Max Verstappen dominates as McLaren use team orders with Lando Norris during Italian Grand Prix

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Max Verstappen dominated the Italian Grand Prix by crossing the line nearly 20 seconds ahead of Lando Norris, and produced the fastest race in F1 history.

Norris was almost jumped by his own teammate after McLaren decided to prioritise teammate Oscar Piastri during the pit stops, who was sitting in third. This was because McLaren wanted to cover off a potential threat from Leclerc.

When it came to Norris’ stop, the front left tyre was slow, and it caused the Briton to emerge behind his teammate in third place instead of second.

Piastri was told to hand the position back by his engineer, Tom Stallard, who compared the situation to Hungary last year. The Australian responded: “We said that a slow pitstop was part of racing, so I don’t really get what’s changed here, but if you really want to do it, I’ll do it.”

That effectively established the top three order, with Leclerc and George Russell both finishing where they qualified in the top five.

Lewis Hamilton gained four positions after his grid penalty and finished sixth, while Alex Albon also gained positions after overtaking Andrea Kimi Antonelli midway through the race.

Antonelli was handed a five-second time penalty for “erratic” driving, which dropped him down to ninth place at the chequered flag.

Max Verstappen forced to hand back position to Lando Norris

Verstappen was forced to hand first place back to Norris after the opening lap, when he cut the Turn 1 chicane.

The Dutchman outbraked himself after crowding Norris to the grass, and was forced to give the position back at the start/finish straight the following lap.

It didn’t take long before he was back ahead of Norris, when he started to make use of his superior straight-line speed and stretch the gap.

Fernando Alonso was stuck behind Gabriel Bortoleto after the Sauber driver battled briefly for a top-five place with George Russell.

Alonso managed to get close when they pitted for tyres, then the Aston Martin pit crew enabled him to jump the Sauber in the pits.

The Spaniard’s fortune was short-lived, however, when he suffered a failure of the front right suspension just a handful of laps later, forcing him to retire.

Carlos Sainz and Oliver Bearman tangle and almost cause Safety Car

It soon became clear that any possible hope for Norris to beat Verstappen would be for a Safety Car after his first pit stop.

Red Bull blinked first out of the leaders which left Verstappen vulnerable if anything happened out on track, which it very nearly did between Oliver Bearman and Carlos Sainz.

Sainz was trying to overtake Bearman when the pair tangled at Turn 4 and almost caused a Safety Car. But the pair managed to get back underway without a stoppage, with Verstappen able to close the gap to prevent a stop under Safety Car.

The McLaren drivers filtered out behind Verstappen, with the Red Bull driver going on to win the race by a healthy margin.

It was the fastest F1 race win in history, with the race taking one hour, thirteen minutes, and 23 seconds to complete, around a minute quicker than the previous record.