Although Charles Leclerc salvaged with a second place at the Temple of speed it was Max Verstappen who won on Ferrari's home ground. The Dutch driver was miles ahead when the race was neutralised 6 laps from the end. George Russell completed the podium in third.
For Mercedes it will be the most difficult race of the year. Worse than Baku and Spa because the aero efficiency will kill them. The amount of the drag that they have because of the aero concept canot be compensated by whatever wing and downforce levels they will use because everyoune will be on low downforce configuration. I suspect that they will have problems even with Alpine and Alpha. On the fron Red Bull will beat clearly the Ferraris. Red Bull >>>>>>>>>>>>>Ferrari>>>>>>>>Mercedes>Alpine>Alpha Tauri
In 2021, the aero efficiency is what separated RB and Mercedes. Max qualified 4-5 tenths back from Bottas. I would expect similar role reversal. RB will be 4-5 tenths ahead of the others all weekend.
Expecting a dominant weekend from Red Bull. They should be able to maximise the corners while still having a top speed on a level or higher than Ferrari or Mercedes.
The undulations of Spa required a raised car for almost all teams, which was not ideal but it worked for Red Bull as they seem to already run the car a bit higher than everyone else. That's not going to be the case in Monza and cars will drop down to more normal ride heights, providing more optimum aero. It means, Red Bull might not dominate like they did in Spa, unless their new ERS has something more magical.
Expecting Ferrari to be back in contention, more certainly in qualifying, but question mark remains for race. Hopefully, they will find the right balance to meet the vertical stiffness post the TD and be competitive in race. Mercedes likely to struggle, may be not 2 seconds away like in Spa, but probably around 6 to 8 tenths (will not be surprised if it would be a second), which was the usual deficit. Even if they struggle against the likes of Alpine and McLaren, their tyre management should provide opportunity to overtake/leapfrog those teams after a few race laps.
The track was strangely bad for overtaking last year. Although closely following has been easier this season, the lack of slip streamining might yet again make it difficult for overtaking unless teams face degradation/graining of sorts.
Expecting Merc to struggle a lot in quali and then fight their way back in the race. Expecting Williams, Alpine, AM and AT to be quite competitive. Wouldn't be surprised to see one or two of them sneaking past Merc in quali tbh.
We might see slipstream trains with gaps around 1,5s here.
Cannot see anybody other than Red Bull dominating here... at least in Max' hands, but surely the pace advantage will be large enough for Perez to try and keep 2nd.
I think Mercedes will be a lot closer than people realise; They might very well trouble Ferrari, which I'm sure will give the Tifosi even more anxiety, compared with having to endure what we've all seen this year from them overall.
Last time out on a low-downforce track, Alpine did well (or at least their Top Speed was) so they might be well poised to take a solid haul of points here too.