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With the two world championship titles all but mathematically decided, the main intrigue heading into the final seven rounds of the 2022 season is whether anyone can stop Red Bull and Max Verstappen’s run of consecutive victories: Zandvoort was his fourth in a row.
Just as in Belgium, the first race weekend of the triple-header which begins the second leg of the championship, Red Bull have chosen to handicap the soon-to-be twice world champion with a grid penalty for using a fifth engine at the power-dependant circuit on the calendar. It may only be five slots on the starting grid as opposed to a back-of-the-grid demotion as at Spa, but the guarantee that Verstappen will not be on the front row is an opportunity Ferrari and Red Bull are unlikely to get again this year.
Fortunately for the thousands of Ferrari fans who will descend on Monza with as uninhibited fever as ever, they had every reason to go home happy on Friday with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr each ending one of the two practice session quickest ahead of the championship-leading Red Bull.
Ferrari being fastest on Friday is no unusual occurrence in 2022 and so often Verstappen has ascended through the course of the weekend to deny them on Sundays. But as the sun set on the Monza paddock, even Leclerc had to admit the signs were encouraging.
“Honestly, the feeling is good,” said the 2019 Italian Grand Prix winner, who ended Friday just under two tenths of a second slower than his team mate. “I’m quite, quite happy with the first feelings we got on this track.
“After what happened in Spa, the car is in a similar place, a bit more extreme here, but a similar place to Spa. So we expected a bit of a tougher day, but it’s a good first day. Now, we need to do a step forward for tomorrow.”
Leclerc is one of only two drivers in the top three teams who, as things stand, will head into qualifying on Saturday unencumbered by a grid penalty. He will be authentically fighting for pole position, as opposed to team mate Sainz, the two Red Bulls or Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes. But Leclerc is more focused on Sunday than Saturday, and here too he sees reasons to be cheerful.
“[Our] race pace looked actually stronger than the quali pace on my side,” he said. “I was happier with my car on high fuel. So looking good again.”
Despite being limited by another back-of-the-grid start for this…
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