Antonelli started 19th. He won at Monza.

6 September 2026 · Italian Grand Prix

Antonelli started 19th on Sunday, at a track where the driver starting first usually just drives off into the distance, in front of a crowd who had come to watch Ferrari.

Nobody had ever won this race from further back than 11th, and he passed 25 cars getting there, which no driver has ever done in a single Grand Prix. Then the Italian anthem played at Monza for an Italian, in front of a grandstand who had turned up to watch somebody else entirely. Nobody there had seen that happen, and neither had their parents.

Grid Copilot tracked 80 moments across 53 laps. Here is how it happened.

The Race

Ferrari had everything lined up: a new engine with more power, their home race, and a crowd that turns Monza into something closer to a football ground. All they had to do was drive.

They lasted about thirty seconds, and the person who ended it was wearing the same red. Leclerc squeezed Hamilton out wide at the first corner and cost his own teammate places he was never getting back. There was room. He kept it.

On lap 3 Leclerc put it in the barriers on his own, in front of the people who had queued since dawn to watch him, and the race was stopped with Ferrari's afternoon over before it had properly started.

Hamilton came on the radio to ask whether he was alright. He was. Then he said, evenly, that they would be talking about this later.

While Ferrari were busy losing the race, Antonelli was quietly picking it up, and by lap 8 he was P6.

By lap 17 he was leading it. There were still 36 laps to go, which is a long time to hold something you were not supposed to have.

It did not stay comfortable. Around lap 23 his pace fell away and Verstappen started coming, on tyres exactly as old as his own. He was just quicker, and getting closer every lap.

Then lap 28 handed everyone a gift. A virtual safety car came out, the whole field had to slow down, and for about a minute a pit stop cost a fraction of what it normally would.

Antonelli took it. So did Verstappen. Hamilton stayed out, and a warning went out that same lap saying he was about to lose places for nothing. He spent the next twenty laps being passed by cars on newer tyres, one of them belonging to the teammate he had already had quite enough of.

Which left one problem, and it was painted the same colour as his own car. Russell was leading, nursing the hard tyres he had bolted on at the red flag and had to make last to the end.

On lap 46 the alert came in: Antonelli catching Russell, pressure building. 3 laps after that he had the move done at the first corner. And then he ran wide on the exit and handed the lead straight back, with 4 laps left, in front of every one of them.

It lasted 2 corners. He was back past before the lap was out, and this time it stuck. By lap 51 the gap was gone and so was Russell.

Then, on the last lap, with the race already won and absolutely nothing left to prove, he went out and set the fastest lap of the afternoon. By almost a second. Quicker than anything the other 21 cars had managed all day.

Elsewhere In The Grid

The McLarens had their own argument. Norris said he was pushed onto the grass, then finished P4, less than a car length ahead of his teammate. Hamilton came home P6, in a Ferrari, at Monza, on a day the team will want to forget.

Antonelli started 19th, at a track where qualifying is supposed to settle the result before the race begins, which it usually does, and which is why nobody had ever won from further back than 11th.

The red flag helped. The cheap pit stop helped more. He still had to pass every one of them himself, then take the lead off his own teammate twice, with the whole of Italy watching him do it. Madrid is next, on 13 September.

A new look lands next week, designed to be easier to read at a glance while the race is going on.

We are also building something for the races you cannot sit down and watch.