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The Italian GP rounded off the European stage of the 2024 Formula 1 season in style, serving up a rich and tasty dish of glorious thrills and unpredictability including a surprise - and thoroughly deserved - winner, a brand new driver on board, and a big headache for Red Bull.
Yuki Tsunoda, RB (Accident damage, Lap 7): 4.5/10
Obviously there's not a great deal we can say about Yuki Tsunoda's short-lived Italian Grand Prix, and the rating we give here is more of a token placeholder than a real analysis. It's coloured by an underperforming time in practice that led to him missing the first cut in qualifying that left him starting from 16th place, which is where it's all too easy to get caught up in other people's accidents and battles. On this occasion it was a clash with Nico Hulkenberg that did terminal damage to his car (Hulkenberg seemed to have a real grudge against the RB team on Sunday) and left him limping back to pit lane to become the first and ultimately only retirement of the afternoon. The stewards blamed and penalised Hulkenberg for the clash, and we're not going to disagree, but it's not like Tsunoda was going to deliver anything of note in the race anyway so it was hardly any great loss.
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin (P19): 4/10
We've lost count of the number of times we've commented about the lack of consistency in Lance Stroll's race performances. Sometimes he can he surprisingly strong, other times flying completely below the radar, and then there are races where nothing goes right. Monza was firmly in the latter category of the Canadian's 159 race starts to date. Some of that has to go down to Aston Martin which remains in a serious slump; although that said, Fernando Alonso is still up there battling for points while Stroll was dragging along near the bottom. Having missed the first cut in qualifying. The team tried running a long first stint on hard tyres but Stroll only lasted 19 laps. Nonetheless he was still chugging along and set for 15th when he pitted with three laps to go apparently in a bid to claim the fastest lap on fresh rubber. Had no one told him that he wouldn't get the bonus point if he finished outside the top ten? In any case his bid for the honours came in sixth making you wonder what the point of it all was.
