Charles Leclerc (Pole, P2, 18 pts): 9/10
Another week, another pole position that fails to deliver a race win for Charles Leclerc. It's becoming the story of Ferrari's season, and the team is increasingly being forced to accept that Max Verstappen is simply unbeatable at the moment. Not even home advantage at Monza, or some sparking yellow firesuits this weekend can do anything to change that fact of F1 life. At every turn, Leclerc delivered everything he had been called upon to do: fastest in FP1, top three in both of the subsequent practice sessions, and then winning pole for the race on merit rather than waiting for it to be handed to him on a plate through grid penalties handed to Verstappen, Sergio Perez, Lewis Hamilton et al. He successfully fended off a daring attack around the outside of turn 1 from George Russell, but was keenly aware of Verstappen rapidly closing from behind. Once again it was Ferrari's race strategy that looks questionable. Pulling Leclerc in at the first sniff of a Virtual Safety Car for Sebastian Vettel's retirement was sensible enough, but switching his soft tyres for a set of mediums that were never going to last the rest of the race without a refresh looks suspect. Arguably it didn't really matter anyway: Verstappen was always going to win, and second place the best Leclerc could do. But it means he slips 116 points behind his rival in the drivers championship with six races to do; will it now all be over in Singapore?
Max Verstappen (P1, 25 pts): 9.5/10
You could make a strong case for another perfect ten for Max Verstappen this week, but we've chipped half a point off because he didn't stop the practice timesheets at all on Friday. Harsh, perhaps, but that's just how we roll here at F1i Towers. And while he was back on form in final practice, he missed out on P1 in qualifying perhaps because Red Bull's focus was understandably on Sunday's race pace given that Verstappen had a five-place grid penalty to serve. That setback was barely more than a mild inconvenience to Max when the lights went out and he was straight back up to second place by lap 5. Verstappen picked up the lead when Leclerc pitted under a Virtual Safety Car on lap 12, handed it back when he made his own stop on lap 26, but seized it again for a second and final time on lap 33 when Leclerc made a second call on pit lane. And that was it. After that, Verstappen had the road to himself, cruising around backmarkers and enjoying his afternoon all the way through to lap 48 when the race was neutralised by a safety car for Daniel Ricciardo's retirement. Even if it had restarted, Verstappen would doubtless have fended off any threat from Leclerc to earn his fifth win a row, his 11th in 2022 and the 31st of his career. And moreover, bring himself within touching distance of securing a second world title.
