Antonelli from P19 – and why Gasly never stood a chance

Charles Leclerc retired on lap 2 and the race was red-flagged on lap 3. During the stoppage the whole field changed tyres without losing a second: Russell, Gasly, Piastri and Norris onto new hards, Hamilton and Antonelli onto new mediums. Pirelli's pre-race plan – medium to lap 24–30, then hard, according to The Race – was moot. From the restart 50 laps remained, and nobody needed to stop again. The nomination was C3 as hard, C4 as medium and C5 as soft.

Gasly did what he had to at the start and took the restart in second, 1.9 seconds behind Russell. Then it went quickly: Verstappen past on lap 8, Hamilton, Piastri and Antonelli on laps 9–10. Six laps after the restart he was sixth, and in practice that is where he stayed for the rest of the race.

The explanation is in the lap times. Fuel-corrected race pace on the hard: Russell 86.47, Gasly 86.93 – Alpine was 0.46 seconds a lap slower than Mercedes on the same tyre, and about as far behind Red Bull and McLaren. The A526 is exceptional over one qualifying lap but on Sundays lacks what Gasly himself pointed to afterwards, per F1.com: the car's help to the driver in managing the tyres over a stint. Alpine knew before the race that keeping the top cars behind would be very difficult. With Monza's overtaking threshold at 0.77 s/lap, the lowest on the calendar, a position cannot be defended against cars half a second quicker.

That matters: Gasly did not lose the race on a pit decision. His P7, 27.3 seconds behind Antonelli and 2.6 behind Hamilton, was what the car had. We let the simulator test the alternative – a second stop under the VSC for mediums, like Antonelli – and it returned P9, 22 seconds worse and nineteen laps in traffic. On softs: P15. Click a scenario to load it in Simulate below.

Antonelli started nineteenth after the engine change – Monza is the circuit where an engine change costs least, because no circuit is easier to race through. He chose the hard for the start, but the red flag handed him new mediums for free, and that is what won the race: from P12 at the restart to the lead on lap 18, past Piastri, Hamilton, Verstappen and finally Russell, on mediums against their hards.

When the VSC came on lap 28 he was 0.6 seconds behind Russell. Mercedes split: Antonelli in for a new set of mediums, Russell out on his 25-lap-old hards. The stop cost 21 seconds and P2 became P6, 14.3 seconds back. Nineteen laps later the gap was gone – 0.75 seconds a lap quicker – and on lap 50 he went past. Victory by 3.9 seconds.

Was the stop the key? The simulator says no: had Antonelli stayed out on his mediums to the flag – Hamilton did 50 laps on the same compound – he would have won anyway, by essentially the same margin. Mercedes said afterwards, per F1.com, that the one-stop still looked marginally stronger when the call was made, and the data agrees. The second stop was insurance against Russell holding on; what won the race was pace. And for Russell the call was right: a covering stop would have given the same second place, six seconds later.