How Verstappen broke the record for F1’s fastest lap and nixed Norris’ Q3 recovery

Qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix demonstrated a key tenet of contemporary Formula 1: never discount Max Verstappen.

After having his first run pipped to the post by Lando Norris’ second lap of Q3, the Dutchman was already closing out an effort that was even better. His 1m18.792s proved to be the fastest qualifying lap ever set in F1 at an average of 264.682km/h (164.465mph), wresting the honours from Lewis Hamilton’s 2020 qualifying effort at the same circuit (although Norris’ final effort also moved ahead of Hamilton’s benchmark).

It was vintage Verstappen. His lap felt like retribution for last year’s pallid display at Monza, where Red Bull’s development direction and lack of a proper Monza-spec wing (instead hacked lumps out of a Spa-spec wing) culminated in a “monster”.

The team has since invested in low-downforce wings, something it employed in Spa to secure victory in the sprint race after trimming out the car. These wings have allowed the Red Bull to be quite potent in a straight line, while McLaren appeared to follow its Spa tactic of running with a smidgen more downforce to find a little more speed in the corners.

Perhaps McLaren is chasing its strengths and opting for a race-first approach; either way, Verstappen might be hard to pass into the first corner if he’s still blessed with outright speed along the start-finish straight on full tanks.

The Dutchman found improvements in the first sector versus his first lap, and was over a tenth up on Norris as he exited Curva Grande. This is effectively a top-end speed sector, mainly testing the trim levels into Turn 1, the traction out of the chicane, and the acceleration through Turn 3.

Norris looked much more tentative into Turn 1. The orange cars were braking earlier for the Variante del Rettifilo and attempting to flex the extra downforce by using it for an earlier egress from the corner, also allowing it to maintain a greater minimum speed.

The big spike in delta comes as Verstappen gets to the middle part of the corner first, but he’s much slower on the exit and the delta normalises as a result. That being said, the more aggressive braking and the better top speed helps Verstappen gather that early advantage.

Sector two, however, is much more complex. Norris again took the slow in, fast out approach to keep the minimum speed up through the Variante della Roggia chicane, braking much sooner for the approach to Turn 4. And, while the McLaren hit the throttle first, he lifted sooner before winding the accelerator back on; Verstappen booted the throttle, lifted a small amount, but then got on full power at an equivalent point. Through Turns 4 and 5 (the Roggia chicane), Verstappen was now 0.2s up on the McLaren.

Photo by: Autosport

Norris got a better exit to cut a fraction of time, and continued to hit back through the Lesmos, letting the greater downforce on his MCL39 do the work. The two were now separated by about 0.06s by the exit of Turn 7, although Verstappen started to put the thousandths back on thanks to his RB21’s more slippery nature on the run to Ascari.

There was almost nothing between them here; Norris was off-throttle for longer, while Verstappen compensated with more time on the brakes. As the McLaren had more through-corner speed, Verstappen’s time was now just 0.03s ahead, but the Dutchman reclaimed this simply through straightline speed.

It was very much a similar story through the Parabolica. The interesting aspect about Norris’ approach to the final corner was in dipping down to fifth gear to maintain engine speed, ensuring that he could maintain the through-corner speed through the right-hander. Verstappen was content in using sixth; the engine speeds dropped slightly, but the different approaches scarcely cost Verstappen much.

Photo by: Autosport

Verstappen described his own improvement versus his first Q3 as the difference between “little bits” over each of the sectors; carrying more speed into the first corner offered a 0.05s reward over the first sector, and followed suit through the second chicane before the Lesmos.

He also enjoyed a much stronger run through Ascari, in coming off-throttle sooner and subsequently having more stability to hit full throttle earlier on the exit.

“I’m not going to say what I did on the car, but it just gave me a better feeling, a better balance,” Verstappen explained in the differences to set-up between Friday and Saturday. “It’s not like we threw the car around, it’s like tickling little things, cleaning it up. My first Q3 lap was already pretty decent. There was no big mistake.

“That’s why I think my improvements were like three-four hundredths here, three-four hundredths there, so it was just little bits. But that’s also Monza for you, I think if you don’t make any big mistakes like there’s not that much lap time left then, it may be hitting an apex a bit better or a kerb.

“Sometimes you gain two-three hundredths on the straight, if you get lucky, that happens as well, and I think basically that is what happened a bit in my lap.”

Despite only falling 0.077s short, Norris felt that he’d produced a “pretty bad qualifying” – perhaps inclined to dwell on the squeaky-bum moments instigated by his Q2 fumble on his initial lap.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Michael Potts / LAT Images via Getty Images

That Pirelli has generally faced low degradation over the weekend meant that his recovery “push-cool-cool-push” plan for the end of Q2 on softs could work; per Pirelli chief Mario Isola, “cool down laps were beneficial to recover the grip”, and the effect of fuel-burn and track evolution meant that the spacing of his two final Q2 laps was enough to cement a Q3 progression.

But the McLarens had been expecting more of fight from Ferrari, rather than Red Bull; as it turns out, Helmut Marko’s optimism after Friday practice was not at all misplaced.

Never discount Max Verstappen.