Winners and losers from F1's 2026 Italian Grand Prix

Kimi Antonelli stole the show by winning his home Formula 1 race from 19th on the grid, but who else shone in the Italian Grand Prix?

A big early crash, back-and-forths up and down the field, and the late hunt for victory made this a lively Monza race - but some will be leaving far happier than others.

Here's our pick of winners and losers from race day in Italy.

Winner: Kimi Antonelli (1st)

Yes, maybe the couple of caveats that have to be mentioned - essentially taking victory from 12th (on the restart grid) not 19th; the virtual safety car pitstop - keep this victory out of the pantheon of greatest front-to-back wins in F1 history.

But take nothing away from Antonelli. He looked imperious, incisive - and like an inevitable winner once he'd forced his way right into the heart of the leading pack just two laps after the restart.

Surely there's no stopping this title charge now. - Jack Cozens

Loser: Ferrari (6th + DNF)

In the cold light of day, it feels exceptionally unlikely that Ferrari, with either Lewis Hamilton or Charles Leclerc, was going to get too much out of this weekend - as Mercedes's engine and deployment efficiency was the dominant force.

But the Ferrari of today doesn't do 'mediocre' - it does 'sky is falling down', and in the home confines of Monza it fell down repeatedly as Antonelli stole the adoration of the home crowd instead.

Whatever the inside-team ruling on the Leclerc/Hamilton encounter at the first chicane, it was very publicly embarrassing in conjunction with Leclerc's subsequent devastating Parabolica exit. Then Ferrari got unlucky with the virtual safety car timing, which didn't offer Hamilton the same strategic 'free stop' option as his fellow medium runners ahead. Though the reason he wasn't with them may well have been that very first chicane run-in.

Leclerc must surely be devastated. Hamilton is struggling to hide his frustration - and has publicly accused his team of having "no rules", while also putting increasing pressure on team principal Fred Vasseur.

In the end, it's not just a bad result. It's also a particularly painful and costly way of getting there. - Valentin Khorounzhiy

Winner: Max Verstappen (3rd)

Was Verstappen ever a genuine contender for victory?

Maybe not. Any hope of that certainly faded with the time lost in battle with Oscar Piastri after pitting.

But regardless of how big a part the yo-yo nature of the racing played, how good was it to see Verstappen in the hustle and bustle of the lead fight once again?

Certainly, his heorics were put to good use in securing a far better result than The Race (and this writer specifically) saw coming on Friday evening. - JC

Loser: George Russell (2nd)

By no means was this a poor race for Russell, but he was essentially undone by the mid-race virtual safety car that gave Antonelli (and Verstappen) a free pitstop.

"I was on the hard tyre and Kimi was on the medium tyre, so if either of us were to pit, it was going to be Kimi and that's I guess why I was just a little bit annoyed with the timing of that VSC because it would have been tough for those guys on the medium to have competed with anybody on the hard tyre," he said.

Russell did well in defending against Antonelli late on at the opening chicane, where Antonelli miscued and almost threw it all away with a trip into the gravel, but there was no defence in the end.

Russell took some positives, citing an uptick in pace at Monza compared to before, and the slight 3.8-second margin of victory.

"I would have loved to have won today, but the performance is far better than I've had," he said.

He was also gracious in defeat, taking nothing away from Antonelli's recovery to victory, and paying little attention to the podium boos - but the reality is now stark: Antonelli is 66 points ahead and going strong. - Samarth Kanal

Winner: Lando Norris (4th)

Norris a winner, or Piastri a loser?

That's the debate The Race had when putting this list together. But Norris gets the nod by dint of this being a decent recovery from a poor qualifying, dealing with a brake issue, and ultimately prevailing (and keeping his cool) in a scrappy McLaren battle for fourth late on.

That result - salvaged on one of his weaker weekends of late, where he should really have been defeated by his team-mate - is more evidence of the level the defending champion is operating at right now. - JC

Loser: Aston Martin (DNF + DNF)

Lance Stroll's VSC-triggering exit has a massive impact on the race - but that was the only way the badly outmatched AMR26s were ever going to influence things here.

Starting from the pitlane in the aftermath of power unit changes necessitated by the battery issue in Q1 - "understood" but "not totally solved", in Fernando Alonso's words - the Spaniard had a feisty run after the restart, and claims he was pleasantly surprised to be actually fighting the Cadillacs "because we thought we were on our own".

But an apparent off at Lesmo 2 created some car damage, and Alonso soon parked it up - before Stroll's AMR26 gave out with a hydraulics issue.

In any case, there was going to be no great result on offer. An inquest will surely follow, but for now it's clear Aston Martin is not competitive at all on power tracks even after Honda's engine upgrade. - VK

Winner: Racing Bulls (8th + 10th)

Looking at the starting grid, Racing Bulls might've been braced for a battering as far as its (International Court of Appeal-enhanced) constructors' championship advantage over Alpine was concerned. Doubly so when the Alpines lined up second and fourth for the restart. (And when Yuki Tsunoda almost headed for the wrong grid slot.)

Gasly was always likely to regress through the leading pack, and Colapinto's off played into its hands too, but even so Racing Bulls comes out of this a winner for limiting its points-dropped total to just three.

That relied on the increasingly dependable Arvid Lindblad stringing together another excellent weekend - building up enough of a buffer to resist Colapinto's late charge for eighth - and Tsunoda, once he'd found the right grid slot, launching his car opportunistically up the inside into Turn 1 to move from 14th to 11th at the restart and then dealing with Ollie Bearman's slower Haas efficiently.

And, now he's escaped any penalty for that grid-position near-miss, who could begrudge him that comeback point? - JC

Loser: Liam Lawson (14th)

Lawson had to start from the pitlane with engine penalties but that alone wasn't an excuse for a lack of progression. (See Antonelli.)

The Red Bull was actually up to 11th before losing part of his front wing in a skirmish with Audi's Nico Hulkenberg - for which Lawson was shown a black-and-white driving standards flag.

The resulting early pitstop set him back, and then the mid-race VSC pretty much killed off Lawson's hopes of a comeback as the Racing Bulls and Alpine finished in the top 10.

With a new engine in the back of his car, Lawson said he hoped to finish "well in the points" and, having seen Verstappen hold off the McLarens and Ferraris, he could feasibly have finished around seventh - where polesitter Gasly did.

So, this was certainly one of those frustrating weekends. - SK