Kimi Antonelli's stunning Italian Grand Prix victory felt like a key moment in this year's championship as he landed a psychological blow on his title rivals by winning from 19th. Antonelli now leads George Russell by 66 points, Lewis Hamilton by 76 points and Lando Norris by 96 points with 10 scheduled rounds remaining. Without doubt, the Italian is favourite for the championship - and would be the youngest driver ever to become world champion should he do it - but the season is far from over yet...
The long straights at Monza put high emphasis on a strong power unit and Mercedes have been the benchmark in this department, even though the FIA ruled earlier this year that Red Bull have the best engine. It is the deployment of the Mercedes though - which was not measured by the FIA - which stands out and they were effectively able to get more out of the electrical side of their power unit to excel on the straights. There are no further tracks that will be reliant on the power unit to the extremity of Monza, although Baku later this month and Las Vegas in November feature long full throttle sections.
However, both circuits have more corners than Monza. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player "I'm quite happy, first of all, that we were able to perform in Monza like we did, because we weren't sure. Ferrari brought an engine upgrade and others on the chassis side, and this is a development race," said Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff.
"But we have to consider the fact that Monza is an outlier on the track. It's on one end, and then there is Monaco on the other." This weekend's new race in Madrid is a complete unknown but the track layout looks very twisty and cars that are strong in the corners - which should suit McLaren and Ferrari - will be fast. Azerbaijan follows, which can be a chaotic race, then the more traditional tracks of Sepang in Malaysia, Austin in the USA and the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico should see the field be much closer - depending on upgrades...
The two races prior to Monza saw McLaren with a car that was capable of winning as Norris drove superbly to victory in Hungary and the Netherlands. Most teams have gained big chunks of performance when fitting new parts to the car and Mercedes are not bringing any upgrades until Malaysia at the start of next month. "We must not get ahead of ourselves now, thinking, 'well, we can wait for the upgrade until Malaysia'.
We know that it's going to be a big fight in Madrid. Our car hasn't got the performance levels that it has in Monza for the next race in Madrid," said Wolff. "We know that our upgrades would help a lot in Madrid but we haven't got them.
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