FOR FRIDAY
Dutch F1 driver Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Red Bull's Max Verstappen can chalk up a record 10th Formula One win in a row this weekend but those hoping against hope for a different winner at Monza can still find some comfort in history.
The Dutch driver, 138 points clear of team mate Sergio Perez after 13 of 22 races, won at home in Zandvoort last weekend to equal Sebastian Vettel's 2013 nine streak, also with Red Bull.
Verstappen won the Italian Grand Prix from seventh on the starting grid last year with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc on pole but finishing second.
Red Bull have won every race so far this season, 14 in a row including the 2022 finale in Abu Dhabi, and are again favourites at Monza's fast layout.
No team have ever gone unbeaten through a season of more than 10 races, however.
Monza proved the stumbling block for McLaren in 1988, a year in which they won 15 of 16, when Austrian Gerhard Berger led Ferrari team mate Michele Alboreto in an emotional one-two four weeks after the death of Enzo Ferrari.
Since Lewis Hamilton's fifth Italian GP win with Mercedes in 2018 no driver has managed a repeat victory in the former royal park outside Milan.
Leclerc won in 2019 and crashed in 2020. Pierre Gasly triumphed in 2020 and retired after three laps in 2021 while Daniel Ricciardo, absent this time through injury, won in 2021 and failed to finish in 2022.
Talk of a 'Monza jinx' may be premature but this is a season where straws are being clutched more desperately.
Gasly and Ricciardo both won at the 'Temple of Speed' against the odds, with Verstappen retiring in 2020 (engine problem) and 2021 (collision with Hamilton), and the track can always spring surprises.
Until last year, Verstappen had never finished on the podium there.
The race will be a first Italian Grand Prix as Ferrari principal for Fred Vasseur and the team will be racing with a special livery paying tribute to this year's Le Mans 24 Hours victory, the relationship with Monza and Ferrari's 'racing DNA'.
Ferrari got only one car to the finish at Zandvoort, with Carlos Sainz finishing fifth, and they will be determined to give the 'tifosi' something to cheer.
"We want to execute the weekend perfectly from every point of view so that the drivers can get everything there is to be had out of our package," said Vasseur.
The weekend will be the second trial of the 'Alternative Tyre Allocation' format with teams having only 11 sets of tyres per driver -- three hard and four each of the medium and soft.
The last European race before a swing through Asia, the Americas and Middle East, Monza is also the first in Italy this year after Imola was cancelled in May due to flooding.
It is likely to be a familiar battle behind Red Bull to be best of the rest, with Aston Martin, McLaren, Mercedes and Alpine also in the mix.
Charles LeClerc in a Ferrari at Monza in 2022. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
"Monza has been a good track for us in the past, so it's a special place for me," said McLaren's Lando Norris.
For Gasly, who lives in Milan, it is effectively a home race and one with a special place in his heart.
"It will be a challenging weekend but we have some confidence and momentum right now," the Frenchman said after finishing third in Zandvoort behind Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso.
Formula One statistics for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza (round 14 of the 22 race championship):
Lap distance: 5.793km. Total distance: 306.720km (53 laps)
2022 pole position: Charles Leclerc (Monaco) Ferrari one minute 20.161 seconds
2022 race winner: Max Verstappen (Netherlands) Red Bull
Race lap record: One minute 21.046 seconds, Rubens Barrichello (Brazil), Ferrari 2004.
Start time: 1300GMT (1500 local)
ITALY
The race will be the 73rd at Monza and 74th Italian Grand Prix since the championship started in 1950.
Built in 1922, Monza has long straights and just 11 corners with 77% of lap time at full throttle and top speeds of more than 350kph.
Only Jeddah has longer at full throttle while Las Vegas, debuting this year, could see higher top speeds.
Seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari great Michael Schumacher share the record of five wins each at Monza.
Other past Monza winners on the 2022 grid as well as Hamilton are Verstappen, Fernando Alonso, Charles Leclerc and Pierre Gasly.
Hamilton has started on pole seven times at Monza.
The Italian and British Grands Prix are the only ones to have been on the calendar in every year since 1950. In 1980 the Italian round was held at Imola.
Ferrari have won 19 times at Monza since the championship started, more than anyone else.
WINS
Verstappen has won the last nine races, equalling the 2013 record set by Sebastian Vettel in 2013 for most in a row, and can now take the outright record.
The Dutch driver has so far won 11 of 13 races in 2023. He has 46 wins from 176 starts and is fifth on the all-time list. Alain Prost, with 51, is fourth.
Red Bull have won every race this season (Verstappen's haul and two for Sergio Perez) and a total of 14 in a row dating back to Abu Dhabi last year.
No team has ever won every race in a championship season of more than 10 races.
Hamilton has a record 103 career victories from 323 starts but has not won since Saudi Arabia in December 2021.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso has 32 wins, most recently in his home Spanish Grand Prix in 2013 with Ferrari, from a record 368 starts.
POLE POSITION
Hamilton has a record 104 poles.
Red Bull have been on pole in 10 of the season's 13 races, with Charles Leclerc taking the top slot in Azerbaijan and Belgium and Hamilton in Hungary. Verstappen has eight poles for 2023.
PODIUM
Six teams and nine drivers have made a podium appearance this season: Red Bull, Alpine, Aston Martin, McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari. Verstappen has yet to finish outside the top two.
Verstappen holds the record for most podiums in a season -- 18 in 2021. He has been on the podium for the past 14 races.
Michael Schumacher is the only driver ever to have finished on the podium in every race of a season, in 2002.
POINTS
Verstappen leads Perez by 138 points.
FASTEST LAPS
Six different drivers have taken fastest laps this season - Alonso, Alfa Romeo's Guanyu Zhou, Verstappen (6), Perez (2), Hamilton (2) and Mercedes' George Russell.
MILESTONE
Alonso's second place in last Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix broke Michael Schumacher's record of 7,399 days for the longest interval between first and last podium finishes.
-Reuters
