Italian GP Driver Ratings

Key takeaways

• Antonelli took a unanimous 10 from both hosts and the fans for going last to first. Matt and Tommy praised his maturity in refusing to attack in energy-wasteful spots, instead sitting in DRS range and deploying cleanly past the midfield. They conceded help from the red flag, which bunched the field, and from a VSC-timed stop onto fresh mediums, and they argued Mercedes effectively picked him over Russell for that tyre call.
• Gasly also got a double 10 and was Matt's overall P1. He put an Alpine on pole by four tenths over Colapinto, beat the rest of the midfield by roughly 20 seconds, and finished seventh less than three seconds behind a Ferrari. The hosts spent several minutes attacking memes and "slander edits" treating pole-to-seventh as a bad race, and singled out Motorsport Week's 7.5 rating.
• Leclerc scored 0 from both hosts and the fans. He squeezed teammate Hamilton into the Turn 2 gravel and, in their view, was lucky to avoid a penalty, then crashed out at Curva Grande on lap two in a roughly 50 to 60G impact into the same corner that caught him in 2020. They cited a stat that 61% of his career DNFs are crash-related, worse than Lance Stroll, and flagged reports the Hamilton feud is going above team boss Fred Vasseur.
• Verstappen earned a 9 for an unexpected P3 despite Red Bull's dire Friday and almost no power between Turns 2 and 4. His two around-the-outside passes at the second chicane on Piastri and Colapinto stood out, as did a Turn 1 lockup after which he still set a lap quicker than his previous two.
• Tsunoda got a 7 on his second race back, but both hosts were baffled he avoided a pit-lane start after parking askew and triggering an extra formation lap. Audi are appealing because Bortoleto (11th, rated 7) narrowly missed a point.
• Context-adjusted grades elsewhere: both Cadillacs out-qualified both Aston Martins, lifting Perez to 6 and Bottas to 5; Aston suffered a double DNF, with Alonso dropped to 4 for causing his own car damage. McLaren was not the quickest car at Monza, so Norris scored 8 and Piastri 7 after finishing two tenths apart. Rookie Lindblad continued a quietly strong run with an 8 for P8.

Notable moments

• Opening groan that "there's 11 driver ratings coming in the next 14 weeks."
• The Motorsport Week takedown: rebranding it "W-E-A-K," then a mock apology, "that was defamation, I'm really sorry."
• "The biggest way to know that someone just does not understand the sport is to think that Pierre Gasly's had a bad race there."
• On Leclerc: he "fought Hamilton's turn one move like it was the last lap for a championship."
• "At what point does it become too much for Ferrari and for this relationship?"
• Montoya's argument, relayed by the hosts, that the drivers must be reminded "you are driving for Ferrari, not just Fred."
• Verstappen literally waving goodbye to Gasly as the Alpine pulled away on the restart straight.
• "Max is the only driver to make a big mistake and for us to then praise him."
• On Antonelli: "if he does go on to win the championship, this will be the race that everyone remembers."
• Defence of Russell's second place: the claim that Antonelli was told to hold station so Russell could clear him is "completely false," since the two were genuinely battling and bringing Verstappen into play.

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