Pierre Gasly WINS the Italian Grand Prix for Alpha Tauri – Mercedes 5th and 7th

Pierre Gasly has won the 2020 Italian Grand Prix in an exciting, mixed up race which saw McLaren second and Mercedes fifth and seventh.

Impressive though Mercedes’, and especially Hamilton’s, dominance of the 2020 F1 season has been, it’s all got a little boring. But boring was thrown out of the window in Italy as a couple of safety cars, and a cock-up by Mercedes, conspired to leave Hamilton fighting from the back of the pack and Pierre Gasly’s Alpha Tauri taking the win.

Everything was running as normal, with Hamilton in charge and in front, when a safety car was called after Magnussen’s Haas broke down, with Hamilton diving in to the pits for a tyre change without Mercedes realising the pit lane was closed to deal with Magnussen’s breakdown. That mistake meant a 10-second drive-through penalty.

Gasly, who had already stopped, saw himself in third place behind Stroll’s Racing Point as the field restarted, and before Hamilton had taken his penalty, but then Leclerc lost his Ferrari heavily at Parabolica and it was safety car time again.

The race restarted from the grid after that, with Hamilton in front of Stroll, Gasly and the Alfas, but Hamilton’s penalty left him 18 seconds off the back of the pack when he returned.

Hamilton drove valiantly to recover to seventh at the end, but the podium looked like no other we have seen for a very long time, with Gasly in the Alpha Tauri in first, Sainz in the McLaren second and Stroll in the Racing Point third, followed by Norris, Bottas (who had a poor race), Ricciardo, Hamilton, Ocon, Kvyat and Perez.

What a good race.