Lando Norris’ world championship bid was controversially kept alive by his McLaren team, despite a poor pit-stop threatening to deal the British driver another title blow.
Norris had been on course to finish as runner-up to runaway winner Max Verstappen until he dropped behind title rival Oscar Piastri following a slow change of tyres with seven laps remaining.
However, Piastri was ordered by McLaren to move aside for team-mate Norris, which the Australian did on the 49th lap of 53 at Monza’s Temple of Speed. Piastri was bitterly disappointed with the decision, saying on the radio: “We said that a slow pit stop was part of racing so I don’t really get what changed here but I will do it.”
Verstappen, who crossed the line a commanding 19.2 seconds clear of Norris to claim his first triumph since winning in Imola on May 18, expressed his surprise at McLaren’s move, laughing when he had been informed of the swap.
“Just because of a slow pit stop?” he chuckled when told that Norris and Piastri had traded positions, with the former reducing his team-mate’s championship advantage from 34 points to 31 heading into the concluding eight rounds.
Charles Leclerc took fourth for Ferrari, one place ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell.
Lewis Hamilton made up four places from 10th – after he served a five-place grid penalty – to finish sixth.
A week on from his race-ending engine failure at the Dutch Grand Prix, which put him on the backfoot to win his maiden world crown, Norris escaped from a mistake-fuelled qualifying session to join pole-sitter Verstappen on the front row, with Piastri a place back.
Norris has attracted criticism for a series of poor getaways over the past 18 months, but here he was soon alongside Verstappen’s Red Bull on the 200mph drag to the Variante del Rettifilo.
Verstappen held his line and, when the tarmac narrowed, Norris dropped two wheels on to the grass but carried enough momentum to remain on level terms under braking for the chicane.
Norris’ papaya-coloured McLaren occupied the inside line and Verstappen took to the escape road before re-joining the track and retaining his lead. Cue the complaints from inside Norris’ crash helmet.
“Yeah, what the f***,” said Norris. “What is this idiot doing? Come on. He’s put me on the grass and then he’s just cut the corner.”
Verstappen protested his innocence, claiming Norris went deep on his brakes to force him off the road, but the four-time world champion’s race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, instructed his driver to concede the position and avoid a possible stewards’ investigation.
At the start of the second lap, Verstappen moved over to his right on the pit straight and Norris assumed the lead. Piastri had dropped behind Leclerc and, for a brief moment, the Englishman might have dreamt of taking 12 points out of his rival’s lead.
But Verstappen was not ready to let Norris off the hook and at the start of the fourth lap he latched on to the tow off the McLaren man’s car before moving to the outside under braking for the first chicane.
Verstappen never looked back to claim Red Bull’s first grand prix triumph of the post-Christian Horner era, but McLaren’s race would unravel on the 47th lap when Norris came in for his one and only stop.
A sticky front-left tyre meant Norris was stationary for 5.9 seconds and that allowed Piastri, who by now had got ahead of Leclerc and stopped a lap earlier that Norris, to move up to second, only for McLaren to intervene.
“Oscar, I appreciate that was painful, but I think we did the right thing,” said Piastri’s race engineer, Tom Stallard.
Commenting afterwards, the Australian said with a wry smile: “A little incident at the end, but it was okay.”
On his poor pit stop, Norris said: “I felt like I was there for quite a long time, but every now and then we make mistakes and today was one of them.”
