Charles Leclerc is on pole, but that’s about all that could be said about the Formula 1 grid as of Saturday night.
On a day almost half the F1 field took a grid penalty for changing engines and gearbox or, in the case of Yuki Tsunoda, undoing his seatbelts and driving belligerently during practice, even the FIA was momentarily confounded as to how to interpret its rules for setting the grid.
Unfortunately for Leclerc, the chaos wasn’t enough to move Verstappen far enough away from him to guarantee him a Ferrari home victory — though it’s debatable whether even a back-of-grid start would’ve been far enough to keep the dominant Dutchman off the podium.
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The scene is set for what will need to be an epic defence by the Monegasque and his Italian team against the rampant Verstappen. They’ll start with track position, but the Red Bull Racing driver, charging inexorably towards his second world title, is confident he has the pace to win.
But he’ll be just one of several drivers starting out of position. Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton will start from the back, which should at least generate some race-long action — assuming passing is possible, which drivers suspect won’t be easy at the high-speed circuit.
And all eyes will be on one unexpected rookie, who’s found himself with a shock chance to prove himself for a 2023 seat with a late call-up to Williams.
CAN LECLERC SEE OFF THE VERSTAPPEN CHALLENGE ON FERRARI HOME TURF?
Leclerc was almost certain to start from pole given Carlos Sainz and both Red Bull Racing cars were carrying penalties, but the Monegasque delivered for Ferrari’s home crowd by taking top spot on merit with a gutsy lap at the death.
It takes him to eight poles for the year, one for every other race — a formidable record for the season, but one he was surprised to extend.
It was only two weeks ago at the Belgian Grand Prix — held on a circuit with a similar low-drag demand to Monza — that Ferrari was painfully out of contention, lacking around half a second in qualifying and finishing almost half a minute down in the race.
The team itself forecast a difficult home grand prix, but the car’s single-lap form returned to it just int time to send the Italian crowd in raptures.
“It is a very good surprise today,” Leclerc said. “Considering where we came from, especially in Spa, we were not expecting to fight for pole here, so it’s a very good surprise.
“FP1 and FP2 we tested a lot of things … and we found different directions which were interesting.
“We found some pace, so it’s good. It shows that we worked in the right direction.
“I hope that tomorrow we can show that in the race also.”
“We still need to finalise this tomorrow.”
But Sunday is the big question, and Red Bull Racing has been supremely confident all weekend that it will have the pace to deny Ferrari a home win.
The team new arriving in Monza that both cars would be taking penalties, meaning practice has been all about maximising race pace — and yet Verstappen still split the Ferrari cars in Q3, an ominous sign.
The Dutchman said his team had traded single-lap performance to boost tyre endurance, which has already been a season-long strength for the RB18, and was satisfied with what he’s seen from the car so far.
“We’ve chosen a downforce level a bit higher compared to some other cars,” he said. “My race runs felt pretty good, so I’m very happy with that pace.
“I’m actually really looking forward to the race tomorrow.”
Verstappen will almost certainly start seventh — more on the grid chaos below — which is practically nothing compared to his 13th-to-victory drive in Belgium.
The man who’s certain to start second, George Russell, said he’s convinced Monza is set to see a similarly dominant drive to victory this weekend.
“[You’ve] got to be pretty stupid to bet against it,” he said. “He just needs to keep his nose clean in the first two laps and he’ll cruise to victory.”
Ferrari will need to be perfect under pressure to prevent a Verstappen walkover.
That is, the team will need to break the habit of a season to win in Monza.
HOW WILL THE 2022 CARS HANDLE THE DRS TRAIN?
It’s a term that’s become well understood over the years as Formula 1 cars have become increasingly worse at racing each other at close quarters. The DRS keeps them within range of a tantalising move, but the dirty air spat out by the leading car means braking and cornering performance is too badly degraded for an overtake.
They can ruin races and kill strategy. Mention of them during a race can fill a driver with dread.
But this year is supposed to be different, with the new aero rules creating cars that air kinder to airflow. We’ve already seen this at several races this season, with drivers universally positive in their assessment of how much more closely they can race in 2022.
But Monza is an extreme case where the ease of overtaking has often been exaggerated for the slipstream and DRS effect.
The problem here is that the slipstream is less pronounced this season because the cars are less draggy under the new rules.
Further, the DRS is less effective at a circuit like this because cars are already running with so little downforce, which means opening that rear wing flap has less of an impact.
Those two things combined have led to fears that it’ll be substantially harder to break free of the DRS train on Sunday at a track where it’s already a common occurrence.
Hamilton, who starts 19th on the grid with a penalty, said he was concerned progress would be very slow for him on Sunday.
“I was behind Valtteri (Bottas) yesterday in practice and I couldn’t catch him or pass him,” he said. “I’m imagining tomorrow everyone’s going to be in the DRS train and it’s just going to be sitting there and just waiting for strategy and tyre degradation and those sorts [of things].
“I was thinking of just taking my iPad with me in the race and, when I’m in the DRS line, just watching the new Game of Thrones.”
With Sainz also joining him out of position at the back — and with several other quick cars plunged into the midfield with less significant penalties — it’ll be a real challenge for the drivers to generate the kind of festival of overtaking all these penalties might have us expecting.
WHO’S ON FIRST?
There was considerable confusion in the F1 paddock on Saturday night, with no-one sure about who was starting where.
Nine drivers — almost half the field — carried penalties into the race, turning the process of setting the grid into a statistician’s nightmare.
Three drivers — Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and Yuki Tsunoda — were sent to the back of the grid for taking more than 20 places worth of penalties. They start in qualifying order in 18th, 19th and 20th.
But the other six are more difficult to place because the regulations do not state in which order penalties should be applied.
There were two dominant theories competing in the paddock.
One theory — the one that Fernando Alonso thinks is correct — is that the penalties are applied driver by driver. Under this interpretation Verstappen would drop to seventh, but then Sainz, Hamilton and Perez ahead of him would serve their penalties, sending him back up to fourth.
That would mean he in effect serves a two-place penalty.
The alternative theory — and the one the FIA appeared to be using at the time of writing — was that a driver must serve as many of his penalty places as possible.
According to this method, all drivers serve their penalties at once and only the non-penalised drivers move up to fill the vacated grid slots.
Confusing? You could certainly argue that. In fact most team press releases hedged their bets on saying where their own drivers would start.
“I think it’s P7 — unless I’m stupid” Verstappen said when asked where he thought he started. “You need to read the rules.”
If this interpretation of the grid sticks until Sunday — the official grid comes out only two hours before lights out — then Verstappen will presumably be buying Alonso a copy of the regulations.
WILL THE SUDDEN ROOKIE MAKE HIS MARK?
Nyck de Vries was primed for a big weekend, but he thought it’d largely be over on Friday night at the conclusion of his FP1 session with Aston Martin.
But around 90 minutes before the start of Saturday practice — while he was making an appearance for some VIPs and preparing for a day as a television pundit for the F1 website — he receive what could be a career-changing call from Williams.
Alex Albon had been diagnosed with appendicitis and needed surgery. De Vries was needed to fill in.
“Obviously I hope that Alex is healthy and will recover quickly,” he said. But part of him was undoubtedly thinking about how fortuitous the timing was.
The driver market is coming to a head, and the Formula 2 and Formula E champion is connected to availabilities at both Williams and Alpine. Here was a perfect opportunity to show the grid what he could do.
And he didn’t let himself down.
He beat temporary teammate Nicholas Latifi by 0.4 seconds in Q1 — he had that time deleted for track limits but still wound up ahead — which is a significant blow against the man he’d be replacing if he were to be offered the Williams gig.
Having cracked Q2, he dragged his car to 13th, though that could’ve been even higher had he not made an understandable rookie mistake on his final flying lap.
“I think I put in some good laps,” he said. “Especially the second lap in Q1 was pretty good, but I still felt there was more in it. And then we made some changes in the first run of Q2 and that didn’t quite work out.
“Obviously, the tyre prep was a bit compromised on the track. And on the last run I hit a switch which meant that the brake balance was like one and a half per cent rearwards, and that’s how I kind of lost the rear into [Turn] 4! A bit gutted about that, but I think that I am allowed to take this anyway.”
His 13th on the time sheet is expected to turn into around eighth on the grid — a sensational return.
The Williams car is set up to be rapid in a straight line, which means passing it will be very difficult. If De Vries can make a strong start, he could be on for some points on debut.
And you’d have to think that’d go some way to stating his case for 2023.
