MOTORSPORT: Gasly wins crazy Italian GP

Frenchman Pierre Gasly has won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in extraordinary circumstances.

On a day where there were two race starts and all the regular Formula 1 leaders struck dramas, the AlphaTauri driver took his first win just 0.4sec ahead of McLaren’s Carlos Sainz with the Racing Point of Lance Stroll close behind.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo started seventh, ran as high as fifth and finished sixth in his Renault, but was never quite in the right place at the right time to do better.

World championship leader Lewis Hamilton had led away from pole and was dominating the race, but had to take a 10-second stop and go penalty for stopping for tyres when pitlane was closed.

He still fought back from last to seventh in his Mercedes-AMG. Hamilton was only two positions behind team-mate Valtteri Bottas who was never a threat for the win after a slow getaway from second on the grid.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen retired with engine issues and his team-mate Alex Albon ran at the back with car damage.

But their woes were nothing compared to Ferrari. On home soil both cars qualified abysmally, then Sebastian Vettel was out within a few laps because of brake failure.

Teammate Charles Leclerc lasted till lap 25 of 53 before burying his car in the fence in a frightening high-speed shunt at the Parabolica. He was uninjured but the race was stopped to make repairs to the crash barrier.

Still, Italian fans sadly absent from the race could revel in an Italian team winning. Previously known as Torro Rosso, the Red Bull junior team was created out of F1 minnows Minardi and is still based in Italy.

The team has one previous win in 2008 at the same track when a 21-year-old Vettel took his first victory.

Hamilton received his penalty after he was called into a closed pitlane on lap 21 during a safety car period. The lane was closed because marshalls were pushing Kevin Magnussen’s stricken Haas along the trackside.

While Mercedes tried to convince the FIA the penalty wasn’t deserved, the fact only one other car made the same mistake was damning.

From the restart Hamilton went to the front and took his penalty after one lap leaving him last 30 seconds behind Gasly.

The 24-year-old was at the head of an order jumbled because the red flag came out as the field went through the tyre change sequence.

Ricciardo went back from fifth to ninth, the McLarens of Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris that had been running second and third were also shuffled down the order.

By the time Sainz made it into second on lap 34 he was 4.0sec behind. He only got into drag reduction range with a lap to go but couldn’t make a serious lunge for the lead.

Stroll changed to new tyres during the red flag period and restarted from the front row, but made a poor start and ran off, before fighting back through to score the second podium of his career. Norris was fourth.

It’s an amazing resuscitation for Gasly, who was replaced at Red Bull midway through 2019 by Albon. Gasly has raced hard and well all-season and now sits an impressive eighth in the drivers’ championship, two positions ahead of Ricciardo.

“Sixth isn’t bad for us today,” said Ricciardo. “I felt I couldn’t have done anymore in the situation.

“We weren’t the only ones, but the safety car and red flag did not go our way today. After a good start and good pace, the timing wasn’t on our side, but that’s something we can’t change.”

Yesterday Renault announced it would continue as an F1 engine manufacturer in 2021, but the team Ricciardo currently races for will become known as Alpine F1 Team from next year.

At the top, Hamiton is on 164 points and Bottas 117. Verstappen drops to third on 110 points,

In the FIA Formula 3 championship, Australian Oscar Piastri will take an eight-point lead into the final round of at Mugello next weekend.

The Prema driver managed a third and a DNF, while key title rival and teammate Logan Sargeant managed only a ninth and a DNF.

Piastri’s race one result came after a brilliant drive from 15th on the grid, the result of a chaotic qualifying session at Monza where slipstreaming is vital.

Of the other Australians Alex Peroni finished fifth in the Sunday race, which was some sort of consolation for his spectacular flip at the same venue in 2019.

The other Australians in the field Jack Doohan and Calan Williams both had good qualifying sessions results but didn’t score points.