Post-qualifying, the stewards were busy. McLaren wanted the procedures undertaken during the Qualifying sessions investigated after Norris saw a Yellow Flag and aborted his lap, rightly or not. Gasly was disqualified despite Alpine showing that the flow of fuel at the speed it was gave him no benefit.
Ocon, who had a technical problem during Qualifying, decided to start from the pit lane rather than last on the grid. Joining him was Hamilton who changed some bits and pieces on the car and were basically planning a testing session. There was a big shunt off the start in the Formula 2 race when someone stalled on the grid. This was a reminder that there are many different ways to make up places on the grid. Ocon, Hamilton and Norris would all be hoping for some of those. With so few Red Flags and Safety Cars this season, would they be out in this race?
It wasn't a Piastri special start and LeClerc was able to get away cleanly. The Red Bull launch is good and Perez overtook Sainz for third and Verstappen also made up a place. Bearman fell back from his excellent Qualifying position and ended up behind the Williams. Stroll picked up a puncture in a coming together with Tsunoda.
Norris was up to 11th by lap 3. His team mate Piastri was close to taking the lead; over the following laps it looked like Piastri would get into LeClerc's DRS zone and push past but slowly the Ferrari built up a gap and held a one second then two second lead.
On Lap 20, after the pit stops, Piastri overtook LeClerc for the lead, with the Ferarri on newer but colder tyres. Norris had really helped his team mate by holding Perez up to give him a clean pit stop. There was a lot of battling up and down the pit lane. Albon and Norris held out a very long time before pitting, waiting to see if the race would be paused any way at any point. They held up long queues. Albon pitted on Lap 32 and gave Norris some space to push before his stop. He came out in 10th behind his team mate, Hulkenberg immediately overtook him.
There were two main battles going on: Piastri, LeClerc and Perez for the top three and then Sainz, Norris, Verstappen, Russell behind them. Sainz was pretty much on his own, this not being his circuit by his own admission. The similar make-up team-wise caused a lot of confusion; with all the graphics options available you'd have thought they would be able to let us know who we were watching.
When Norris did pit on Lap 38 of 51, it was a longer one as he overshot his marks and came out in 7th ahead of Alonso.
In the last few laps, LeClerc's newer tyres went off and he was under pressure from Perez and needed Sainz to help. This didn't seem likely but then Sainz picked up the pace and was right behind the Red Bull, Perez went to make the move but LeClerc held him off and Sainz was able to slip through the hole left for third. Off LeClerc went for a clear second position on the podium. Something happened to Sainz's car and he snapped to the side, collecting Perez and sending them both into the wall. Perez's body language was very upset inside the car. A Yellow Flag was shown and Verstappen pitted, banking on a Safety Car pit stop, presumably so he could get the point for Fastest Lap. Norris, who had started 15th, 8 places behind him and his main championship contender was now 3 places ahead of him. Hands were raised in the Italian garage. A Virtual Safety Car was called so Norris and Verstappen finished 4th and 5th.
Just before this Colapinto got past Hulkenberg for the final points position but no one showed or told us this. I also don't know how Hamilton suddenly jumped the two Haas to get into the points.
In the end, Stroll retired himself, the Saubers finished last again and McLaren lead the Constructor's Championship. There must be some former McLaren leadership who are slowly realising that it was them who had been holding the team back for so long. Christian Horner said that Sainz "had got a nip up the inside", which made me think that Perez had touched Sainz but the Mexican was adamant that he should get a penalty. The stewards looked at it and said that no driver had driven erratically (which I guess they will have seen on the data) and both drivers could have done more to avoid the collision. No penalties were awarded.
Perez needed this strong race more than Red Bull needed the points that were eventually lost (well, nearly). Alonso was strong but I don't think we saw his car at any point during the race.
What they will need to improve next season (and I don't know if this is due to a change in the time of year we are visiting) is the camera angles. With the low sun, all the cars were shadowed and appeared black so it was very hard to keep abreast of what was happening. It didn't help that Sky had dispatched their B Team to commentate.
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