F1Weekly Podcast # 1111

Play Podcast: 09-08-25f1weekly1111.mp3

Gran Premio de Italia 2025 the fastest Grand Prix in Formula 1 ® history! Max ‘s pole the fastest lap in F1 history! Max Verstappen in a different league! McLaren has a fix for slow pit stops! LCH slowly coming out of his Ferrari funk. This week’s Nasir Hameed corner…Bobby Unser, John Edwards and, Stephano Coletti as our bonus.

Max

“It’s been a fantastic weekend and to win again has been incredible, it’s been a while! It is really rewarding to see the steps we are making understanding the car. We brought an upgrade here which really worked and took a step forward with the set-up of the car. In general, the car goes better in low to medium downforce tracks and we just need to keep pushing and keep trying to improve, as we have been. After the overtake it was about getting on with my own race, hitting targets and looking after the tyres.

Pitting and going on to the Hard tyre was the best thing possible and we just tried to extend the gap as much as we could to the McLarens. This weekend has been incredible and is a super important weekend during a year like this. It shows there are still chances to win, which is really nice. Everyone has fully committed to improving the car all weekend and it was a fantastic result for everyone here and a big victory for the Team and for Laurent.”

Oscar

Difficult beginning, definitely. I think maybe not my best first couple of laps, and then… We seemed to have pretty good pace for the first couple of laps compared to Charles, and then I could get past. And then it was a pretty lonely race from there. Just struggled a little bit through the first part of the race. The car wasn’t exactly how I liked, and once the tyres went away, it actually felt a bit better, which is never a great sign. So yeah, happy with the points, and I’ll take it.

We went so long that the Soft seemed like a good tyre to put on. We were just staying out for Safety Cars, if we got any, but eventually Max got back into our pit window, so there wasn’t any point staying out much longer… Yeah, a little incident at the end, but that’s okay.

Not a bad weekend. Obviously, would love the performance to have been a little bit better, but all in all, I think there’s a lot of things to learn from this weekend. So happy going forwards, and we’ll try and be stronger next week.

LAURENT MEKIES, CEO & Team Principal

“My first thought is for everybody in Milton Keynes, it has been a difficult season for the Team so far and this win is something they have deserved for a while. It looked like McLaren would be running an advantage in pretty much every single race, but everyone has been amazing, to keep exploring and pushing the boundaries of this car and it is great today to be on the top step. There is a special Team behind this win, doing all the hard work to enable us to have a fast car today and everyone at the track then executed it in an unbelievable way. Max redefined what perfection is today and this weekend in general. It was a difficult first lap and he kept very cool and managed to do the overtaking on track and then to dominate the race. Monza is very specific in terms of layout and the Team have done an amazing job to get, fundamentally, the fastest car on track here, then combine that with Max’s magic and the result is today’s win.

Yuki was unfortunate today; he was stuck in traffic and it was very difficult for him to get anything out of the race. Then he had damage to his floor after his contact with Liam, which cost him performance. We have more work to do to help Yuki with his race pace and we will be pushing to get him in the right place as we progress.”

Fernando

“The race was going well for us and we were fighting for some points. We started well and had a good pitstop, but then we had to retire due to a suspension failure. We were using the kerbs the same all weekend, so I think it’s bad luck that we ended up having to retire.

It’s a shame to lose more points in the Championship, as we were having a good weekend up to then. We’ve been more competitive lately, so let’s see how we go for the remainder of the season.”

Formula 2

Browning in full control for maiden F2 victory

Luke Browning claimed his first race win in FIA Formula 2, converting pole position in a dramatic
Monza Feature Race for Hitech TGR. Joshua Duerksen finished up P2 for AIX Racing, while Campos Racing’s Josep María Martí completed the podium in third place.

With the entire field starting on the Supersoft tyres, Browning got a great start, but Kush Maini
bogged down from the front row and dropped down the order. Roman Stanek and Oliver Goethe
went wheel-to-wheel at Turns 1 and 2, with the latter coming out on top with second.
Duerksen moved himself up to fourth having started from P7 and looked to attack Stanek into
Turn 4, but the Czech driver retained third.
Onto Lap 2 and Maini attempted to make amends for his difficult start and battled with Arvid
Lindblad at the first chicane. Both went deep into Turn 2, with the DAMS Lucas Oil driver running
through the gravel and dropping down to last as a result.
Leonardo Fornaroli looked to have a run on Victor Martins into Ascari, but slight contact left the
Invicta Racing driver with a missing front wing endplate as they fought over eighth position. The
Italian made another move down the outside at Turn 4 on the following lap, but had to take to
the escape road, allowing Jak Crawford to move up to P9.

Lap 4 and Goethe had DRS on Browning, and the MP Motorsport driver went by with ease into
Turn 1, with the Drag Reduction System giving him the overspeed to take the lead.
With the pitlane open for mandatory stops on Lap 7, Goethe was in immediately from the lead,
handing over first to Browning, who had Stanek within DRS range and right with him as the pair
continued on, choosing not to respond at the end of the lap to the German’s stop.
Alexander Dunne then looked to complete a pass on Duerksen into Ascari but was hit from
behind by Lindblad, sending the Rodin Motorsport driver into the barriers, resulting in a Safety
Car.
That brought everyone into the pitlane for their mandatory stops, and the Campos Racing driver
was later assigned a 10-second time penalty for the incident.

The fight for the final podium place was a three-car battle as Browning broke out of DRS range
to Duerksen behind. It was Martí that made the first move in that fight with a late dive on
Villagómez at Turn 1 to move himself up to third, while the Van Amersfoort driver had to skip
across the chicane.
Onto the final lap and Martí tried another late dive at Turn 1 but locked up and had to take to the
escape road.
Their fighting meant Browning was clear by over three seconds as he claimed his maiden win in
the Championship ahead of Duerksen and Martí.
Fornaroli held off Beganovic by just 0.077s for fourth. Minì followed in seventh having gone from
15th on the grid, as Verschoor, Montoya and John Bennett completed the points in 10th.