Formula 1’s first day at the Italian Grand Prix has answered some of the dangling questions produced by a chaotic and controversial race at Zandvoort.
Here’s what we’ve learned on the ground on Thursday at Monza.
Norris backs ex-team-mate’s ambitious plan
No F1 driver knows Colton Herta as well as his former British F4 (or MSA Formula as it was known back then) team-mate Lando Norris.
Norris came out on top in that particular title fight in 2015 before they went on separate paths to success in F1 and IndyCar, but their paths would cross again if Herta’s ambitious F1 plan succeeds.
The new Cadillac F1 test driver is swapping IndyCar for Formula 2 in 2026 as part of his plan to get an F1 seat.
That’s going to be a monumental challenge given how tough F2 is to crack with even the likes of Haas’s star F1 rookie Ollie Bearman failing to finish inside the top 10 last year.
“It’s tricky. How difficult is it? Probably not difficult for him because he’s good at jumping all different types of cars,” Norris said when asked about Herta’s plan.
“That’s something he’s done his whole life. He's an extremely talented driver and a guy I've enjoyed a lot growing up with in 2015.
“[It’s] not difficult because I think he's skilled enough to jump in anything and be quick. But being one of the best in Formula 1 is what's difficult.
“If that's still his goal, if his goal is still to not just come in as a test driver but into the next few years to become a Formula 1 driver and a race driver then of course it gets tricky.
“But yeah, he's easily capable of potentially being in Formula 1 and I look forward to hopefully seeing him here.”
A Red Bull switch ‘way easier’ in 2026?
Isack Hadjar believes F1’s sweeping 2026 rule changes will make it “way easier” to join Red Bull Racing and eliminate the team’s long-standing “second car” problem.
Red Bull’s search for Max Verstappen’s team-mate has been turbulent, with Sergio Perez dropped at the end of 2024 and Liam Lawson demoted after just two races this year.
Yuki Tsunoda has failed to convince since taking over, leaving Hadjar - the standout rookie of 2025 and fresh from a first podium at Zandvoort - as the most likely candidate for 2026.
Hadjar admits a 2026 promotion is “obviously something that I have in mind” and argues the regulatory reset, with brand-new cars and engines, means the transition will be less daunting and “there won’t be this talk of the second car thing”
His fellow Red Bull juniors Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Lawson and Tsunoda, who all struggled in Verstappen’s shadow, had varying degrees of pre-season preparation from ‘none to some’ and all joined in the middle of established rules cycles.
But Hadjar thinks he would benefit from extensive pre-season testing and Red Bull having to design a very different kind of car.
There is still a hurdle for Hadjar to clear though: Tsunoda, who is adamant he is on the kind of progress curve that could keep him at Red Bull.
Hamilton ready for Monza sacrifice after ‘hardcore’ penalty
Lewis Hamilton says he’s ready to sacrifice his first Italian GP qualifying session with Ferrari if it means team-mate Charles Leclerc can get pole position.
Hamilton said he was ‘shocked’ to discover he’d been given a five-place grid penalty for Monza because of a pre-race infringement at Zandvoort.
“To get the penalty and get [two] penalty points was pretty hardcore. But I learned from it and there's no point whinging about it,” Hamilton said on Thursday at Monza.
It does mean Hamilton’s weekend is already compromised, especially at a circuit where overtaking is difficult.
So, given he’s already ruled out of the pole fight because of the penalty, might Hamilton be required to support Leclerc via some classic Ferrari Monza slipstreaming?
There haven’t yet been any discussions, but it’s something Hamilton is open to the idea of, given his penalty.
“I know that Ferrari used to do it many years ago. I remember when I started [in 2007], Kimi [Raikkonen] and Felipe [Massa] used to do that often,” Hamilton explained.
“I've never really… it can obviously can be beneficial…but in my past, it felt like there was more risk, and often one person had to be sacrificed often for it.
“So I'm not sure whether or not they will do that this weekend. It's not been discussed.
“Even if we had the pace, I couldn't be on pole. But if it meant getting Charles there, then I would be happy to play that role.”
Hamilton was in an optimistic mood despite the penalty, somewhat buoyed by the decent race pace he showed before his error - one he says was down to factors like a downgraded upshift which locked the rear tyres and the slippery track that pushed him marginally wide at the banking.
It remains to be seen whether he can deliver on it this weekend or whether the frustrating setbacks will continue to add to his “emotional rollercoaster’ of a season.
How McLaren will avoid Norris DNF repeat
McLaren has revealed details of its post-race analysis of the biggest swing in F1 2025’s title race so far - Norris’s dramatic Dutch GP car failure.
Norris lost 18 points to the problem, which McLaren has confirmed was a broken engine oil line.
As with every part on the car, the team has worked to lighten that particular part and avoid any disadvantage from carrying more weight.
But to prevent a repeat of the failure, McLaren has beefed up that part that failed.
The team is conducting further analysis of Norris’s Zandvoort engine this weekend as he’s made a planned switch to a different engine in the pool for Monza.
As for Norris, he says his DNF is easier to stomach than other setbacks because he knows he’s blameless.
"If I lose the championship by those [18] points, then I just have to keep my chin up, my head held high, and try and do it again next year,” Norris said.
“But I can't dwell on those moments too much. It's not anyone's direct fault. Even if it was, I just have to take it on the chin and move on. That's all I'm trying to do now.”
Williams officially challenge Sainz Zandvoort penalty...
Carlos Sainz made it emphatically clear he’s still unhappy with the 10-second penalty he was hit with in the Dutch Grand Prix for causing a collision with Liam Lawson.
That is no surprise given he was furious during and immediately after the incident at Zandvoort.
However, he also revealed that Williams was looking into the possibility of changing the penalty.
Later on Thursday, Williams lodged a petition for the right of review.
“We are trying to see if we can come up with enough evidence to change the outcome of the penalty, because I still firmly believe it was a very poor penalty I received and a bad judgment, which can happen as long as you have the capacity to revisit it,” said Sainz.
“If there’s been a misunderstanding or a lack of evidence or analysis, then there is still time to reanalyse it, reopen it, and change it.”
Whether that right of review succeeds, leading to a fresh investigation, depends on proving there is new and relevant evidence not available to the stewards at the time.
But whatever the outcome, Williams and Sainz will have made their point. And as Sainz revealed, he went over the incident with stewards for 15 minutes after the race and suggested it was clear there had been a “misjudgement”.
...and has support from some rivals
Several of Sainz’s midfield rivals backed his position that the penalty wasn’t necessary, with Nico Hulkenberg, Pierre Gasly and team-mate Alex Albon giving him their support.
While Albon is Sainz’s Williams team-mate, and therefore his support has to be taken with a pinch of salt, the fact he had such a clear view of the incident makes him at least a credible witness.
He declared it to be “at best a racing incident and then, if anything, a penalty towards Liam”.
Gasly admitted to being “slightly confused”, adding that “this will need some talking [about] tomorrow night [in the drivers’ meeting] because it was all clear to me until the situation in Zandvoort, which didn’t seem that straightforward”.
As for Nico Hulkenberg, he backed the need for discussions and said “I also don’t understand why he got a penalty”.
Lawson reiterated his belief the penalty was correct, stressing that “the regulations are written as they are, as drivers we all know that”. He added that “I don’t know why I was deemed as being aggressive when he was the car overtaking me, I was just defending…if the incident was my fault, I would have got a penalty”.
This underlines why the discussions over this penalty are significant, even if the right of review request is not accepted. It’s all about how the drivers can race and what factors should be considered when penalties are given.
Leclerc expects more from Ferrari at Monza
Charles Leclerc gave at least a little hope to the beleaguered tifosi praying for a Monza miracle.
He revealed on Thursday that he is “convinced it will be a better weekend than Zandvoort”.
Partly, that’s because Zandvoort won’t be hard to top given Ferrari’s struggles and double-DNF, but also it’s because of the dramatically different track configuration and low-downforce trim.
Not that it means he expects to be able to beat the McLarens, as he did here last year.
“I hope I’m right, but I’m kind of convinced it will be a better weekend than Zandvoort, because Zandvoort was a very difficult one for us,” said Leclerc.
“Those very long corners, we seem to be struggling at. It’s not new, it’s been something over the years where we’ve been struggling more than others and here in Monza it should be better because at least the long corners are high speed, and when the long corners are low speed, that’s when we struggle.
We should be better this weekend, I don’t think that means we’ll be at the level of McLaren. McLaren is the team to beat, but we’ll be closer.”
Leclerc also pointed to the amount learned at Zandvoort, where Ferrari made significant progress after struggling badly on Friday and successfully overhauled the car’s setup.
It’s a very different situation technically in terms of the car problems, but could last year’s trick be repeated of Ferrari turning things round at Monza after a terrible Dutch weekend?
“After Zandvoort [last year] we did a step forward because we learned lots of things from that weekend,” said Leclerc. “So that’s kind of a similar situation. That’s probably where the optimism comes from.”
Split among the Monza-spec rear wings
Thursday gave us our first glimpse at the Monza-special rear wings each of the top teams might be using this weekend, with something of a split in approach between the top four teams.
McLaren has brought a new rear wing to Monza with more downforce than the wing it used in 2024.
Ferrari has its 2024 rear wing, which in itself wasn’t too different from its 2023 specification. But it’s also brought a more aggressive, more trimmed out version that should increase its straightline speed.
Red Bull appears to have brought a more aggressive, lower downforce wing versus 2024 with Mercedes bringing an evolution of its rear wing from last year.
Teams often bring a suite of rear wings to Monza but only after the three practice sessions at Monza - where teams will always try their more aggressively trimmed out choices - will they make the final call on which wing to use for qualifying and the grand prix.
