Formula 1 hosts round 13 of its 2026 campaign this weekend with the Italian Grand Prix, and there are plenty of talking points heading into Monza.
It is the place where championship leader and home hero Kimi Antonelli must overcome a grid penalty due to an engine change on his Mercedes, so how will this affect his title run-in?
The 19-year-old leads the standings by 59 points over team-mate George Russell and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, while a much in-form Lando Norris is languishing in the background.
McLaren’s reigning world champion has won the last two grands prix, leaving Norris with an 82-point deficit to Antonelli, showing how tight it has recently been amongst the top three teams.
One of which will also arrive at the Temple of Speed with an upgraded engine, while there is also plenty going on towards the back of the pecking order.
So, here are five things to look out for at the Italian Grand Prix.
The pressure on the hometown hero
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images
The 2026 F1 season has not been kind to racers when they set foot on home soil. Max Verstappen crashed out on lap one in Zandvoort, Charles Leclerc failed to reach the flag at Monaco and Oscar Piastri didn’t even make the grid in Australia. There are outliers, like Russell and Hamilton who claimed a podium at Silverstone, but on the whole, 2026 has posed a rough ride for any racer stepping foot on familiar ground.
Antonelli will be hoping to buck the trend in Italy this weekend, a feat he couldn’t quite manage in 2025 when he struggled to ninth place and 2024 when he crashed while running in FP1 for Mercedes. Now, though, he has one of the strongest packages on the grid and the confidence that comes with a commanding lead at the top of the standings.
This year, however, the Mercedes driver hasn’t given himself the easiest start to turn around his rough run of form on home turf. An engine change for the youngster means he will start from the pitlane regardless of his qualifying performance, but the Monza layout does at least mean he should be able to carve his way through the pack – provided his W17 retains the advantage it witnessed at other tracks so far this season.
Realistically, Antonelli should be able to clear the majority of the midfield runners and make it into the top five. A podium could also be within reach should the cards fall in his favour.
However, the weekend will be all about damage limitation and working as hard as he can to retain his championship advantage.
- Owen Bellwood
Ferrari is going all-in for home glory at Monza
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
Monza is the race that is always marked in red on Ferrari’s calendar, but the team has enjoyed only modest success in recent years: it has won just two of the last 15 Italian GPs, both with Leclerc in 2019 and 2024.
That is why it comes as little surprise that, while also trying to keep its drivers’ and constructors’ championship hopes alive, Ferrari is going all-in on putting on a show this weekend.
From the outset, the team will be looking to channel some of its former glory with Michael Schumacher at Monza, where Ferrari won five times with the German. Schumacher will be honoured with a special SF-26 livery that will be raced by Hamilton and Leclerc.
On the technical side, Ferrari has confirmed an updated power unit as part of the development opportunities permitted under the ADUO system, featuring a revised combustion chamber and turbocharger that should halve its current deficit to the Mercedes power unit.
Aerodynamic upgrades and track-specific parts are also expected for the Scuderia’s home race, with a new version of its ‘Macarena’ rear wing among the highlights. And with Mercedes compromised by the penalty Antonelli has to serve, and McLaren potentially struggling to replicate the pace that carried it to victory at the last two rounds in Budapest and Zandvoort, perhaps the stars will align for Ferrari on home soil.
- Federico Faturos
Drivers complaining about the rules again
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images
The Italian Grand Prix will pose a fascinating technical challenge since Monza’s characteristics require the lowest drag and the highest proportion of time on full throttle. The track layout is also a recipe for emptying the batteries quickly so there will likely be great divergence – initially at least – in terms of energy management strategies.
There are also four Straight Mode zones, including the length of the main straight. Long straights have always exposed differing levels of drag efficiency in cars, but these will also show who is shedding the most drag when the front and rear wings are defeated. Drag levels and power unit efficiency will be the key performance differentiators here, along with deployment strategy.
The racing will naturally reflect this. Whatever levers the FIA pulls in terms of recharge levels, it isn’t going to be possible to defend every corner.
So, we can expect a return of the so-called ‘yo-yo racing’ greatly disliked by the drivers and many fans – if not by the commercial rights holder, whose view is ‘overtaking is overtaking’. Got that? Good.
- Stuart Codling
Monza the litmus test for how real McLaren’s progress actually is
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
McLaren made a slow start to the 2026 season and was firmly F1’s third-best team behind Mercedes and Ferrari, but the Woking outfit has made progress in recent rounds thanks to various upgrades. This led to Norris winning in both Hungary and the Netherlands, but those victories will mean relatively little in the grand scheme of things if the reigning champions fail to continue that competitiveness this weekend.
That’s because McLaren was always expected to be on the pace at the high-downforce Hungaroring and Zandvoort circuits, which favour the MCL40’s strengths in medium-speed corners. But Monza is very low downforce and is primarily about long straights and chicanes with energy management being of huge importance, so understanding one’s power unit is crucial.
Yet this is an area that, at the start of the year, McLaren lagged behind the factory Mercedes outfit in, and although progress has since been made for the British marque - such as the long-awaited simulation tools it received at Spa - Monza is the spot that should tell how significant such progress is.
So, for one to start putting McLaren in the same bracket as the Silver Arrows, it must demonstrate its Budapest and Zandvoort form at a completely different circuit such as Monza. Until that happens, team boss Andrea Stella is remaining cautious for the rest of 2026.
“If we can confirm our improvements in Monza, then I would say that the answer to your question is yes, we can look with some optimism at the remainder of the season,” he said.
- Ed Hardy
Can Haas prevent any further fall back?
Esteban Ocon, Haas
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
While F1 is still in Europe and teams still have almost a dozen races left to run, the upgrades train continues up and down the grid. This weekend, Haas will bring a raft of new parts to the VF-26 in the hope of returning it to the sharp end of F1's midfield.
The American team started the year strong and picked up points in the first three races, but has since seen its results dwindle. In fact, Haas has not scored a point since the Monaco GP in June and to turn its season around, the team will bring a “comprehensive” suite of new parts to the race at Monza.
“We’re bringing a comprehensive list of updates to Monza, which are focused on bringing us back to our competitors in the midfield,” said Esteban Ocon. “Budapest and Zandvoort were positive on my side in that I felt comfortable in the car, and we really got the most out of the package we had. So, I’d like to carry on that trend and extract the most out of these updates from day one and get back in the fight for points.”
Upgrading the car over the course of a season has historically been a weakness for the American outfit, with Haas often starting the season strong before hitting struggles. This changed in 2025 when it managed to keep bringing performance to the car and finished eighth at the close of the previous regulation cycle.
- Owen Bellwood
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Originally published by motorsport.com —
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