Two title-winning egos went wheel-to-wheel down the Monza straight, one of them nearly ended up in the gravel, and the FIA’s verdict amounts to a shrug. No further action. Nothing to see here. Move along.
The stewards at the Italian Grand Prix have confirmed that Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen will face no punishment for their late-session coming together in FP3 at Monza, a moment that briefly threatened to reopen old wounds from 2021. Given how close it came to a repeat of that infamous first-chicane clash, the decision to wave it through says as much about the stewards’ appetite for policing practice sessions as it does about who was actually at fault.
What Actually Happened
The incident unfolded right at the end of FP3, with both drivers jostling for position ahead of their final flying laps. Hamilton appeared to jump the queue on Verstappen, and the pair found themselves racing wheel-to-wheel down the pit straight at full speed, an image that would have had Red Bull and Ferrari engineers reaching for the antacids. Verstappen was even seen giving Hamilton a thumbs up as they hurtled along together, a gesture that in hindsight looks less like camaraderie and more like the calm before the storm.
That storm arrived at the first chicane, where Verstappen dived down the inside on a late brake. Hamilton, seemingly caught out by the move, had to take to the run-off area to avoid contact. Given the corner’s history with these two drivers, the parallels to their 2021 collision at the same spot were impossible to ignore, even if this time both cars escaped unscathed.
Two Different Stories, Same Old Song
Naturally, neither driver saw it as his fault. Verstappen was blunt over team radio: “He caused that.” Hamilton’s version, relayed to Ferrari, was considerably shorter but no less pointed: “I got blocked by Max, so…” His race engineer Carlo Santi’s reply was almost comically deadpan: “Yes, we saw.”
“He caused that.” – Max Verstappen
“I got blocked by Max, so…” – Lewis Hamilton
Two grievances, zero agreement, and a stewarding panel that apparently couldn’t be bothered to adjudicate who was right. That’s the theme of the weekend so far: incidents happen, tempers flare, and the FIA decides it’s not worth the paperwork.
Verstappen’s Grumbling Didn’t Stop There
The chicane incident wasn’t even the low point of Verstappen’s session. Shortly before it, he’d been fuming about traffic after Sergio Pérez‘s Cadillac ran wide at Lesmo 1 and kicked up a cloud of gravel for the cars behind, Ferrari included. Verstappen’s radio message left little to interpret: “This Ferrari again! My God! Always in the way!” It’s the kind of quote that writes its own headline, and reads like a man who has spent a season believing the world is conspiring against him rather than simply having a difficult year in a car that isn’t quite there, as detailed in our coverage of Red Bull’s miserable Monza Friday.
Russell and Piastri Get the Same Treatment
Hamilton and Verstappen weren’t the only ones let off. The stewards also looked at an impeding incident between George Russell and Oscar Piastri, after Piastri came across a slow-moving Russell at the apex of Lesmo 1 and had to brake hard to avoid him. Same outcome: no further action. Two separate incidents, two separate sets of aggrieved parties, and the FIA apparently decided that Saturday afternoon in Monza wasn’t the time to start handing out grid penalties for what amounts to practice session bumper cars.
The FP3 Timesheet
All of this drama unfolded around a session that Russell dominated. He finished more than two tenths clear of Hamilton, with Verstappen a further tenth adrift in third, as covered in our FP3 report from Monza.
| Pos | Driver | Team | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | George Russell | Mercedes | 1:22.219 |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | +0.226s |
| 3 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing | +0.350s |
| 4 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | |
| 5 | Lando Norris | McLaren | |
| 6 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | |
| 7 | Arvid Lindblad | Racing Bulls | |
| 8 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | |
| 9 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | |
| 10 | Franco Colapinto | Alpine | |
| 11 | Nico Hulkenberg | Audi | |
| 12 | Liam Lawson | Red Bull Racing | |
| 13 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Audi | |
| 14 | Oliver Bearman | Haas F1 Team | |
| 15 | Yuki Tsunoda | Racing Bulls | |
| 16 | Carlos Sainz | Williams | |
| 17 | Esteban Ocon | Haas F1 Team | |
| 18 | Alexander Albon | Williams | |
| 19 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | |
| 20 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin |
A Convenient Kind of Leniency
It’s worth asking why the stewards were so quick to let this one go. Practice sessions rarely carry the same scrutiny as qualifying or the race itself, and there’s a reasonable argument that a near-miss with no contact doesn’t need a grid drop to make the point. But when the two drivers involved have a documented history at that exact corner, and when both blamed each other in real time over team radio, “no further action” starts to look less like restraint and more like an FIA keen to avoid reigniting a feud it would rather see fade quietly into the archives.
As Crash.net reported, Russell now heads into qualifying at Monza looking like the man to beat, with Antonelli facing an engine penalty that will drop him to the back of Sunday’s grid. Qualifying gets underway at 14:00 UTC, with the race following on Sunday at 13:00 UTC, check the calendar for your local time. Whether Hamilton and Verstappen can keep their rivalry confined to close calls rather than actual contact once the stakes go up is the more interesting question the stewards have quietly left unanswered.
