Max Verstappen has won the past four outings and has a record 10 victories to his tally At this year’s Grand Prix. This has placed him 109 points ahead of his nearest competitor; Charles Leclerc, who just can’t seem to extract the same performance from the underperforming Ferrari F1-75.

While the Ferrari may have been level-pegging with the RB18 at the beginning of the year, the performance deficit of design genius Adrian Newey has shown its prevalence while more consistent reliability for the Red Bull Racing team has enabled them to score good points hauls more frequently.

This means that they currently lead the Constructors’ Championship too and by some margin. With 511 points as opposed to second placed Ferrari with 376, the season does seem firmly within their grasp but Mercedes has miraculously come into the mix over the past several races and scored a total of 346 points.

If there is a race that Ferrari team principle Mattia Binotto will need to impress, amidst the storm of poor strategy calls and botched pitstops during the season, it will be at the 2022 Italian Grand Prix – amongst a home crowd for the Scarlet Red racing team.

Important times to look out for:

Practice 1 (9 September) – 13:00 – 14:00

Practice 2 (9 September) – 16:00 – 17:00

Practice 3 (10 September) – 12:00 – 13:00

Qualifying (10 September) – 15:00 – 17:00

Race (11 September) – 14:00 – 16:00

Despite the occasional impressive performance of the W13, Mercedes still believe they have a few tough weekends ahead of them. Team principal Toto Wolff remains ceded that there are still some tracks, like bumpy Austin, that won’t be favourable for them.

Following a strong showing at Zandvoort and temporarily holding the lead before a Safety Car shakeup, Wolff came under fire after his accusations of foul-play by AlphaTauri. Yuki Tsunoda stopped on track after a mechanical failure and caused a Virtual Safety Car that froze the distances between each driver. It was the Alfa Romeo of Valterri Bottas who came to a halt on the main straight and caused a Full Safety Car with teams frenzying to pit for fresh rubber.

AlphaTauri released a statement as a result of this malice that confirmed derogatory comments towards their own and Red Bull strategist, Hannah Schmitz.

Monza has provided two oddball winners in the past two years, with Pierre Gasly and Daniel Ricciardo so we can only hope the 2022 Italian Grand Prix will provide as much of an outcome.