Verstappen clearly outperformed Norris and Piastri at Monza

The current state of the championship indicates that the McLaren drivers have what it takes to prevent Verstappen from claiming a fifth consecutive title, however, the Dutchman's performance at the Italian Grand Prix marked a pause in the dominance that the MCL39s had imposed until the previous race at Zandvoort.

The ultra-fast Monza track enabled the Red Bull team to find the ideal setup to halt the trend established by the Woking-based cars, thanks to a performance that bordered on perfection by the reigning champion.

Max Verstappen set two all-time records in both qualifying and average race speed, adding his 65th win to his tally and ushering in a promising new era for the Austrian team under Laurent Mekies, who replaced Christian Horner as team CEO.

The more than 19 seconds with which Verstappen received the checkered flag showed the superiority achieved by Max despite having to give up the lead to Norris after crashing the Variante del Rettifilo at the start.

Max regained the lead on lap three, setting a series of fast laps that put him over six seconds behind Lando until wear on his intermediate tires forced him to stop on lap 38 of 53, avoiding a potential cutback by the papaya cars.

The RB21's performance improved on the hard compound despite Verstappen not having tested it over the weekend. He set another series of fast laps that saw him reduce the nearly 14-second gap to Piastri when he rejoined the track to less than 7 seconds when the Australian finally stopped on lap 46, highlighting McLaren's erroneous strategy in delaying his mandatory compound changes.

Norris's pit stop one lap later added an unexpected element of excitement to the race, as he suffered a 5.9-second tire delay, allowing Piastri to take second place. To everyone's surprise, the team asked Piastri to relinquish the position to his teammate. Oscar complied, demonstrating an additional virtue that rightfully keeps him in the championship lead, despite the fact that it was a racing incident.

The gesture meant Norris moved three points closer to Piastri, reducing the lead from 34 to 31 points, with eight games remaining.

It will be very difficult for Red Bull to show a performance like today's again on the long Baku street circuit, measuring 6.003 kilometers. It is similar in top speed to Monza, but different due to the tight corner section, which favors McLaren.

It's clear that Verstappen remains the top performer in the top category despite driving a car that lacks the technical characteristics to be a favorite on most tracks, but judging by what we saw today at the cathedral of motorsport, he could spring another surprise in two weekends.