09/09/2025

SPORTS TUESDAY | SEPT 9, 2025

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No family feud Piastri follows contentious McLaren order as Verstappen wins in Monza

he’s just cut the corner.” Verstappen protested his inno cence, claiming Norris went deep on his brakes to force him off the road, but the four-time world champion’s race engineer instructed his driver to concede the position and avoid a pos sible stewards’ investigation. At the start of the second lap, Verstappen moved over to his right on the pit straight and Norris assumed the lead. Verstappen never looked back to claim Red Bull’s first grand prix tri umph of the post-Christian Horner era, but McLaren’s race would unravel on the 47th lap when Norris came in for his one and only stop. A sticky front-left tyre meant Norris was stationary for 5.9 seconds and that allowed Piastri to move up to second, only for McLaren to inter vene. “Oscar, I appreciate that was painful, but I think we did the right thing,” said Piastri’s race engi neer, Tom Stallard. Commenting afterwards, the Australian said with a wry smile: “A little incident at the end, but it was OK.” On his poor pit stop, Norris said: “I felt like I was there for quite a long time, but every now and then we make mistakes and today was one of them.” – The Independent

ways over the past 18 months, but here he was soon alongside Verstappen’s Red Bull on the 320kph drag to the Variante del Rettifilo. Verstappen held his line and, when the tarmac narrowed, Norris dropped two wheels onto the grass but carried enough momentum to remain on level terms under braking for the chicane. Norris’s papaya-coloured McLaren occupied the inside line and Verstappen took to the escape road before rejoining the track and retain ing his lead. Cue the complaints from inside Norris’s crash helmet. “Yeah, what the f***,” said Norris. “What is this idiot doing? Come on. He’s put me on the grass and then

RESULTS & STANDINGS

‘Handing place back was fair’ OSCAR PIASTRI said McLaren’s request for him to hand back second place to teammate and Formula One title rival Lando Norris in yesterday’s Italian Grand Prix was fair, despite reducing his championship lead. “I think today was a fair request. Lando qualified ahead, was ahead the whole race, and lost the spot through no fault of his own,” Piastri, winner of seven of 16 rounds so far, told reporters at Monza. “I’m not going to go against the team. I think there’s a lot of people to protect and a culture to protect out side of just Lando and I. Ultimately that’s a very important thing going forward.” The 24-year-old had said initially over the radio that he thought slow pitstops were a part of racing, and was not aware anything had changed. He had nothing to add on that but said the request had not come as any shock. “We have had discussions about all kinds of scenarios and when you’re in the same team, when there are things outside a driver’s control, there’s a lot more ways you can rec tify things,” he said. “So it is a discussion we’ve had. I’m sure we’ll review it and discuss more, but it wasn’t a situation that hadn’t been discussed before.” Norris said he would have done the same as his teammate and rejected a suggestion that a prece dent had been set. “We’re not idiots and we have plans for different things. If there were four cars in between me and Oscar, of course he’s not going to let me back past, and I don’t think it’s correct that he let me back past,”said the Briton. “But in a situation where we weren’t racing, in a situation where we can just be fair, then you’d expect to be fair, as a team.” Norris, who suffered a mechani cal retirement in Zandvoort last weekend, said McLaren did not want to be the cause of a driver’s misfor tune and it would have been differ ent if the slow stop had been his fault. “If I came flat-out into my box and I hit all my mechanics out of the way, I also don’t expect to get the position back, but today was out of my control,” he said. – Reuters ITALIAN GRAND PRIX 1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 2. Lando Norris (McLaren) 3. Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 4. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 5. George Russell (Mercedes) 6. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) 7. Alex Albon (Williams) 8. Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) 9. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) 10. Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Drivers (Top 5 ) 1. Oscar Piastri (AUS) 324pts, 2. Lando Norris (GBR) 293, 3. Max Verstappen (NED) 230, 4. George Russell (GBR) 194, 5. Charles Leclerc (MON) 163. Constructors (Top 5) 1. McLaren 617pts, 2. Ferrari 280, 3. Mercedes 260, 4. Red Bull 239, 5. Williams 86.

Ű BY PHILIP DUNCAN

championship advantage from 34 points to 31 heading into the conclud ing eight rounds. Charles Leclerc took fourth for Ferrari, one place ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell. Lewis Hamilton

L ANDO NORRIS’S world championship bid was con troversially kept alive by his McLaren team, despite a poor pit-stop threatening to deal the British driver another title blow. Norris had been on course to fin ish as runner-up to runaway winner Max Verstappen until he dropped behind title rival Oscar Piastri follow ing a slow change of tyres with seven laps remaining. However, Piastri was ordered by McLaren to move aside for teammate Norris, which the Australian did on the 49th lap of 53 at Monza’s Temple of Speed. Piastri was bitterly disappointed with the decision, saying on the radio: “We said that a slow pit stop was part of racing, so I don’t really get what changed here but I will do it.” Verstappen, who crossed the line a commanding 19.2 seconds clear of Norris to claim his first triumph since winning at Imola on May 18, expressed his surprise at McLaren’s move, laughing when he was informed of the swap. “Just because of a slow pit stop?” he chuckled when told that Norris and Piastri had traded positions, with the former reducing his teammate’s McIlroy wins Irish Open in playoff RORY MCILROY said he was enjoying a “pretty cool year” after he won the Irish Open in a thrilling playoff against Joakim Lagergren yesterday for his first tourna ment triumph since his Masters success in April. World No. 2 McIlroy had to eagle the 72nd hole just to force a playoff after Lagergren’s own remarkable eagle at the 16th at the K Club near Dublin. After the first two additional holes were tied in birdie fours, Sweden’s Lagergren found the water third time around to allow McIlroy to win with two putts. Victory gave Northern Ireland’s McIlroy, four shots off the lead heading into the last round, his second Irish Open title, nine years after his first. The 36-year-old became just the sixth man to complete a career Grand Slam of major titles following his Masters tri umph at Augusta National. McIlroy is warming up for the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black later this month, when he will be leading Europe’s defence of the trophy they won against the United States in Rome two years ago. “To do what I did earlier in the year and then to come home and win my national Open, no matter what happens for the rest of the year, that’s a pretty cool year – 2025’s going to be one of the best, if not the best, of my career,” said McIlroy. “But we’re not finished yet, I’ve got a big week at Wentworth (BMW PGA Championship) and then obviously eve rybody’s looking forward to the Ryder Cup.” Angel Hidalgo, second overnight after the third, finished in a tie for third on 15-under with Rafa Cabrera Bello, who shot up the leaderboard following a hole-in-one at the third. – AFP

made up four places from 10th – after he served a five-place grid penalty – to finish sixth.

A week on from his race-end

ing engine failure at the Dutch Grand Prix, which put him on the back foot to win his maiden world crown, Norris escaped from a mis take-fuelled qualifying

session to join pole sitter Verstappen on the front row, with Piastri a place back. Norris has attracted criticism for a series of p o o r geta

McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri (left) and Lando Norris. – AFPPIC

Another step forward for Red Bull: Max

MAX VERSTAPPEN reckoned his once dominant Red Bull team had taken another step towards

with the behaviour of the car and that also then shows in the race,” Verstappen told reporters. “Of course, McLaren stayed out to try and gamble for the safety car, and I think that’s why the gap is a little bit bigger than it should have been. But still for us, an incredible weekend.” Verstappen said some previous races had made him feel like a passen ger in the car but now there was more balance and the tyres were behaving more normally, although some of it was track dependent.

getting back to their form of old with vic tory at Monza yes terday. Even if a fifth suc cessive Formula One

title now looks well out of his reach, the Dutch driver won the Italian Grand Prix by more than 19 seconds – quali fying with the sport’s fastest ever lap

“Up until now we’ve had a lot of races where we were just shooting left and right a little bit with the set-up of the car. Quite extreme changes, which shows that we were not in con trol,” he added. “We were not fully under

standing what to do.” Verstappen said the arrival of Laurent Mekies, who comes from an engineering background, as team principal after Christian Horner was dismissed in July had helped. The win was the team’s first of the post Horner era. “He’s asking the right questions to the engineers – common-sense questions – so I think that works really well,” he explained. “Plus, you try to understand from the things that you have tried, that at one point some things give you a bit of an idea of a direction, and that’s what we kept on work ing on. “I definitely felt that in Zandvoort already we took a step that seemed to work quite well, and then here another step which felt again a little bit better.” Verstappen won nine races last year, after a record 19 of 22 in 2023, but yesterday was only his third of a current campaign in which McLaren have so far won 12. – Reuters

and following up with the fastest race in history. The victory ended a run of eight races without a win and fol lowed on from second place at home in Zandvoort the previous weekend, leaving Verstappen 94 points adrift of McLaren’s cham pionship leader Oscar Piastri with eight rounds remaining. With three Saturday sprints also still to come, there are a maximum of 224 points still to be won. “It just seems like this weekend has been another step forward

Red Bull F1 driver Max Verstappen celebrates after winning the Italian Grand Prix in Monza. – AFPPIC