While Antonelli wins at Monza, is this the end of Russell's hopes? | Ep29 Monza Review
Zac and Drew returned after a short break to cover one of the most eventful weekends of the 2026 Formula 1 season. The Italian Grand Prix at Monza produced a red flag inside the first three laps, a Ferrari driver crashing out of his own home race, and a Mercedes rookie completing one of the most remarkable recovery drives in recent memory. This episode works through all of it, along with the driver market news, the ongoing saga at Red Bull, and a first look at Formula 1's brand new venue in Madrid.
What happened at the Italian Grand Prix
Pierre Gasly took a surprise pole position for Alpine, but the story of the race began seconds after lights out. Charles Leclerc and teammate Lewis Hamilton went side by side into the first chicane, with Hamilton forced onto the gravel and dropping from fourth to tenth. Leclerc's afternoon got worse from there. On lap two, exiting the Parabolica at full speed, he lost the rear of his Ferrari and crashed heavily into the barriers, bringing out a red flag that halted the race for around half an hour while marshals repaired the damage.
Kimi Antonelli, starting nineteenth after taking a grid penalty for an engine change, used the disruption to his advantage. He had already climbed to twelfth by the time the red flag came out, and once the race resumed on fresh medium tyres he tore through the field with a pace nobody else could match. A Virtual Safety Car for Lance Stroll's retirement allowed Mercedes to pit Antonelli for another set of mediums while teammate George Russell stayed out on ageing hard tyres, a strategic split that proved decisive. Antonelli hunted Russell down over the closing laps and completed the overtake with three laps remaining, going on to win by nearly four seconds and become the first Italian driver to win his home race since Ludovico Scarfiotti in 1966.
Russell's race unravelled from there. Having led for most of the afternoon, he was overtaken in sight of the finish and then booed by parts of the crowd during the podium ceremony, a reaction that stunned both hosts given he had done nothing wrong on track. Max Verstappen brought his Red Bull home in third, comfortably clear of a scrappy fight between the two McLarens, while Hamilton salvaged sixth for Ferrari on a day the Scuderia will want to forget.
Italian Grand Prix result: top 10
Position | Driver | Team | Gap |
1 | Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | Winner |
2 | George Russell | Mercedes | +3.857s |
3 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing | +14.718s |
4 | Lando Norris | McLaren | +19.056s |
5 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | +19.253s |
6 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | +24.655s |
7 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | +27.351s |
8 | Arvid Lindblad | Racing Bulls | +45.136s |
9 | Franco Colapinto | Alpine | +47.353s |
10 | Yuki Tsunoda | Racing Bulls | +58.187s |
Championship standings after Antonelli's Monza win
Antonelli's seventh win of the season stretched his advantage at the top of the drivers' standings to 66 points over Russell, with Hamilton now 76 points adrift in third. Mercedes' one-two also widened the gap in the constructors' championship to 122 points over Ferrari, a margin that will be very difficult for the Scuderia to close with ten rounds remaining.
Position | Driver | Team | Points |
1 | Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 267 |
2 | George Russell | Mercedes | 201 |
3 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 191 |
4 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 171 |
5 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 155 |
6 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing | 127 |
7 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 116 |
Mercedes leads the constructors' table on 468 points, ahead of Ferrari on 346, McLaren on 287 and Red Bull on 204.
The debate: has George Russell reached the end of the road at Mercedes?
This was the moment that dominated the episode. Drew was blunt about it, arguing that Russell simply doesn't show the same aggression or racecraft as drivers like Antonelli, Hamilton or Verstappen when he's forced to fight through the field, and that watching him trail off after the overtake, avoid celebrating with Antonelli, and lean on Verstappen for company in the cooldown room said everything about where his head was at. Zac took a slightly softer line, pointing out that Russell had every right to be frustrated with a strategy call that left him on worn tyres while his teammate got fresh rubber at the perfect moment, and that quietly comparing notes with Verstappen afterwards was probably him trying to understand what Mercedes had actually done rather than sulking. Both agreed the booing from parts of the crowd was completely unwarranted given Russell hadn't put a foot wrong all weekend, and both agreed that Mercedes' focus is now firmly on Antonelli regardless of how the rest of the season plays out.
Ferrari's home nightmare and the case for rules of engagement
Ferrari's weekend gave the show plenty to work through. Drew felt the opening-lap contact between Leclerc and Hamilton was a fair racing incident rather than anyone's fault, but agreed the team badly needs a clear hierarchy given Hamilton is ahead in the standings and Ferrari's realistic goal now is securing second in the drivers' championship rather than fighting for the title. Zac went further, arguing that Ferrari's strategy department lacks the flexibility to react when a plan falls apart mid-race, something that was laid bare the moment Leclerc crashed and the team had no alternative plan for Hamilton. Both hosts pointed to the car itself as part of the problem too, with Hamilton reportedly three to four tenths down on power even after Ferrari brought a new engine specification to their home race, a gap neither host expects to close quickly given the current cost cap regulations.
Beyond Monza: the driver market, Red Bull's rotation and Williams' struggles
Away from the race itself, the show covered a driver market that has gone unusually quiet, with most of the grid already re-signed for next season and the new regulations making teams reluctant to shuffle their lineups. The exception is Lance Stroll, whose run of Q1 exits Drew described as having gone well past a joke, and Fernando Alonso, who looks set to stay at Aston Martin partly in the hope of racing under the sport's return to V8 engines. At Red Bull, Liam Lawson has now had three races standing in for the injured Isack Hadjar, and both hosts felt he has been anonymous in a car capable of much more, especially with junior teammate Arvid Lindblad outperforming him at Racing Bulls. Williams came in for criticism too, after team principal James Vowles admitted in an interview that part of the team's infrastructure, including a computer-aided design system, is seventeen years old, prompting Zac to question what the team has actually improved beyond its driver lineup in recent years. The pair also aired a shared frustration with Formula 1's current overtaking mechanics, describing the back-and-forth battery-deployment passes as repetitive and lacking the challenge of genuine racing.
Looking ahead to the Spanish Grand Prix at Madring
The episode closes by looking ahead to Formula 1's first ever visit to the Madring circuit in Madrid, a brand new venue combining tight, technical sections with a long banked corner unlike anything else on the calendar. With no prior data to work from, Zac and Drew each locked in predictions for pole, fastest lap and the podium as part of a new running segment on the show, disagreeing almost entirely on who will come out on top.
Our Predictions
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Quick answers
Who won the 2026 Italian Grand Prix? Kimi Antonelli won the Italian Grand Prix for Mercedes, recovering from nineteenth on the grid to take victory ahead of teammate George Russell.
How big is Kimi Antonelli's championship lead after Monza? Antonelli leads the drivers' championship by 66 points over George Russell, with Lewis Hamilton a further 10 points behind Russell in third.
Why was George Russell booed on the Monza podium? Some fans in the crowd booed Russell despite him having driven a clean race, a reaction both hosts felt was unfair given his second-place finish came down to a team strategy call rather than any error of his own.
Where is the next Formula 1 race after the Italian Grand Prix? The championship moves straight to the Spanish Grand Prix at the brand new Madring circuit in Madrid, the first Formula 1 race ever held there.
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