TIL #136: Unrivaled

First things first: Congratulations to Pierre Gasly and Alpine for grabbing pole position on Saturday witha beautiful lap.Renault/Alpine has gottena lot of stickfromThe Installation Lapover the years, most of itdeserved. Which is why we must celebrate Alpine when theydo something right. Success in F1 is difficult to achieve and impossible to hold onto at any scale, from Championships to just grabbing a single point. Pierre and Alpine had a brilliant Saturday, and they deserve to be celebrated for it. Coming into the weekend, Gasly and Alpine got thebad newsthat the FIA International Court of Appeal had reinstated Gasly's penalties from the Monaco Grand Prix, whichstrips him of the podiumhe was previously awarded after the farcical Monacopit lane speeding fiasco, back in June. Gasly crossed the line P3 in Monaco but was given two 5-second penalties for speeding in the pit lane, pushing him out of the podium places. Then, after Alpine submitted a right of review, during which they submitted evidence revealing that the Monaco pit lane had been measured incorrectly, thus causing several drivers to be unfairly penalized for speeding in the pit lane, Pierre's podium was reinstated. Only to have it revoked once more this past weekend. Alpine needed that podium; they needed those points, and they needed a morale boost. Gasly rose to the occasion and so did the A526. Well done, Pierre. Congratulations Alpine. As for the rest of the Italian Grand Prix… F1 has tilted on its axis. Barring a biblical plague of bad luck, or some kind of inexplicable personal implosion, there is now nothing but miles standing between Kimi Antonelli and his first Formula 1 Drivers' World Championship. The Italian Grand Prix was not only a brilliant race with near race-long action up and down the grid, but it was probably the most important one so far this season. Kimi Antonelli didn't just extend his championship lead, which he did; he threw down a marker in Monza. P19 to P1 at his home Grand Prix. The first Italian driver to do so since 1966, whenLudovico Scarfiotti did it. Kimi made 25 passes on his way to the top of the podium on Sunday. A new record. Antonelli's drive at Monza in the 2026 Italian Grand Prix will no doubt become a part of his legend as he builds it race after stunning race. He's doing things now only Lewis and Max have done.Peter Windsor, on his channel, felt similarly, 'I want to focus on Kimi at the outset because we don't see drivers like that very often. And I think it just comes on the back of everything we've been saying about Kimi, which is that every race throws up something new, some new challenge, whether it's racing with George, whether it's making a start from this part of the grid, or having to pass a lot of cars, or control a race from the front, whatever it is, or the wet, all these things you throw at Kimi and he just does it.' Indeed, Kimi is tremendous, and Monza put an exclamation point on that. But there's also the role George has been playing in all of this. In Zandvoort, George wasasked to pull over, and he did it. In Monza, Kimi was given priority at the VSC on lap 28. George said post-race, being surprisingly circumspect in his assessment, that nobody knew what the right strategy was at that point.Here's Georgein from a post-race interview, 'It didn't feel great, but I put it all on the line. The VSC came out at a really critical timing of knowing what the best strategy was. And at that point, I don't think anybody would have known if pitting or staying out was the right call. Even, probably now, we don't know what was best.' It looked a lot more like Mercedes favoring Kimi. Again. George's zero-stopstrategy, to run the hard tires for the entire race from the restart, may have been possible with the low degradation everyone was experiencing, and the favorable conditions at the track. But George spent a good chunk of that race fighting Kimi, not eking the life out of his hard tires. When the VSC came, it would normally have been George's call on whether to pit. Listening onboard through the entire VSC, George and his race engineer, Marcus Dudley, never discussed it. When the VSC first came out, Dudley quickly told George to keep these tires, the hards, switched on. At least over George's radio, there was never a thought about bringing him in. Perhaps they were just committed to their strategy. But why not just say that? George did everything right this weekend, including being fast, and the race still turned against him. Kimi wins again. Perhaps the saddest thing about George's season now is that he is Kimi's last remaining rival. With 267 points, any points Lewis, Max, Charles, and the McLaren boys can get their hands on for the rest of the season all look like scraps from Kimi's table. More importantly, after Charles Leclerc's eventful four laps where hetangled with his teammateand thencrashed all alonecoming out of Parabolica, combined with the raw pace we saw from the Mercedes this weekend, it looks like Lewis Hamilton's already long-shot title charge is dead. Lewis sketched the difficulty speaking after the race. Here he is viaGiles Richards in The Guardian, 'From today, we've just lost so much ground to them on points. It's far too late for those decisions to come,' he said of giving him priority over Leclerc. 'It's many, many weeks too late. All I can do is just try and turn up. I'll get up tomorrow morning and I'll give it my best. I don't know how many points it is now but it's an amount and with the pace that they [Mercedes] have, it is a very, very difficult amount to close up.' In addition to Charles' very short race, Ferrari appear to have once again dropped the ball on strategy, this time by not pitting Lewis under the VSC. Lewis wasn't happy on the mediums and said so over the radio. When the opportunity came, unlike George's radio, Ferrari did discuss it with Lewis. Lewis' race engineer, Carlo Santi, told Lewis they were thinking of staying out. Lewis came back simply saying that he wasn't sure if his mediums would make it to the end. There was a pause, and then Santi came back saying, 'We stay out.' That was it. Lewis didn't press the matter and sounded collected when he spoke. Welcome to year 20 without a championship. If Ferrari wants to win, then they need to change. With George still not able to beat Kimi, even after what was a pretty great weekend for George, Lewis's momentum being blunted before it really got going, and Max Verstappen being trapped in a really difficult car, only able to do so much — Kimi has left them all behind, and he is flying. If you love the way we think about F1—the analysis, the integration of history, and the takes you won't find anywhere else—then you already know what paid subscriptions support: more of exactly that. Subscribe now This newsletter exists because F1 needs independent voices that care about getting it right, not just getting it first or chasing clicks. Every paid subscriber means more time spent analyzing data, more freedom to chase the stories that matter, and more proof that there's an audience for F1 coverage that respects the journalistic rigor behind the editorial opinions we cultivate and share. 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