For many years the 16th round of the world championship marked the end of the season. Over its 75-year history, 16 rounds is its modal length.
But in this, the longest ever championship schedule, round 16 marks only the end of the ‘European’ mid-season. The championship is two-thirds done, with eight grands prix still remaining.While Max Verstappen won five of the first eight rounds, he’s taken just two of the last eight. With Ferrari’s resurgence last weekend, four teams can now consider themselves realistic contenders for victory.
Those four teams have now won three races each: Three apiece for Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes, while Red Bull have the other seven. This is the first time four different teams have taken at least three wins each since 1978.
Two of the triple-winners are the same teams again: Ferrari and McLaren, who won four and three times respectively in 1977. Lotus enjoyed more success, with five wins, while newcomers Wolf also won on three occasions. Two other new teams also took their first wins – Ligier and Shadow – this being long before the days when incomers were barred on the presumption they would not be “competitive”.
It was a joyous occasion for Ferrari, who scored their 20th Italian Grand Prix victory in the world championship era. This was their first win at home since 2019, though they have also raced at Imola and Mugello since then without success.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
It was their second consecutive home win courtesy of Charles Leclerc. He scored the seventh victory of his career and the first which has come from outside the front row of the grid.
Of the top 10 fastest races of all time, only one did not take place at Monza: Pedro Rodriguez’s final victory on the daunting original Spa-Francorchamps layout on the last time F1 used it in 1970.
Leclerc now has as many wins as Montoya – which also means Monaco and Colombia now have the same number of race wins – and Rene Arnoux. The latter took 22 pole positions during his career and therefore has one of the lowest ratios of wins to poles of any driver. But despite this latest win, Leclerc still has the lowest ratio of wins to poles, at just 28%.
In another indication of how competitive the season has been, Leclerc is the fourth driver this year to win from outside front row. This was also achieved by Lando Norris in Miami, George Russell in Austria and Lewis Hamilton in Belgium.
Norris is another driver with an unwanted career record: He once again failed to lead the first lap of an F1 race after starting from pole position. He has never managed this in seven attempts across five grands prix and two sprint races.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Oscar Piastri took the lead from him but wasn’t able to keep Leclerc from victory. He did, however, extend his personal best run of consecutive points finishes to 10 races for the first time in his career.
Although Norris has led the most laps of anyone over the last five grands prix, he did not officially lead at Monza, where five different drivers took turns in the lead. Unusually, the only other race to feature five leaders this year was at Spa, where Norris also did not lead.
Sergio Perez did lead a lap at Monza, however. This was the first time he has headed the field since the Las Vegas Grand Prix last year. His team mate Verstappen has led 534 laps during that time.
That was the only highlight of a poor weekend for Red Bull. McLaren out-scored them for the sixth event in a row, and the ninth out of the past 10. They are now just eight points behind and are poised to take the constructors’ championship lead off Red Bull at the next round.
It could get even worse for Red Bull if Ferrari’s resurgence continues, as they are only 39 points behind. Could the reigning champions fall to third in the constructors’ championship?
Finally, Franco Colapinto made his official debut as a grand prix driver, ending Argentina’s 23-year wait for a representative on the grid. Their last was Gaston Mazzacane in 2001, but the South American nation is of course far better known for the great Juan Manuel Fangio, who clinched the fourth of his five titles at the same venue where Colapinto’s career began.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Over to you
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Italian Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories - and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
2024 Italian Grand Prix
- Verstappen faces post-race investigation along with five other drivers and McLaren
- Red Bull lose constructors’ championship lead for first time in two years
- “Never had so much pain in a car”: How Colapinto impressed Williams on his debut
- F1’s most competitive season for 47 years? Four teams now have three wins each
- “Can I have my PU performance back?” – Verstappen’s “tough” Monza race on his radio
AlexS
4th September 2024, 13:18
Wonderful.
F1 frog (@f1frog)
4th September 2024, 13:55
It’s among the best seasons I can remember, and after such a drab first few races. If Norris can hunt down Verstappen and take the championship to the final race, it will be one of the best seasons in history.
David BR (@david-br)
4th September 2024, 14:12
@f1frog If.
Otherwise it will be three-quarters of a season of competitive racing with no actual consequence.
notagrumpyfan
4th September 2024, 15:18
Why would a Verstappen WDC win not be an ‘actual consequence’ of competitive racing?
David BR (@david-br)
4th September 2024, 18:30
I mean if Norris/Piastri/McLaren fail to close the gap significantly, we won’t see a fight for the WDC title, which will be a huge disappointment given how competitive the teams now are. It’s not meant to demerit Verstappen, he’s driven well enough so far to be well worthy of the title.
Clay (@clayt)
4th September 2024, 18:40
Bonus points if the Norris championship benefits from some creative rules interpretation in the final race.
Johnny
4th September 2024, 19:50
Red Bull will sue the FiA, Liberty and will refuse to attend the trophy ceremony dinner!
Mayrton
5th September 2024, 12:46
Yeah, great isn’t it. Just comes to show there were a few screaming murder too soon in the season thinking the RedBull dominance would drag on as long as Mercedes (8 years) did. Fortunately, it didn’t happen this time around which is nice and keeps statistics more realistic and proportionate.
Jose Silva
5th September 2024, 21:48
As you likely are aware, there was a tectonic change in F1 competitiveness somewhere between 1982 and 1985. Prior to that, there were no consecutive Title Wins since Brabham 59-60 up to Prost 85-86. After that, domination cycles and consecutive titles became the norm. Hence, the three wins per team stat happening in 1974 and 1977 being so the most surprising now. And after a superation of 1988 by Red Bull in 2023, no one was really expecting this.
Yes, this might be going on par or even better than the 2012 season (with a special mention to the always forgotten 1997 and the best remembered 2003). Both championships seem up to grabs, and a three-way fight for the Constructors is really unheard of.
Jere (@jerejj)
4th September 2024, 13:56
Lando Norris achieved pole position for a second consecutive race for the first time.
A good coincidence regarding this pole lap & the 2020 Italian GP equivalent lap is that both featured yellow S1 & S3 with S2 purple.
He also set the fastest lap on the final lap for a second consecutive race & on worn hards.
Charles Leclerc’s second Italian GP victory & his first in the 2019 Belgian GP occurred on September 1.
He also became the fourth driver to win more than one race this season.
Yuki Tsunoda still has finished only a single Italian GP, the 2021 race.
He seems unable to catch a break in Monza.
Kevin Magnussen became the first driver to receive a ban since Romain Grosjean in the 2012 Belgian GP.
Thanks to Lance Stroll’s late extra pit stop, Guanyu Zhou avoided another last-place finish.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
4th September 2024, 14:10
Not forgetting the most important fact as far as I’m concerned last weekend, the timing screen now features a COL.
notagrumpyfan
4th September 2024, 15:22
Peter Collins
Bernard Collomb
Alberto Colombo (qualifying only)
But maybe they didn’t use the 3-letter surname reference in those years.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
4th September 2024, 15:44
I think Keith might be vicariously putting himself on the F1 grid.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
4th September 2024, 15:48
In the F1 games I’m left with RCH (Richardson), because of smiley Danny RIC
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
4th September 2024, 15:50
No I think the most recent of those was in the seventies!
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
4th September 2024, 18:34
Oh my. I have had an ‘NOR’ on the grid for 6 + years :-)
DEfusion (@defusion)
4th September 2024, 14:12
This is why they shouldn’t plan huge rule changes ever few years until the previous rule changes have had time to settle in.
In 26 someone is going to get it more right than everyone else and we’ll be back to one team dominating for a while.
Jere (@jerejj)
4th September 2024, 15:47
Too late to go back anymore & the 2026 technical regulation were set in stone a little while ago, so zero correlation.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
4th September 2024, 15:08
I’ve been trying to remind myself lately that we haven’t had it this good in a very long time (77′ is before my time). We often complain about the racing but right now we have a youthful bunch with a few benchmark champions in cars where nearly half the field could win on any given Sunday. l’m more engaged with F1 than I have been at plenty of times over the years.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
4th September 2024, 19:39
Almost half the field is an exaggeration, no one is winning anything in the aston, and not even verstappen could lead the current red bull to victory; atm there’s 6 out of 20, less thgan 1\3, who can possibly win on a given day, in order for ferrari, mclaren and mercedes to be in with a chance to win at a given race, red bull had to fall back.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
4th September 2024, 19:40
than* ; in order for*
Nick T.
5th September 2024, 15:45
I mean, compared to 98-2002, we have it better. Other than that, I don’t see how we have it better let alone so much better than most other times. I think this has been a good season, but it’s far from great.
Mayrton
6th September 2024, 6:57
After a domination streak of 8 ridiculous rocket ship years (no car has ever been so dominant) it is surely was welcome!
Drg
6th September 2024, 14:49
Oh please..
Half the grid had the same engine!
Ferrari were completely dominating at times legally or not!
Two regulation changes including the biggest ever!
So they did better and competed – not much of that last year
matt90
4th September 2024, 15:33
One fact I noticed is that the gyro onboard cameras are increasingly awful. Norris’ clearly massively exaggerated the banking at Zandvoort and often didn’t return to level. On a mostly flat track like Monza, having a camera swinging about pretending it’s a roller coaster is ludicrous and a bit motion sickness inducing.
Also see the awful graphics that hover over a car but just blink on and off endlessly as they pass under bridges and gantries. The mini screen they put in the timing section to help a director who’s presumably too indecisive for the job, but it’s too small to be practical yet really distracting.
It’s a shame given the quality of the races and competition that I’m finding it increasingly difficult to watch.
Doh
5th September 2024, 5:26
Yes, the gyro aspect of them is pointless I feel. The only aspect that makes this camera interesting and better than normalmones is the fov. Shows a bit better sense of speed. It also seems to be angled differently so that more if the sky is visible. In other words it’s less top down than the usual cameras which also negatively distort the sense of speed.
Doh
5th September 2024, 5:28
Also with your other point I totally agree. They could do a much better job in those area and many others. It’s like I have felt for a while, the best thing for F1 is competition. Otherwise they can just do enough and not really have to worry about much other than marketing
Vikrant
4th September 2024, 15:59
I am noticing that quality of article has reduced a lot. There is lot less emphasis on data and charts. This is good example. There can be lot of wonderful data and charts can be utilized to emphasis the point but there are none in this article.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
4th September 2024, 16:59
Fangio and Gonzalez!
Coventry Climax
4th September 2024, 17:10
They say WEC too is more competitive than ever, with different winners all the time, but to me, thanks to BoP, it has lost all its allure.
Sorry to say that after some 50 years, for me the same actually applies to F1.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
5th September 2024, 4:20
Pointless comment. Why are you still posting here then? There are so many entertainment options nowadays, why waste your time commenting on something you don’t enjoy anymore. You can never please everyone. I’m sure in the 70s when you started watching there were people watching since Nuvolari saying the same things or in the 90s when I started watching, people watching since Fangio etc. Only without the social media of course. Point is: nobody cares. I still enjoy modern F1 despite many criticisms that I have toward it. The moment I cease to do so, I’m gone not wasting precious time the only real commodity we all have on it.
Coventry Climax
5th September 2024, 11:49
@montreal95
No there aren’t. F1 used to be the one and only open wheel series to not use spec cars or use some kind of BoP system.
Nice for people who like to see driver competition, sheer disaster for those that like the constructor side of it.
Then, you have no idea how much of my time used to go into motorracing, and hence no idea how much it has already diminished.
Most important though: Who the hekk do you think you are to tell me how I should spend my time?
SteveP
5th September 2024, 13:07
My view is that it is the duty of the consumer to complain about changes they view as negative to the experience of the product.
Witness the actions of the Campaign for Real Ale, Campaign for Real Bread etc. Without their complaints to the producers and highlighting of the substandard product being foisted on the public, we would have bland, cheap products only.
Sir, continue complaining.
Nick T.
5th September 2024, 15:40
How is there a BoP in F1? Because teams have budget caps? Or because you imagine that somehow the new design rules are somehow different from previous ones. They’re not.
SteveP
5th September 2024, 19:20
Reduced aero dev the higher you go in the constructors.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
5th September 2024, 21:23
I’m not telling you how to spend your time. I’m simply pointing out the futility of the “I don’t enjoy this anymore” type comments such as yours. It’s like those people on forums/social platforms posting things like “it’s not fun here anymore, I might leave”. Well so? It’s not like something is gonna change in your direction because some random fan /poster isn’t happy currently. A bit pointless IMO. And I’ll express my opinion whether you like it or not, thank you very much.
gogathejedi
4th September 2024, 18:03
Well yes, but actually no.
There is a helluva bunch of winners.
But.
Did you say “competitive”?
’cause I don’t see anyone to actually compete.
You start good or bad, no difference at all, and then you just stabilise yourself 1.5s behind your opponent, ride nice and smooth, always go to pit the same time as your opponent hoping to emerge from there faster. That’s all, rinse and repeat 20+ times. Every single time you try to compete – to attack, to defend, to make longer or shorter stints – you immediately lose. Especially the tires, even the softest ones last forever and even the hardest ones have the same pace as softer ones. No choice at all, just nausiatingly grind in the same position.
“Overtakes” in Suzuka esses? Fifteen years ago I would trade my left kidney for that, and this year I’m watching it like Uncle June in the famous scene.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
4th September 2024, 18:38
Does this mean that we should be judging the new car regulations effective from the start of 2022, a success? They have certainly produced a more even field it seems a lot quicker than the post 2014 changes did.
To be honest, there are still many issues of course, but I almost wish there were no major regulation change for more than just another year.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
4th September 2024, 19:42
Imo regulation changes should only happen when a dominant team emerges for more than a brief period, otherwise “if it’s not broken don’t fix it”.
MichaelN
4th September 2024, 21:29
The car regulations were not meant to make the cars competitive but to make them more raceable. Which they aren’t, and DRS is still a must. As are the awful Pirelli tyres. So no, the cars are still a big problem.
However, other regulations were intended to bring the field closer together, like banning engine development, banning real world testing, BoP aero testing based on the WCC position, budget caps, a limit on the personnel exempt from said caps, and other such initiatives. Are they a success? Maybe. But at what cost?
sumedh
5th September 2024, 5:33
I think this is only partially true. Other regimes (2009-2013, 2017-2021) produced 2-3 different teams at the front. The 2014-2016 and 2022-2024 regs produced only 1 dominant team.
On the other hand, this regime has allowed teams to come back to the front faster. E.g. Mclaren started the 2022 regs at the back. It took them 1.5 years to come near the top and another 1 year after that to become dominant. During other regimes, no team has managed to break into the top 3 / top 2 of that time (except for Force India in 2020).
Plus, this regime is getting flattered by Red Bull’s own goals – Keeping Perez, not keeping Newey and others. Dominant teams of the other regimes didn’t make such unforced errors.
Asd
4th September 2024, 20:54
Most of this season was the least competitive ever.
If one team dominates the first half of the season and then another team dominates for the other half of the season, they might end up equal on wins, but the season was 100% uncompetitive, so if you base your assessment on wins alone you would come up with a conclusion exactly opposite to reality.
Doh
5th September 2024, 5:45
In this case that isn’t true because McLaren/Norris have not been dominant since verstappen stopped
It has been a bit like 2019 except (at least for now) the top team has lost significantly and largely due to a close pack behind
2019 there was a lot going on but Lewis still got plenty wins in the middle and last thirds of the season.
We’ve yet to see if redbull can bounce back. Or if they simply will depending on tracks
Nick T.
4th September 2024, 20:59
2012 was a much more exciting season in every type of way. That’s not a complaint. Just a comparison when we’re talking about competitiveness and entertainment. This has been a good season.
Yes (@come-on-kubica)
4th September 2024, 21:49
I don’t think the races have been particularly good this season. These cars aren’t that enjoyable to watch. I struggle to remember much of this already despite the number of winners. It’s quite strange.
Nick T.
4th September 2024, 23:57
Indeed, these cars are quite awful. In terms of their body language and how you can and cannot push them or pass, these are by far the most boring ever cars to watch.
David (@davidjwest)
5th September 2024, 10:50
Mixed bag really:
Bahrain – Predictable, dominant win
Saudi – Predictable, dominant win
Australia – Interesting race due to DNF
Japan – Predictable, dominant win
China – Predictable, dominant win
Miami – Surprise win
San Marino – Close finish
Monaco – Hardly exciting but surprise winner to an extent
Canada – Wet race, very good.
Spain – Close finish
Austria – Good race
British – Very good race, wet/dry, close finish
Hungary – Good race
Belgian – Good race
Dutch – Dominant win
Italian – Good race
SteveP
5th September 2024, 11:04
True. Back then teams turned up for the weekend, tried to run without breaking down, tried to compete for a grid slot, failed and went home.
Then they brought in the 107% rule and… they turned up for the weekend, tried to run without breaking down, tried to compete for a grid slot, failed and went home.
Then in the 2000s the lesser teams went for a variant and tried to turn up for the weekend (money permitting)* tried to run in qualifying without breaking down, maybe raced while people complained about mobile chicanes, or went home.
It wasn’t all rosey.
*Some teams had done this over the preceding decades, they came and went.
Sainking
5th September 2024, 14:52
Did these guys forget 2012 season, If Vettel hadn’t got 4 wins on the trot it would have been an epic season ..
paulgilb (@paulgilb)
5th September 2024, 20:21
Albon has always reached Q3 in Monza.
First time since the opening 3 races of 2012 that 3 consecutive races have been won by different teams with Red Bull being none of those teams.
First season since 2019 in which 4 drivers have each scored 2+ wins.
Leclerc has not had a season in which he has managed exactly 1 victory.
Norris is the first driver to manage 3 fastest laps in 2024.
First time since Monaco that no British driver has led a lap (in fact, the 3 British drivers were the only drivers from the top 4 teams not to lead a lap in Monza).
Thanks to statsf1 and the official F1 site for some of these.
AlexS
5th September 2024, 21:23
First time since Monaco that no British driver has led a lap (in fact, the 3 British drivers were the only drivers from the top 4 teams not to lead a lap in Monza).
That is a crazy statistic.
SteveP
6th September 2024, 15:50
Does British Commonwealth count?