Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent at Monza

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McLaren's approach to racing in the title fight between their drivers sparked controversy as Max Verstappen won the Italian Grand Prix for Red Bull.

They ordered Oscar Piastri to cede second place to team-mate Lando Norris after a slow pit stop dropped the Briton behind the Australian after he had been running in second for most of the race.

McLaren unconventionally pitted Piastri before Norris as they left their pit stops late in the race in the hope of a safety car that could give them a chance to attack Verstappen.

But after Piastri had a clean stop on lap 45 with eight to go, when Norris stopped a lap later, a fault with a wheel gun delayed him, and his stop was four seconds longer than his team-mate's.

That put him behind Piastri, but the team ordered the championship leader to relinquish the position, arguing that it was "a bit like Hungary last year".

Read the full report here

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Another race in the books for the 2025 season and it's four-time world champion Max Verstappen who is back on top. McLaren couldn't match the pace of the Red Bull driver today but the papaya team is still in control of the drivers' and constructors' championships with eight grands prix remaining, with Oscar Piastri leaving Italy with a 31-point buffer to team-mate Lando Norris.

That's the European leg over for another year. Time to flyaway to the likes of Singapore, Mexico and Brazil for the final stint of the campaign.

The first stop on the long-haul agenda is the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from 19-21 September, so join us again for practice on Friday, which starts at 09:30 BST.

Thanks for your company this weekend, folks. See you in two weeks' time!

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There were quite a few slap on the wrists during the 53 laps at Monza, with Carlos Sainz getting a reprimand for not using the escape road after missing Turn Four, Kimi Antonelli receiving a five-second time penalty for driving erractically, although it didn't drop him out of the points, and Esteban Ocon being handed his own five-second penalty - and one penalty point on his licence - for forcing another car off the track.

Aston Martin's day was disappointed at Monza with Fernando Alonso's retirement and Lance Stroll out of the points, and the team are still waiting to hear the outcome of the investigation in to their practice-start infringement before today's race.

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Mercedes' George Russell finished in P5, speaking to Sky Sports: "[On if he qualified on the medium tyre] I'm confident we could have qualified ahead of the Ferraris so I at least could of been one position higher, but realistically McLaren had a suboptimal strategy to try and beat Max Verstappen.

"They probably could have done something different to get ahead of me, P5 is just where we are right now."

On the race: "It's a bit of a funny sport at the moment, I'm struggling to comprehend how Verstappen can be 40 seconds off the win in Hungary and Bahrain and then win by 20 seconds here and in Imola, it's pretty impressive.

"I don't know what's going to come in the coming races but I hope we can fight for podiums more regularly.

"The Ferraris have taken a bit of a step since the start of the season, so it's not straight forward."

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Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who finished in fourth, speaking to Sky Sports: "It was a nice battle, [with Oscar Piastri] I felt like I was overtaking when he was doing a mistake and he was overtaking me when I was doing a mistake.

"They just had more pace than I did, I tried the things that I think wasn't in the car and I lost the rear multiple times and that meant that I couldn't hope for much better unfortunately.

"I tried, I don't have any regrets and unfortunately today the pace of the car was a little bit worse than what we expected."

On the next few races: "Baku is a track that I love and I've been very strong in the past but there again coming to the race, it's also a track that is easy to overtake.

"If you don't have the race pace in the race you can definitely feel it, so that is going to be tricky.

"You've then got Singapore where qualifying is very important and the race is more difficult to overtake and I love this track as well. I think Singapore maybe Baku and Las Vegas are the three tracks that maybe we are a bit closer to win a race.

"That doesn't mean we go there as the favourites, I think we still go there as third favourites if Red Bull struggles for a reason of another then maybe second, but never the first one."

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Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton who finished sixth in Monza, talking to Sky Sports: "I definitely felt on top of it today and I was really happy with it. I got a really good launch, I got squeezed between a couple of cars so I had to back off but then after that I was really happy with the position I had into Turn One and then Turn Four. After that the overtake and I got really close to George and probably in hindsight we should have probably try to undercut him at that point. Going long just didn't pay off and that is something we will learn from.

"Otherwise after the penalty to get back to sixth I’m really grateful. To be able to have a solid drive like that today in front of the tifosi – it’s unbelievable driving here under this banner.

Did he think about going on the podium: “I didn’t deserve to be on the podium today so I won’t be going to the podium but I’ll probably go out to the wall to see [the fans].

“Charles was giving it everything. Max is up there now. We don’t have the pace of Red Bull, today they were rapid and we don’t have the pace of McLaren. So I think we are fourth, fifth. If we do an exceptional job we can maybe get a podium here or there. There’s a chance we can have that but in terms of pure pace we don’t have that.”

"I didn't deserve to be on the podium today but I'll probably go out on the wall and see [the fans]," says Lewis Hamilton in the media pen. The seven-time world champion started the day down in 10th place with a five-place grid penalty but he did manage to salavage something in front of the adoring tifosi to finish sixth.

Anon: If people think Lando deserves the title based on today, no. McLaren want him to have the title and will just force Oscar to help.

Sam: Team orders in a title fight? Because of a slow pit stop? I know McLaren pride themselves on the team culture but that is simply laughable. Equally amazed that Piastri actually obeyed, and Max's reaction said everything really. Crazy.

McLaren are heading towards another constructors' championship with their double podium at Monza. The team are now 337 points ahead of Ferrari in second, while the Scuderia have increased their advantage over Mercedes from 12 points to 20 points.

In the midfield battle, Racing Bulls in seventh are just one point behind Aston Martin in the fight for sixth place, with Sauber still in the mix in eighth spot.

1. McLaren - 617

2. Ferrari - 280

3. Mercedes - 260

4. Red Bull - 239

5. Williams - 86

6. Aston Martin - 62

7. Racing Bulls - 61

8. Sauber - 55

9. Haas - 44

10. Alpine - 20

Oscar Piastri's advantage at the top of the drivers' championship is now 31 points from McLaren team-mate Lando Norris following his third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix.

Alex Albon was level on 64 points with Kimi Antonelli before Monza but now the Williams driver has put a bit of clear air between himself and the Mercedes rookie to moves up into seventh place.

1. Oscar Piastri - 324 pts

2. Lando Norris - 293

3. Max Verstappen - 230

4. George Russell - 194

5. Charles Leclerc - 163

6. Lewis Hamilton - 117

7. Alex Albon - 70

8. Kimi Antonelli - 66

9. Isack Hadjar - 38

10. Nico Hulkenberg - 37

Anon: The correct thing to do re Oscar giving Lando the position back but our Australian friends are going to be doing Kangaroo jumps over it.

John: McLaren were left in a no-win position when it comes to the fans. Either they are apparently favouring Lando for letting him past, but if they hadn’t then everyone would be saying they favour Oscar because Lando gave him the first pit stop to help strategy wise.

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McLaren's Oscar Piastri, who finished third at the Italian Grand Prix: "Difficult beginning, definitely I think, not my best first couple of laps. We seemed to have good pace the first couple of laps compared to Charles, I could get past. It was a pretty lonely race from there.

"Just struggled a bit through the first part of the race, the car wasn't exactly how I liked, once the tyres went away, it actually felt a bit better which is never a great sign. Happy with the points and I'll take it."

On soft tyres at the end and team orders: "We went so long so the soft tyres seemed like a good tyre to put on. We were staying out for safety cars if we got any. A little 'inchident' at the end but it's ok."

"A lot of things to learn from this weekend, so happy going forwards and we will try and be stronger next week."

'Inchident' is a reference to the viral racing kart video of Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen, which Leclerc called an 'inchident'.

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McLaren's Lando Norris finished second having battled race winner Max Verstappen at the beginning of the race. On that battle, Norris said: "I try and kept it even into turn one. I always know it will be a good fight with Max and it was. It was enjoyable.

"It was a tricky one as it was one of the few weekends where we're just a bit slow but I enjoyed it.

On his late slow pit stop: "I have no idea. I felt like I was there for quite a long time. Every now and then we make mistakes as a team and this was one of them.

On the championship battle: "I did everything I could today, I couldn’t do a lot more. I tried to fight against Max. We had a good race but he came out on top.

"I just need to keep doing what I'm doing."

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Red Bull’s Max Verstappen wins the Italian Grand Prix. He said: "It was a great day for us, we were flying and that the car for me was really enjoyable and I could manage the pace quite well throughout that first stint.

"We pitted at the right time and the hard tyres at the end you can push a bit more because they are more resilient.

"A fantastic execution by everyone and the whole team, I think the whole weekend we were on it and it’s super enjoyable to win here."

On the start: "I could see that the pace was good but I just needed to settle in, there was quite a lot of fighting going on but I could see the pace was there and quite quickly we were back in the lead."

On chances to win in the future: "We will try for sure, we will go step by step and race by race, but for us this was an unbelievable weekend."

Champagne momentpublished at 15:39 BST 7 September

15:39 BST 7 September

Well, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are the first to arrive in the cooldown room and it's happy scenes between the two team-mates as they watch the highlights. Max Verstappen joins the chat but has missed the replay of his opening fight with Norris for the race lead when the McLaren driver touched the grass and the Dutchman cut the second corner.

The podium celebrations beckon and the Italian fans are chatting Verstappen's name as he claims his winner's trophy.

Jamie: Would love to see what Mark Webber says in the McLaren garage after this. Now a driver has to pay for the mistake on his teamates pitstop is a new one. Piastri needs to leave, he'll never be respected equally to Lando

Nulla: Well-earned by Max and good to see Hadjar get into the points from the pits

Jennie Gow
F1 pit-lane reporter at Monza

Max Verstappen runs towards his engineers and he's crowd surfing now.

Amazing scenes and Max Verstappen is very happy with that.

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Max Verstappen climbs onto his car and punches the air after a memorable weekend at Monza. Next up, it's the tifosi's turn to head onto the track and leg it down to the podium. There's no Ferrari driver this year, but that hasn't stopped the enthusiasm to get a good spot to see the celebrations.

The big bottle of champagne now has Verstappen's signature on it, so we should get to hear what the top trio made of that race. Will Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri mention the place swap?

Alice Powell
British racing driver on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra

McLaren realised that they didn't have the pace to match the Red Bull in the end.

"A bit of a tough one. Once the rear calmed down a bit then it was alright. Bit lively through the race. Thanks for the effort. Not the easiest of weekends. Yeah."