F1’s most competitive season for 47 years? Four teams now have three wins each · RaceFans

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.

This was not possible in the early years of the championship when fewer than 12 rounds were scheduled, which first happened in 1968. Since then there have only been three occasions when four different teams won three races in a season: 1974, 1977 and this year.

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 go ad-free

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.

He won at an average speed of 246.431kph in a race which ran without interruptions from start to finish. This was the third-fastest grand prix of all time, behind two victories of the V10 era, both also at Monza: Juan Pablo Montoya’s 2005 win and Michael Schumacher’s 2003 record-setter, won at 247.586kph.

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…