Category: Autodromo Nazionale Monza

Today, Max Verstappen is ‘back in school’ at the Nurburgring to acquire the necessary Nordschleife permit, which aims to enable his participation in this weekend’s Nurburgring Endurance Series (NLS) races.

It’s a leap into the deep end for the Red Bull star – much like in October 2014 in Suzuka, when he was allowed to contest the first free practice session for Toro Rosso at the Japanese Grand Prix.

In the 2014 Formula 1 season, Toro Rosso raced with Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniil Kvyat, but behind the scenes, Helmut Marko and Jos Verstappen had already agreed that Verstappen Jr. would compete in the full 2015 campaign as a grand prix driver. He was thus prepared for this with Friday outings in Suzuka, Austin, and Sao Paulo.

For his first outing in Suzuka, Verstappen was 17 years and three days old, making him the youngest F1 driver ever to participate in an official race weekend, etching his name into the history books. He replaced Vergne in free practice, and the directive from Marko and Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost was clear: just don’t damage anything.

“Franz and Helmut always said: ‘You don’t need to drive at the limit; you need to build it up slowly and gain experience’. Okay, no problem,” said Verstappen of his F1 weekend debut in an interview with ServusTV. Essentially, his mission was merely to complete the lap and return the car safely to the pit.

Then, after the first run, Verstappen returned to the pits, “and I had to think about many things first”. Suddenly, Tost approached his car, leaned over the cockpit, and spurred on the young Dutchman: “Everything okay, well driven. But 130R, that’s flat out.”

Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso STR9 Renault

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

It’s worth noting that 130R is one of the most legendary corners of the technically demanding Suzuka circuit, and back in 2014, while it was indeed taken flat out, it was still considered a true test of courage. Instructing a young driver to go full throttle there on only his second fast lap was, to say the least, a daring instruction.

Verstappen remembers and laughs: “Of course, I took 130R flat out – but I had a bit of oversteer!” At the end of the session, Verstappen rolled out with a smoking rear and a valve issue but still finished in 12th, four tenths behind Kvyat.

Today, 11 years later, Tost still doesn’t believe he demanded too much of rookie Verstappen on that memorable Friday in Suzuka. His young age should “simply be forgotten” in that context. Tost had “really watched every Formula 3 race of his. And he had car control that was gigantic.”

In an interview with ServusTV, Tost stated: “That Norisring race in the wet, I will never forget it. The lap time in Formula 3 at the Norisring is 57, 58 seconds. And he was a second faster than the rest every lap! The way he moved that car was simply fantastic.

“Then we said, ‘okay, we’ll test him in Adria’. Adria is a small track, not far from us, between Faenza and Venice. So we went there, and with Max, you immediately noticed: he had no problems with the speed of his car. He also had no problems with braking.

“Normally, a driver needs time to adapt to the deceleration of a Formula 1 car. That’s an enormous challenge. You’re subjected to 3, 4, 5g. Or then the acceleration. And he immediately got to grips with the car. And we wouldn’t have let him drive if we weren’t a hundred percent convinced that he could do it.

Franz Tost, Team Principal, Toro Rosso, and Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“It was clear that he would drive for us in 2015. And then we said: ‘Okay, let’s start right away!’ Suzuka was the next race weekend. And Suzuka is difficult, but for Max, it was absolutely no problem. Why? Because he simply has that car control, because he simply wasn’t overwhelmed by the speed, because he was very, very good on the brakes, and because he really had everything under control. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have done it.

“I was convinced that we weren’t taking any risks, and if we say he was 16 years old… Max started karting at five or six years old. That means he already had 10 years of racing experience. That’s a huge difference. And he had the Jos Verstappen school. Every corner was flat out. And that’s why I wasn’t at all uneasy, and I was full of optimism that it would work out with Max.”

And so it did. Verstappen contested the 2015 season alongside Carlos Sainz in a Toro Rosso team with two F1 rookies. Verstappen won the internal duel on championship points with 49 compared to 18, even though he narrowly lost the qualifying duel eight to 10. In 2016, Verstappen started again at Toro Rosso, but from Barcelona onwards, he moved up to Red Bull in place of Kvyat.

There, at the Spanish Grand Prix, he won his very first race alongside Daniel Ricciardo. The rest is history – and Verstappen, who experiences another premiere this weekend on the Nurburgring Nordschleife, considered a test of courage in motorsport, is now a four-time F1 world champion.

Red Bull Formula 1 team boss Laurent Mekies says the squad needs more “clean samples” to judge Yuki Tsunoda’s performances after another race derailed by being caught up in the midfield battle.

Tsunoda was left with floor damage in the Italian Grand Prix after contact with former team-mate Liam Lawson, leaving the Japanese driver without points while team-mate Max Verstappen won from pole.

The weekend has not done Tsunoda’s chances to salvage his Red Bull career too many favours, but equally there is shared frustration between Tsunoda and the team that the frantic midfield action is not allowing him to show his true hand.

Having advanced to Q3 after being within two tenths of Verstappen in Q1 and Q2, Tsunoda failed to string together an optimal lap in Q3, leaving him 10th on the grid. And while Verstappen remained out front after a brief battle with Lando Norris, Tsunoda was mired in a midfield battle that saw him unable to find clean air and left him exposed to potential incidents.

That’s especially relevant because, unlike some of his predecessors in Red Bull’s cursed second seat, team principal Mekies feels Tsunoda has more work to do in race trim than on qualifying pace and Monza was another chance gone for the 25-year-old to show whether or not he has made any steps in that regard.

“[We need] clean samples, because today was a poor sample,” Mekies said. “You know how it is, the races at the front are very clean, you get at least a good stint to read your performance. Here, it’s very difficult to get anything out of today. First stint in traffic, second stint with a car damage. If I look back at the last couple of races, it’s quite similar.

“I think it is correct to say that we probably have more work to do on race pace than on qualifying pace with Yuki. But again, it’s also why we are giving ourselves a bit more time.”

Laurent Mekies with Isack Hadjar

Photo by: Mark Thompson – Getty Images

That timeframe is the end of October, when Mekies and Helmut Marko will want to have finalised their driver line-ups across Red Bull and Racing Bulls for 2026. The decision is still heavily trending towards a Red Bull promotion for Hadjar and an F1 debut at Racing Bulls for junior driver Arvid Lindblad.

Any comparisons between the two Red Bull-owned teams have not been made easier by the stark difference between the difficult to drive Red Bull RB21 versus the more compliant VCARB 02, so Tsunoda’s job is simply to get closer to Verstappen in both qualifying and racing conditions.

“Quali pace, race pace; that’s what we look at, it’s as simple as that,” Mekies said. “The race for Yuki is difficult to read because of the traffic in the first stint, damage in the second stint, but if I look at qualifying, I still qualify it as a good weekend.

“He was two tenths from Max in Q1 and Max was not exactly slow this weekend. And with a small deficit from the car he was two tenths from Max in Q2, there is no doubt everybody is pushing 100% in Q2.

“Yes, the gap was bigger in Q3, but first he put the car in Q3, which is a very good performance, and second he was first on the road in Q3, it didn’t help as well. I think short-run pace was a very good sample for Yuki; long-run pace, it’s frustrating not to have a clean race day.”

As Mekies mentioned, Tsunoda was still on an older floor specification after Verstappen received the latest version, but the expectation is that both drivers will be on par again next week in Azerbaijan. But Mekies hastened to add that the floor tweak didn’t change the world for Red Bull, as its surprisingly strong Monza performance was more down to overhauling its set-up philosophy than the benefit of its new components.

“We had a floor upgrade only on Max’s car,” he added. “It’s a small update. It’s not a few tenths, but everything matters. We are confident it’s a small step in the right direction. We are hoping to have it on both cars for next race.”

Max Verstappen’s immediate Formula 1 future is locked in at Red Bull, but it is expected that the four-time champion will use the 2026 season to assess the team’s position before making a decision on his next steps.

This is the opinion of former Red Bull driver David Coulthard, who suggested Verstappen wouldn’t “jump on the next horse because your own didn’t win” unless the team proves to be in trouble at the start of next year’s all-new rules cycle.

Verstappen was known to be entertaining talks with Mercedes over a potential drive for next year, but he pledged that he would remain at Red Bull for 2026 – coinciding with the arrival of Laurent Mekies as team principal in place of Christian Horner.

Coulthard, who remains an ambassador for Red Bull, believes that Verstappen will give the team the chance to show it can either deliver in 2026, or demonstrate the building blocks for long-term success.

It has been rumoured that Red Bull’s 2026 powertrain – developed in conjunction with Ford – may not be among those at the front in the initial stages of next year; if there is a sustained performance shortfall, Coulthard sees Verstappen finding a way out of his contract.

“There’s no black and white answer. It’s very personal, isn’t it? But I do believe – you know Max. I know Max – I absolutely believe in his integrity, I believe in his loyalty,” Coulthard told Autosport at the More Than Equal event in Zandvoort.

“But equally, he’s a racing driver. He’s not here because it’s fun to just go round in circles. He has a commitment to the team. He’ll give the team the opportunity to deliver him what they previously delivered him.

“The same group of guys that delivered him a winning car are now delivering him a car that has won this year. So it’s not as bad as Ferrari. It’s just not a McLaren. And therefore, you know, you don’t just jump on the next horse because your own didn’t win.

“The answer to your question is it’s in Max’s hands. But I suspect he’ll look at ’26. If there’s a major engine issue with the Red Bull power units, that would be concerning, I’m sure. If that doesn’t look bad, if let’s say the power unit’s working but they’re still trying to figure out a new regulation in the car, that might give them more time.

Coulthard believes Verstappen would only move from Red Bull in the case of serious struggles in 2026

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“But if it’s a struggle, of course he’s going to go somewhere else. He’s got the right to go somewhere else. And I don’t think anyone in the team would be offended by that.

“And I know one thing, Max would go and look them in the eye and say: ‘I’m making this decision because of that’. Because he’s an honourable guy. He’s not someone that just would leave.”

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff spoke about a potential future with Verstappen, stating that there’s a “50%” chance that the Dutchman could end up with the team in the future.

When that was put to Coulthard, he reckoned that there was also a chance that Verstappen could end up at Ferrari at some point – and that it ultimately depended on where he could “be himself”, rather than any financial returns.

“I can see [Verstappen going to Mercedes]. But does that mean I know it will happen? Of course not,” he added.

“There’s a 50 percent chance he’ll end up at Ferrari, I guess. He will go wherever the best opportunity lies to have a winning car.

“Max will not go where there’s just money, because he’s already earned the success of his career. He will go where he believes he can be himself.”

There is a quote, popularly misattributed to Albert Einstein, that the definition of insanity is to repeat an unsuccessful course of action in the expectation of a different outcome.
 
So you might wonder why Pierre Gasly, a Formula 1 grand prix winner who remains demonstrably competitive, would tie himself into a three-year contract extension with a team which has gone through innumerable management reshuffles and struggled to field a competitive car for almost a decade.
 
There are two distinct strands to the answer, the first and most obvious one being that there was no other competitive seat available: McLaren and Ferrari are spoken for, as is Mercedes (bar the signing of contracts). The mere thought of Red Bull must stir ghastly memories. In the immediate slipstream of this cluster, the likes of Williams and Sauber are also fixed for the near future.
 
But there are reasons for optimism, even though this season started off middlingly and then got worse, largely as a consequence of Alpine’s early pivot to 2026 development. The technical group is now stable under ex-Ferrari engineer David Sanchez, who arrived last year, Flavio Briatore has an iron grip on management, and parent company Renault has reaffirmed its commitment to the F1 project.

Pierre Gasly, Alpine

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

“Of course I did [look elsewhere],” said Gasly after last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.
 
“It’s just the normal stuff to do. It’s not like it was a no-brainer looking at the performance at the start of the year. There is some thinking behind it.
 
“But honestly I believe this is a very strong option. Just got to wait and display some good performance from next season.
 
“I think it’s good to have some clarity and show my commitment on both ends. From the team towards me and me towards the team.
 
“And with the group of people that I’m working with, I’m feeling in a much better place than I was when I arrived. So I think it’s very clear. I think it [the contract extension] can only be positive for everyone on the team.”

Gerard Lopez, head of Lotus F1

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

It’s nearly 10 years since Renault returned to F1 as a team owner as well as an engine supplier, in a rush-purchase brokered by F1 ‘ringmaster’ Bernie Ecclestone. Renault had owned the Enstone-based organisation before, and twice won the constructors’ championship with it, but the enterprise had been run down under the wretched custodianship of Genii Capital and its leader Gerard Lopez – currently president of the French football clubs Boavista and Bordeaux, whose fortunes have slid similarly.
 
Not only had there been no investment in maintaining cutting-edge facilities, many of the most talented engineers had grown weary of wondering if their next pay packet would come through, and sought employment elsewhere. The challenge of rebuilding the team and its infrastructure was then magnified by corporate bungling at Renault, and a consistent failure to understand the timescales required to succeed in F1.
 
The revolving door of senior management over the past five seasons did little to diminish the impression of a team in permanent crisis, though some form of stability has now set in under the admittedly polarising figure of Briatore.

Flavio Briatore, Executive Advisor, Alpine

Photo by: Bryn Lennon / Formula 1 / Getty Images

Old hand Steve Nielsen, who spent a decade at the team before becoming one of many to depart during the Genii era, has now returned as managing director and took up his post ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.
 
It’s understood that Gasly bought in to the principle of sacrificing 2025 development for the ’26 project early on, and is happy with the direction of travel behind the scenes, including the arrival of a new driver-in-loop simulator.
 
Another potential gain for 2026 comes in the form of a Mercedes power unit, since Briatore took the controversial decision to shutter F1 development at Renault’s Viry-Chatillon facility. Word in the paddock is that Mercedes’ project, as with the introduction of the hybrid powertrains in 2014, is the most advanced.
 
Thus Alpine is likely to get an immediate performance uplift.

Pierre Gasly, Alpine

Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images

“Obviously, my side, I didn’t have to rush,” said Gasly.
 
“I think Flavio convinces me going forward and to the potential of the team. And as I said, there are reasons we’re not competitive this year.
 
“I fully backed the team at the start of the year once they decided to stop the development very early on compared to other teams, which obviously, you know, is a bit painful right now. But I think moving forward, and for my targets in Formula 1, it’s definitely the best thing to do for the coming season.
 
“I fully believe in the team of people we have in Enstone. We’ve got some good new recruits. I think in terms of organization, work processes we have, the team is probably in the best place that I’ve seen.
 
“And yeah, everything we know is not working on this year’s car is a conscious decision not to change it to maximise our chances from next season on.”

For the many fans who flocked to the grandstands, ready to support the Prancing Horse, the real surprise of the Monza weekend was unfortunately not Ferrari, but Red Bull. For Ferrari, it was a bitter blow; the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix represented one of its best opportunities to beat the dominant McLaren.

This was not the case. Monza, where aerodynamic efficiency often rules the day, underlined Ferrari’s limitations that have persisted through much of the season, even on a favourable track. Hopes of a first win of the season were effectively extinguished on Saturday, in a qualifying session in which the SF-25 lacked the line-leading pace.

To hope for anything more than fourth and sixth place, it would need a surprise twist of fate on Sunday. The drivers attacked in the first part of the race to facilitate that but, with few  variables of which to take advantage, hopes soon faded.

The grand prix turned out to be surprisingly linear and devoid of twists and turns, even more so than the teams themselves had anticipated. Those factors that had fuelled uncertainty last year, and which could have helped Ferrari, vanished. It ultimately exposed the areas on which the SF-25 is lacking compared to its rivals, particularly on aerodynamic load.

This is an area that has relegated Ferrari to the role of ‘extra’ in a grand prix that it would dearly have loved to compete in as a protagonist. The signs had already emerged in qualifying, but in the race, without the support of the extra grip provided by the new soft tyre, the shortcomings of the SF-25 became even more evident. 

Certainly, in the early stages of the race the two drivers pushed on, contributing to the tyres overheating at a delicate time in their life cycle. This required a few laps to re-establish the balance, but this was relative, as it did not affect consumption too much, and degradation proved minimal.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

In his post-race analysis, Fred Vasseur spoke of a “last tenth” missing in the direct comparison with the McLaren. On a dry lap, this analysis is valid, although the new soft tyre did in fact mask some shortcomings to offer grip to an extremely unloaded car. In the race, however, the scenario turned out to be much more complex and far removed from the picture. It culminated in a situation where, at the Temple of Speed, Ferrari just didn’t have enough of it.

Analysing the race from lap 20 onwards, after the most critical phase related to tyre thermal management, it becomes clear where the SF-25 lost ground to McLaren and Red Bull: in the corners. In particular, in the fastest and most technical sections such as Ascari and Parabolica, where stability is crucial, the Ferrari lagged at times by as much as 10-11km/h (6-7mph).

The large speed advantage on the straights, up to 6-7 km/h on the MCL39 and 3-4 km/h on the RB21, was not enough to compensate for the time lost in the corners, translating into an average gap of around two and a half tenths per lap compared to Piastri and over four from Verstappen, at least until the first pitstop.

It wasn’t all bad; it was this slower cornering speed that allowed the SF-25 to put less stress on the tyres, favouring a gradual approach in pace in the final stint, until reaching performance comparable with its rivals.

Carrying less speed into corners, the SF-25 generated less strain on the tyres, a factor that worked in its favour in the middle stages of the race. It was at that point, as Verstappen admitted, that the Dutchman began to feel the effects of some degradation after pushing for over 30 laps. Ferrari experienced a similar situation in Jeddah: time lost in traffic had mitigated the tyre consumption, again on a track characterised by low degradation and extremely smooth asphalt.

The choice of Ferrari to focus on an extremely unloaded set-up is understandable: it represents a technical ‘all-in’, to which even Red Bull ended up adapting to make the difference by following the same direction as Ferrari. Betting everything on a certain area was the only real way to beat an all-rounder like McLaren’s MCL39. But at that point, the crucial issue remained the aerodynamic load generated by the underbody and body.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Marco Bertorello / AFP via Getty Images

Looking back over the season, the RB21 has shown consistent superiority in very high-speed corners, thanks to a stability and load level that the SF-25 has never been able to match and what the drivers have reported so often on. This is a limitation that had already emerged in other rounds, and at Monza became even more evident and detrimental – and could not be compensated for by loading the wings, given the risk of losing efficiency and its greatest strength. 

Of course, it’s true that each single-seater has its own aerodynamic mapping, with characteristics that determine its efficiency based on load and cornering. McLaren tends to be more efficient and perform better with the wings loaded, while for Red Bull it’s the opposite.

There were legitimate expectations that the lower load at the rear could generate more sliding and, consequently, more tyre degradation. In reality, the low consumption recorded greatly mitigated the problem, neutralising one of the MCL39’s strengths, rear-end handling. This was an unexpected side effect, which levelled out performance and made one of its best weapons less decisive.

This scenario allowed the rivals to push without fear, especially in the initial phase, showing all the superiority of their aerodynamic load. Ferrari wanted Monza to be the stage for redemption, but instead it turned into a faithful mirror of the limits of the SF-25’s design. 

McLaren is poised to win the Formula 1 world constructors’ championship with a record seven races to spare. Given that this is the final year of these regulations, where the margins are supposed to be tight, how have they done it?

Will McLaren’s dominance continue in 2026, when new regulations are introduced? And if not – which team will be the first post-McLaren to win a constructors’ championship?

With James Allen to discuss this we welcome back friend of the pod, former Aston Martin technical director and head of aerodynamics at Red Bull, Dan Fallows and Autosport’s F1 writer Jake Boxall-Legge.

Send your comments or questions to: @jamesallenonf1 on X or jamesallenonf1@autosport.com.

Toto Wolff has revealed how a conversation with Formula 1 legend Alain Prost inspired how the Mercedes boss has dealt with drivers through the years.

The four-time world champion had an iconic rivalry with Ayrton Senna, who fought Prost for the F1 title in 1988 and 1989 when the pair were team-mates at the dominant McLaren outfit. 

They both won a title each during that period while having several high-profile clashes, Suzuka 1989 for example, and it led to Prost joining Ferrari due to how toxic the relationship became.

Wolff once managed a similar team-mate rivalry, as childhood friends Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg bitterly fought for the championship from 2014 to 2016 amid an unprecedented run of eight consecutive constructors’ titles for Mercedes. 

Hamilton and Rosberg also had many spats, like Barcelona 2016, and an old pre-race conversation once shaped how Wolff opted to manage team-mate battles like that. 

“What I’m trying to transcend in the team is transparency,” said Wolff, who became Mercedes F1 boss in 2013. “When I started in Mercedes, I ran into Alain Prost, who I didn’t know back in the day.

Alain Prost, Renault Sport F1 Team Special Advisor and Toto Wolff, Mercedes AMG F1 Director of Motorsport on the grid

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“It was a five-minute conversation on the grid and I said to him, ‘what went wrong with Senna and you?’.

“He said, ‘nothing went wrong between the two of us. What went wrong is that the team management played us against each other – we never knew where we were. One weekend you were the flavour of the month, the next month you didn’t know whether you had a seat and we never got the information’. 

“That kind of grew bigger, you become more paranoid, you close up. Eventually that leads to an implosion of the relationships between the drivers and with the team and how I’ve seen it is that I never wanted to fall foul of the same mistake.”

Wolff was further inspired by the late Niki Lauda, as the former Mercedes non-executive chairman once told him “we’re not bullshitting, we’re straightforward – things are like they are”.

That has been the case with all Mercedes drivers, whether it is Hamilton, Rosberg, Valtteri Bottas or current racer George Russell after recent speculation that the Silver Arrows was trying to sign Max Verstappen for 2026.

“It is with George and it was with Lewis the same way before and with Valtteri, I’m always transparent,” said Wolff.

Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Toto Wolff, Mercedes AMG F1 Shareholder and Executive Director

Photo by: Daimler AG

“Borderline, you could see it as naivety because someone that I value as a family member, as a team member, as an ally, as a part of the tribe, I will always be brutally honest. 

“Not everybody can cope with it. George can. Lewis could also. But that’s why our conversations have been very open.

“George was the first one that I called and said, ‘listen, I need to entertain this conversation. It’s my duty as a team boss just so you’re not caught out’ and I think that’s important.”

Wolff recalled the fallout of Rosberg’s sudden retirement just five days after clinching the 2016 title, where he and Hamilton gathered for a brutally honest conversation after a fractious year.

It had seen Hamilton defy team orders just weeks prior at the Abu Dhabi season finale, after the race leader had deliberately backed second-placed Rosberg into the cars behind hoping they’d overtake.

Ultimately, they didn’t and Hamilton’s relationship with Mercedes was sour, before the off-season chat recovered things leading to him claiming his fourth of seven titles in 2017. 

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid, leads Nico Rosberg, Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid, and Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB12

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“It was a tough time with Lewis,” said Wolff. “We had a really, really tough time around the [FIA] prizegiving, when Nico announced it, and also in the weeks afterwards.

“That’s when I said, ‘listen, we’ve got to sit down because if we are not talking to each other, then where is this going?’

“And I’d like you to be in the team for a long time. You’re the best driver. If you think we’re the best team, then we need to just sit down and agree to disagree or put all those points out.

“What we’ve really learned, the both of us together, is that you need to communicate because on many things, we share objectives and there will be situations where we don’t, but at least we know.

“That was a really good talk and shutting down is not the right way to do it. You need to have the conversation, even if it’s difficult and I’ve had it ever since.”

On Saturday afternoon the tifosi rose to their feet for one of their own, as he motored a scarlet Ferrari around Monza.

But it wasn’t Charles Leclerc or Lewis Hamilton the Italian fans were cheering on. It was F1 and sportscar legend Jacky Ickx, taking the wheel of the Ferrari 312B he took to second in the 1970 world championship, the very car he claimed pole with at Monza.

Organised by F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali and former F1 driver Paolo Barilla, whose Barilla pasta company joined F1 as an official partner this year, 80-year-old Ickx celebrated his most successful F1 season by hustling the Ferrari around Monza for two laps amid a sea of red.

Ickx, who shared the grid with Barilla at the 1985 Le Mans 24 Hours race that the Italian was victorious in, was visibly moved to tears as he stepped out of the cockpit on the grid, greeted by Barilla and Domenicali.

Speaking to Autosport in the Ferrari hospitality, after providing guest commentary on the race for Belgian broadcaster RTBF, Ickx was still basking in the afterglow of an emotional celebration of both his and Ferrari’s rich heritage.

“Sentimentally, it was a great moment to return to the car in Monza, a car in which I won,” he said. “Monza is incredible, with the masses of red tifosi as far as the eye can see during the podium celebration.

Stefano Domenicali, Paolo Barilla and Jacky Ickx

Photo by: Philippe Lopez / AFP / Getty Images

“I’ve raced five times here for Ferrari, but the atmosphere has never changed. It’s really part of the DNA of every Italian. Yes, I was moved, because it was such a display of kindness. Frankly, we live in a world today where you can ask yourself a lot of questions. It’s difficult, that’s the least you can say. And this was a magical moment.

“I am good friends with Stefano, who liked the idea of doing something special for my 80th birthday. And Paolo, who is now a sponsor of F1, knows everyone and arranged everything. That’s how we got to share a moment together that was unexpected and deeply human.”

Barilla, who owns the chassis and had it restored, also experienced a moment he won’t forget. “It was very emotional, also for me,” Barilla told Autosport. “It was emotional for all the people who lived through it at the time and even for the younger generation, so they understand more about the spirit of Formula 1 today.

“It was a wonderful moment because Jacky connected to a magic past of the Monza circuit and basically to all his career. Formula 1 is all about high technology and innovation, and when you can combine that with its rich history, it’s a great fun and very emotional.”

Ickx is not the only Ferrari icon connected to the celebration. To restore the car to its former glory when he acquired it over a decade ago, Barilla turned to the late, legendary Ferrari designer Mauro Forghieri, the man who also penned the original car as part of the long-running Ferrari 312 lineage. Forghieri passed away in 2022 at the age of 87.

“We restored the car with Mauro Forghieri, who supervised the entire rebuild of the car and today the car is immaculate, perfect condition,” Barilla explained. “You can see the car on display, but it’s only used for special events and for someone like Jacky Ickx.”

In fact, the car was in such good condition that to Ickx it felt like riding a bicycle, and the cockpit of his scarlet museum relic fit like a glove, just the way he remembered it.

Jacky Ickx drives a Ferrari 312B on track

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

“I sat in the car as if I had left it,” Ickx smiled. “That is to say, I didn’t have to move the seat forward or change the position of the steering wheel. I got in and we didn’t touch the pedals. It has a very particular gearbox, which was better than the Cosworth at the time. You can’t go wrong with it, with a very small, light lever.”

He added: “It is also simple to drive. There are no settings to change. There are three gauges for the instruments and that’s it. But the best part is the music it makes – a naturally aspirated 12-cylinder Ferrari. I took it to 10,000 rpm, although it could have done 11,000. It’s just magical. It’s something you don’t forget. And since it’s quite comfortable, it’s not that difficult to go fast in a straight line.

“When Paolo bought the car, Forghieri, who was getting old at the age of 81, wanted to rebuild it. And it was rebuilt from A to Z, like never done before with such a car – let alone a Ferrari. It’s an absolute gem.”

To Ickx, the link with Forghieri added a whole new dimension to the occasion. He is not particularly nostalgic about his two Monza poles, his eight grand prix victories or his six Le Mans 24 Hours triumphs. But on the occasion he is asked to reflect, he thinks about the people he met along the way like the revered Italian designer.

“I live in the present, and I live with what remains of the future, which is unknown to all of us,” he mused. “I do have nostalgia, but what came to my mind was not just the car, it’s all the people who surrounded me at that time. In motor racing, we only see those who are in the spotlight, but this sport doesn’t work without all the people in the shadows who contribute.”

Ickx certainly wasn’t alone on his two laps of the classic Autodromo, but was saluted by throngs of scarlet clad fans in the grandstands. The tifosi’s rapturous response shouldn’t come as a great surprise. As any former Scuderia driver, the Belgian is every bit the honorary Italian. 

Ferrari fans deploy a giant Ferrari flag on the track

Photo by: Marco Bertorello / AFP via Getty Images

“When you drive for Ferrari or you have been a driver for Ferrari, you have the world in your hands,” Barilla explained. “The people respect you, they love you.”

Ickx concurs: “Paolo is right, that’s clear. Just look at Lewis Hamilton, because now everyone is a philosopher about his future, his presence. Everyone speculates. But he wanted to enjoy it and drive for Ferrari. And the experience will remain with him forever because he will never forget the fans.

“The fans at Mercedes are great, but being at Ferrari it’s multiplied by 10. I was lucky enough to experience that too, and it really is special.”

Ickx’s 1970 pole celebration isn’t without a hint of sadness, because at the same event his title rival Jochen Rindt perished in an accident at Parabolica. Rindt would end up F1’s only posthumous world champion, with Ickx relieved to finish runner-up behind the mercurial Austrian.

“You have to understand that at that time, the races never ever stopped. Rain, wind, hail… you had to go all the way. Death accompanied us every weekend,” said Ickx, who in 1970 had a brush with death himself, surviving a fiery accident at Jarama’s Spanish Grand Prix. “When we left, we weren’t sure we’d come back on Monday. It’s something you don’t think about, because if you do and you have the slightest apprehension about what you’re doing, you’ve already been beaten.

“It was tragic, but fortunately he ended up with four more points than me. I say fortunately because, even today, if you’d ask me what it would have meant to be the world champion while your competitor is no longer there, I would have never enjoyed it and I probably wouldn’t have taken it.

“I have no right to have any regrets. None. Because I received a lot, lot more than I would have ever hoped. And I also reached the age of 80, which hasn’t been the case for many people I’ve met in my life. If you believe in guardian angels, I certainly had a very, very, very good one. That’s the truth, because it’s miraculous. To survive during that era, it’s not talent. It’s luck.”

Following Formula 1’s Italian Grand Prix, won by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, both advisor Helmut Marko and his driver were quick to praise new team principal Laurent Mekies.

Marko stressed that Red Bull no longer blindly followed the simulator, calling this part of a “new philosophy”. Verstappen added that Mekies asked the right questions throughout the race weekend, a crucial aspect in communication with both drivers and engineers.

The French team principal himself, however, dismissed any suggestions of his contribution to Verstappen’s third win of the season – the first since Christian Horner’s dismissal. When asked about his personal influence on the Monza success, Mekies replied: “The answer is a very easy one, the level of my contribution is zero.”

Laughter ensued from the journalists in Red Bull’s hospitality area, but Mekies doubled down: “And I’m not joking either. It’s 1,500 people working on making the car faster, so these are the talents that make the car faster, that make the hundredths and the thousandths [of lap time], and that make the set of options with the new components available. So the short answer is that my contribution is zero.”

Pressed again on the same subject, Mekies once more refused to embellish his own role. In his view, the credit belongs to the team and Verstappen, who played an important role in sticking with a set-up that was low-downforce even by Monza standards. “Our only role is to make sure that the talents that we have are put in the right conditions to express that talent at best. That’s the only thing we are doing, so that’s the extent of the contribution. That’s it, nothing more.”

Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing Team Principal

Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images

How much did Mekies really influence Red Bull’s Monza win?

Although humility is commendable, Mekies’ role was greater than he suggests. The positive remarks from Marko and Verstappen didn’t come out of nowhere.

The nuanced story is that part of Red Bull’s improved performance at Monza had long been in the pipeline – in fact dating back to Verstappen calling the car “a monster” the year before – while another part was down to execution, and in that respect, partly down to Mekies.

The first factor involved both the RB21’s package and its set-up. Last year, there was much talk about Red Bull lacking a dedicated low-downforce rear wing for Monza, but this year the team did have one. It underlines how determined Red Bull was to get its revenge after last year’s disappointment.

In addition to that Monza package, lessons were learned from the wrong set-up choice in 2024 as well. Both Marko and Horner admitted that Red Bull had run the wrong wing levels last year – something the team did not repeat.

“You do a lot of things only for Monza. You do wings only for Monza, you do set-up only for Monza, so last year was a very difficult point and the guys did an amazing job analysing last year and coming here with very specific solutions. It seems like they overshot the target – meaning the car was actually in a much better window compared to the other tracks,” Mekies explained.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

Those aspects had been in the works long before Mekies was promoted, so he had no direct influence there. But a distinction must be made between car development and the operational side of things – as Verstappen pointed out. “The car this year is simply what it is,” he said on Thursday, making clear that Mekies cannot work miracles in that area. But operationally, details can change – and according to team insiders, that’s gradually happening.

Mekies’ resume is valuable in that regard, as Verstappen acknowledged on Sunday night: “With Laurent having an engineering background, he’s asking the right questions to the engineers – common-sense questions – so I think that works really well.” A team boss without that technical background cannot challenge the technical department to the same extent, which also explains the trend of more engineers being promoted to the top role – Andrea Stella at McLaren, James Vowles at Williams, Ayao Komatsu at Haas, and now Mekies at Red Bull.

A second factor is that with Mekies in charge, Red Bull tries to rely a bit more on driver feedback rather than purely on numbers, as Marko explained in the paddock: “Now the idea is to take whatever the simulation shows us, but mix that with the experience that Max has and with the experience that our racing engineers have. They are not blindly taking what the simulation says.”

The trend of listening more to the driver was clearly seen at Monza when Verstappen insisted on sticking with the low-downforce set-up heading into qualifying. “Whilst it looked a lot more difficult to get the balance right with that lower downforce level, Max has been very strong and good at pushing us to keep it on the car and to find other solutions to give him the balance back. The guys have done an amazing job in managing that,” Mekies recalled.

The team opted for other set-up adjustments instead of adding more wing, and it turned out to be the right call. Verstappen deserves credit for it, but so does Mekies: the triangle of driver, team boss and technical department worked well at Monza. Part of that comes down to communication – precisely the area Verstappen and Marko have been most positive about so far.

Looking for harmony after the internal power struggles?

Mekies’ modest response is also interesting in light of Red Bull’s internal power struggles in the past 20 months. Part of the issue was that the ‘Austrian camp’ felt Horner was trying to gain too much power in multiple areas of Red Bull’s racing operations. The narrative toward the Thai shareholders was partly that he, as the long-serving team boss, was a key figure behind Red Bull’s success.

While that is true to an extent given Horner’s remarkable 20-year track record (eight drivers’ titles and six constructors’ championships), Mekies has so far chosen the opposite attitude. He refused to overstate his role – and indeed even downplayed it, at least at Monza. Such modesty goes down well with certain parts of the squad after turbulent months.

Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing Team Principal

Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images

It was also notable that technical director Pierre Wache was sent to the podium. In essence, Mekies could have gone himself for his first win as team boss, but instead Wache – who has come under more public pressure than before, due to the car’s weaknesses – was pushed forward. Involving everyone in the success and sharing the spotlight fits with the approach so far. Wache visibly enjoyed his podium visit, meeting reporters behind the Red Bull garage after the ceremony with champagne still on his glasses.

This kind of ‘people management’ should not be underestimated in modern F1. It also fits a broader trend among the engineers at the helm. Stella at McLaren likewise puts the team in the limelight and always avoids claiming any credit himself. Whether Red Bull can now follow a path similar to McLaren remains to be seen. A lot will depend on its own power unit for 2026, and as Mekies has already admitted, that remains “a Mount Everest to climb”. But at Monza, the new direction that Red Bull wants to follow has at least delivered a small and unexpected moment of success, and that morale boost could prove important.

All things considered, Mekies’ contribution was certainly more than zero – but it is both admirable and, in a way, smart that he chose not to say so himself on Sunday night.