Autobayng News Team
Welcome to Sunday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
Gaspar Palagyi is disappointed Pierre Gasly has re-signed for Alpine when he still had a year left to run on his contract.
There still is an opening at Sauber/Audi from 2026 (Bortoleto’s seat). He is good, no question, but it’s too early to call, and he wasn’t raised and groomed by Audi.
Aston Martin, Williams and Haas have all their contracts up at the end of 2026.
At some point, papa Stroll will have to let go of baby Stroll, and Alonso will have to yield to his age. Maybe not at the end of 2026, maybe not at once, but these two events will happen, and there will be open seat(s) at AMR.
Same with Williams. Albon is doing especially well right now and salvages all the points Sainz wastes, and Sainz’s bad luck is bound to run out sometime; still, one or both of them could go their own ways sometime in the future.
At Haas, Bearman’s going to sink or swim soon, especially as he is Ferrari family. Seeing how hot Hamilton is doing, and how happy Leclerc seems with wasting his prime years there, they could need Bearman at some point.
Plus, Antonelli’s reputation is currently sliding down from all the hype to a barely adequate vibe at Mercedes. He might not get a multi-year extension if he keeps on beaching it on Fridays and causing collisions on Sundays.
So all in all, there simply must have been other options for a driver as talented as Gasly beside this sad Alpine one.
Gaspar Palagyi (@Palagyi)
Social media and links
Hard-fought qualifying in Monza (Ferrari)
Frederic Vasseur: ‘We have good top speed because we have been quite aggressive in our choice of downforce level, but as usual in Monza you have to decide on the compromise between being quick on the straights or through the corners. Tomorrow, everything is still possible.’
Intriguing Saturday sets up fascinating Italian Grand Prix (Mercedes)
Toto Wolff: ‘Some of our rivals have opted to set-up their cars to have less downforce and therefore be able to defend better on the straights tomorrow. That will make our ability to progress forward harder. We have shown good race pace though and we will see how everything plays out; if we can make that pace count then we can hopefully look to come away with a solid points haul.’
Q2 exit in Italian GP Quali (Williams)
James Vowles: ‘We had shown in Q1 that we can get the tyres to work but it’s not the same as everyone else, and I think today we didn’t quite get the programme right. Even then I think we had the pace to just about get into Q3, but not much more, which is different to how we have been over the rest of the weekend.’
Qualifying Recap (Haas)
Esteban Ocon: ‘In Q2 we didn’t maximize the whole lap, and the car just felt worse than in Q1. We struggled with front under rotation, front locking, and quite a lot of understeer in high-speed. Overall, it felt like a balance I had earlier in the year, so we need to work out what went wrong and hopefully tomorrow it won’t be the case.’
Sprint race: Fornaroli in formidable form in home victory at Monza (Formula 2)
‘Starting in third, the Invicta Racing driver took the lead in the early phase of the race and controlled things from the front afterwards, resisting late pressure from second-place finisher Arvid Lindblad.’
Tramnitz penalised after Monza sprint race (Formula 3)
‘It was found that Tramnitz had failed to engage the start procedure as per Article 1.6.1 of the 2025 FIA Formula 3 Technical Regulations and Article 11.15 of the F3 2025 System user manual. As a result, Tramnitz has been awarded a 10-second time penalty. With his penalty applied, it means that Roman Bilinski is promoted to first position.’
Assetto Corsa Evo set for 2025 Ferrari F1 car and Monza (Traxion)
‘To tie in with this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, Assetto Corsa Evo has confirmed the Monza track for a future update. It has also teased a 2025-spec Formula 1 car, which we believe to be the Ferrari SF-25.’
Red Bull Ring race one (Euroformula Open via YouTube)
Red Bull Ring race one (Formula Regional Europe via YouTube)
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