
“We gathered a good amount of tyre and aero data from Friday on both sides of the garage, so we had a good view on which way we needed to go to improve the car and the setups converged overnight. FP3 went smoothly, with further data being gathered on all three tyre compounds and both sides of the garage heading into Qualifying in reasonable shape. Both cars navigated Q1 fairly easily, but given Yuki’s penalties, once he was safely into Q2, there was no major incentive for him to make further runs. So, the focus shifted to maximising Pierre’s opportunities. Following his first run, the expectation was that making the cut to Q3 was possible with a clean second run. However, as it turned out the cut-off was closer than anticipated, with some gravel on track at Turn 5 costing some lap time, but fortunately he made the cut for Q3.
“It’s a shame that on his push Q3 lap track limits were exceeded at T6, meaning Pierre’s best lap time was deleted and a position was lost to Ricciardo. However, with numerous PU penalties to be applied across the grid, we currently expect to be starting sixth tomorrow. We go into tomorrow’s race with both cars looking reasonably competitive in the midfield. Pierre is well placed to fight for points and Yuki, although further back, has shown strong pace here so far this weekend and should move forward if we can find some clean air for him.”