Five Formula 1 Winners & Losers: Italian Grand Prix

Monza is the gift that keeps on giving.

Here are this weeks winners & losers.

Losers

5. Nikita Mazepin

Mazepin crashed into his teammate after almost doing it again last week.

He sucks.

4. Sebastian Vettel

A lot of it wasn’t his fault, as Seb got bullied off the track a few times during the race.

Still, that wasn’t exactly an inspiring performance from the German.

3. Alpha Tauri

One year removed from winning the Italian Grand Prix, the Italian native team had one driver not start and another driver last about 5 laps before retiring.

Not the best homecoming to be honest.

2. Max Verstappen

Verstappen started on pole, but lost out to Ricciardo at the start and couldn’t get by him.

No big deal, right?

Well, probably not. But after a bad pit stop he ended up into a battle with his championship rival into the first chicane and crashed out of the race.

Max still leads the championship battle, but he had a great chance to gain a ton of points and threw it away.

1. Lewis Hamilton

As I mentioned above, Lewis found himself out of the race after a collision with Verstappen.

But he shouldn’t have even been in that situation due to a terrible start during sprint qualifying yesterday.

That poor start had him stuck behind Verstappen and both McLaren’s and he couldn’t get by all race.

Both Max and Lewis deserve to be on the top of the loser’s list for throwing away points, but because of Lewis’ bad day yesterday he ends up on the top spot.

Winners

5. Robert Kubica

Kubica raced this week after Kimi Raikkonen tested positive for COVID and finished 13th.

It may not be the best position, but he beat his teammate after coming in cold.

A good drive, and another good reminder of what could’ve been if not for his terrible rally injury years ago.

4. George Russell

George this week announced he was officially going to be a Mercedes driver next season, and he followed that up with a great finish in the points.

However, his performance was overshadowed by the man he is replacing. But more on that later.

3. Lando Norris

What can I even say about Lando this season?

He has been excellent, and a great weekend rewarded him with a 2nd place finish.

Lando has shown with the right car under him, he can be a championship contender.

2. Valtteri Bottas

As I mentioned earlier, it was announced that Russell would be replacing Bottas at Mercedes next season.

How did Bottas respond?

Well he got pole for the sprint qualifying on Friday, won the sprint qualifying easily on Saturday and then drove from the back of the pack to finish on the podium after an engine change made him start dead last.

Once again, I don’t want to hear people praise him after they slandered him for years for not being as good as the greatest driver of all time.

Valtteri Bottas is a great driver, and that was a great drive.

1. Daniel Ricciardo

It has been a tough year for Daniel Ricciardo.

Everyone knew he was talented, and because McLaren had a successful season last year everyone expected that he would have a great season.

Unfortunately for Daniel, that hasn’t been the case so far.

Until today.

What an unbelievable weekend for Ricciardo, who went on to win his first race since 2018 and McLaren’s first race since 2012.

I know what this will sound like with an orange team winning, but McLaren is back, folks.