Red Bull and Max Verstappen win Italian Grand Prix to end victory drought

Red Bull ended a win drought as Max Verstappen won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

Verstappen had a comfortable win in the end at the track in northern Italy, leading home the championship leading McLarens by over 19 seconds after breaking away from Lando Norris in the early stages and zooming off.

The victory was Verstappen’s first in 9 races, with his last having coming in F1’s last visit to Italy at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola in May.

It also saw Verstappen take success in F1’s fastest ever race to reach full distance. The Dutchman’s time of just over 1 hour and 13 minutes was just over a minute faster than the previous record set by Michael Schumacher’s time in winning at the same track in 2003, with Verstappen having previously set the highest ever average speed in an F1 qualifying lap when taking pole the day before.

It was also Red Bull’s first Grand Prix victory without Christian Horner and first win with Laurent Mekies as Team Principal.

Meanwhile, teammate Yuki Tsunoda was unable to make it back-to-back finishes in the points, with the Japanese driver finishing 13th after a early move onto hard tyres and contact with Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson hindered his performance.

With 8 races of the F1 season remaining, Verstappen sits third in the Driver’s Championship. The man who has won the last 4 titles is currently 63 points behind second place Lando Norris, 94 behind championship leader Oscar Piastri and 36 ahead of fourth place George Russell.

Tsunoda sits 19th in the championship with 12 points, with the second Red Bull only ahead of Franco Colapinto and Jack Doohan, who have scored 0 points in their turns in the second Alpine.

In the Constructors Championship race, meanwhile, Red Bull remain 4th in the championship, but find themselves in a close fight for 2nd. The Milton Keynes-based team are 41 points behind Ferrari, who currently occupy second, and 21 ahead of Mercedes in the position directly in front.

At the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Verstappen had entered at the front of the field after flying to pole position the day before.

Verstappen faced a combative start, with the Dutchman cutting turn one under pressure from Norris, who had begun from second. Red Bull duly ordered Verstappen to let the McLaren through, but at the start of lap 4, Verstappen launched a comeback and re-took the lead of the race.

The following phase of the race duly saw Verstappen begin to build up a gap to the cars behind, with the Red Bull driver finding himself three seconds ahead by lap 10 and six ahead by lap 22.

Although the Dutchman did have a big blister on his front right tyre, the Red Bull was able to keep its tyres in nick until lap 38, before jumping back ahead of the McLarens when the two pulled over to pit in the final stages, albeit with some controversy over the sequence.

Verstappen duly sealed the job, taking the victory and with it his third win in 2025 and his 66th in F1 overall.

Things ended up being rougher for Tsunoda. The Japanese driver, who has failed to finish 3 of his previous 4 Italian Grand Prix races, had made a fine start, as he got ahead of the slow-starting Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

A few laps after being passed by Antonelli, Tsunoda opted to pit to try to cover off an early stop by the Haas of Oliver Bearman. However, Bearman overtook Tsunoda as he took advantage of having warmer tyres.

Tsunoda then had a run-in with Lawson, who had gone very early in changing to hard tyres, with the current and former Red Bull drivers seemingly making contact as they disputed position.

The two ended up running line astern for the rest of the race, with the duo bumped up a few places thanks to late stoppers such as Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll, but Tsunoda was unable to take a point, with the Red Bull finishing 17 seconds behind Isack Hadjar, who took the final point.

Red Bull and the rest of the F1 paddock will take a week off next week, before F1 returns in two weeks time for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.