Red Bull’s Max Verstappen survived his strongest challenge yet this season, but eventually overcame Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, Jr. to win the 2023 Italian Grand Prix. Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate, Sergio Perez, finished second, just ahead of Sainz, Jr., who had to fight off a spirited challenge himself from his Ferrari teammate, Charles Leclerc, just to hold onto the third and final podium position.
Sainz, Jr. began the race on pole position and immediately received a gift of two laps of automatically staying ahead of Verstappen when Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda had his engine fail on the formation lap – necessitating an on-track delay of a few minutes while Tsunoda’s car was removed and then another formation lap, with both formation laps counting as regular laps – but then steadily held off Verstappen for nearly 13 laps more laps before finally giving way on Lap 15 of the now-51-lap race.
Unlike previous races where once he was in the lead, he never gave it up, Verstappen this time, had to pit on Lap 21 and gave up the lead, first to Perez, who then pitted himself and gave the lead to McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who then pitted and gave the lead to seven-time Formula One world champion, Lewis Hamilton, of Mercedes. Verstappen finally retook the lead for good on Lap 25 and then all the drama occurred behind him as Sainz, Jr., Leclerc and Perez tussled for the remaining podium positions while both Mercedes of George Russell and Hamilton survived five-second penalties to secure the fifth and sixth spots.
With the victory, Verstappen pads his already commanding lead over Perez – 364 points to 219 points – while the battle for the third spot got tighter as Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso has 170 points to 164 points for Hamilton.
2023 Italian Grand Prix Top 10 Finishers
1] Max Verstappen Red Bull
2] Sergio Pérez Red Bull
3] Carlos Sainz, Jr. Ferrari
4] Charles Leclerc Ferrari
5] George Russell Mercedes
6] Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
7] Alexander Albon Williams
8] Lando Norris McLaren
9] Fernando Alonso Aston Martin
10] Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo
