Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren, Monza, 2021

Rate the race: 2021 Italian Grand Prix

2021 Italian Grand Prix

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What did you think of today’s race? Share your verdict on the Italian Grand Prix.

RaceFans has held polls on every F1 race since 2008 to find out which fans thought of each round of the season.

Join in the latest poll and give your verdict on the race: 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest. Please vote based on how entertaining and exciting you thought the race was, not on how your preferred driver or team performed.

What were the best and worst moments of the race? What was the main thing you’ll remember about it? Rate the race out of ten and leave a comment below:

Rate the 2021 Italian Grand Prix out of 10

  • 10 (22%)
  • 9 (26%)
  • 8 (34%)
  • 7 (13%)
  • 6 (3%)
  • 5 (1%)
  • 4 (0%)
  • 3 (0%)
  • 2 (0%)
  • 1 (1%)

Total Voters: 288

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1 = ‘Terrible’, 10 = ‘Perfect’

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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70 comments on “Rate the race: 2021 Italian Grand Prix”

  1. This is what I want!!! I don’t want to see 20 cars in 20 seconds and just see who will win the lottery this weekend, NO!!! I want to see the two biggest drivers in the world, the most egocentric ones, fighting for win, EVEN IF THEY CRASH!!!! This is the actual competition, and not the rubbish that Mr. Brawn wants to impose in 2022 with his Scalextric cars and Super Ultra Mega Crypto Qualifyings!!!

    1. “10” & ABL.

  2. Holy Jesus !!

    McLaren F1…WINS !!!!
    What a redemption…And thank God for the Halo.
    Splendid race.–it was fast, dramatic and entertaining.

    8 for the race.
    +1 for Daniel. +1 for Lando.
    10/10 from me.

  3. A decent race, albeit quite static at times.

    1. The race would have been better with both Max and Lewis. Happy for Zak and Ric

  4. 10. Another brilliant race at Monza with overtakes, crashes and suspense throughout.

  5. Perfect race. It had everything. Fight for the lead, mclaren 1-2, max and lewis crashing, bottas last to podium, overtakes everywhere.

  6. Gave it 8, an exciting race. For me as for McLaren fan pretty much from the age of 8, this was special.

  7. Amazing. So good to see McLaren back at the top in Bruce’s papaya orange no less! So good to see Ricciardo win again. What a cracking race. One happy F1 fan here!

  8. This top 3 plus Hamilton out is a 10

    1. Blaize Falconberger (@)
      12th September 2021, 15:37

      Max out is an 11

    2. What a Wally you are

  9. Now which one is better: 2020 or 2021?

    1. Would say 2020. Two different teams were fighting for the lead till the last lap.

    2. It doesn’t seem as special now because of the wins for Perez’s Racing Point, Ocon’s Alpine and Ricciardo’s McLaren, but at the time, Pierre Gasly’s victory in an Alpha Tauri was one of the most amazing Grand Prix wins I’d ever seen, and the best I’ve felt after a Grand Prix for a long time. So the 2020 Italian GP still wins it for me.

      1. 2020 was special, yes, I remember being so tired of merc dominance I decided I’d just watch the highlights, saw gasly won, closed immediately and watched the full race!

  10. Dutchguy (@justarandomdutchguy)
    12th September 2021, 15:35

    McLaren 1-2, Russell in the points. 10.

  11. I gave it 5/10 as for as nice as the result is I just never really got into the race as nothing was really happening for most of it.

    The SC helped a bit when it closed the field up but even then after 2-3 laps when the field has sorted itself out it settled back down into a train & nothing else happened.

  12. 9/10 was a solid race even before Hamilton and Max came together. That adds huge drama and a McLaren 1-2 is so good to see. Would have liked to see Norris get his first win but it’s also really good to see Ricciardo with his mojo back!

  13. 9/10. This proves that you don’t need sprint races to make them exciting. Yesterday it was a borefest, today it was one of the most exciting of the season. Drama for the title fight, a McLaren 1-2 after 11 years, Bottas recovering from 20th to 3rd, so many battles all around… This is F1!

    1. @matt88 You do realise that the sprint race actually contributed to this, right?

      1. This is a good point: both silverstone and this were exciting but both had a sprint race leading up to it, so the moral of the story is we have to endure a sucky sprint race to get a very good race?

      2. But the contribution was not huge from the Sprint. HAMs poor start, and RIC passing NOR moved them around, but that was all from the Sprint start.

  14. I feel a bit wrong somehow giving it a high score as realistically without the incident mixing everything up it was dull and processional, but I enjoyed it so the high score stands.

    1. I reckon we still would have had a great race. Max and Lewis would have been going at it and there’s no guarantee either of them would have caught the McLaren’s.

  15. If I was rating a race purely based on the result i’d say 10/10.

    But rating it just as a race i’d say 7/10 as there wasn’t really that much going on in terms of racing for probably 97% of it.

  16. Epic!

    As a McLaren fan I’m hardly impartial but that was a greeeeeaaaaaat race! 😝

    1. I’m not a mclaren fan but it was great to see (I was actually a schumacher fan, so mclarens were the enemy back then), first 1-2 in 11 years and first win in 9. Ricciardo in with a very good shot at winning even without the title contender’s issues.

  17. 8. The race was dull until the pitstops, but the drama of the Hamilton/Verstappen crash and then the emotion of the McLaren win obviously boosted it hugely.

  18. It was a bit anticlimatic. The first half of the race was good, second half not that much happened (but good to see a McLaren 1-2 again). Gave it a 7.

  19. I dislike it when people start giving 10’s just because of the result while ignoring how the race actually played out as lets be honest the racing today was awful with very little actual overtaking, Very little close racing & outside of the Hamilton/Verstappen crash very little excitement or drama.

    Think i’ll settle on giving it as 7/10.

    However in my head (Not in this poll) i’ll take 3 points off because of the dreadful sprint gimmick format.

  20. Probably a 7 for this one.
    Certainly wasn’t a regular one where the fastest cars disappear off into the distance.
    Had a couple of unusual things happen and a bit of unpredictability – but still, on balance most of it was a bit of a procession.

    Not bad, but still plenty of room for improvement.

  21. Amazing performance by Mclaren!
    Triple shoey to boot ;)

  22. 9 terrific race, a great if unexpected result.

  23. Actually everything happened in that few laps when ric pitted. Max and lewis slow stop and then crashing, bottas recovered some places after that so did perez. Mclarens filtering into their 1-2 positions. Afterwards and before that it was pretty uneventful.

  24. Typical 2021 race. 95% crap boring racing due to dirty air and 5% crazy random nascar ‘excitement’ like VER torpedoing HAM to give a lottery winner RIC the victory.

    When was the last time there has been an hard thought race without dirty air bore fests or random lottery race winners? Spa-non race , Dutch- dirty air snoozefest, Hungary-crazy random incidents Monza-dirty air plus random events.

    Also disgusting behavior from McLaren pit crew celebrating VER and HAM dnf and Ham almost being crushed. This is the post Ron Dennis McLaren : Mediocre team who have a good low aero bias car and can only can win when the favorites dnf

    Also Its been all round clownish stewarding and presentation(missed HAM overtake on NOR) this weekend by Monza officials and the FIA

    1. Go cry in a corner.

      1. @ccpbioweapon Ricciardo lead from start to finish so he didn’t really get lucky and Lando was on the podium yet again. It seems a well deserved result for them and McLaren.

    2. Why wouldn’t they celebrate? The two cars/drivers capable to challenge them for a race win/podium have crashed out. Fouls, tackles, knockouts are all part of sports. As regards Hamilton almost being crushed, you should see Brundle-Senna crash, and in those days, there was no halo.
      I think Mclaren has done a fantastic job over the last two years, given the lows they reached.

    3. Totally agree on the ‘typical 2021 race’ part. And by that I mean an absolute thriller. I gave it an 8.

    4. Someone lost a bet.

  25. Went for an 8.

    But I haven’t been this happy after a race for a long time, so if post-race happiness was the key it’d be an easy 10.

  26. 1. Both McLaren cars were ahead of HAM and VER when the incident occurred

    2. Of course you cheer when your nearest competitors DNF. Nobody knew there was a tyre on Lewis’s head until after that initial reaction

    3. McLaren were there on merit this weekend. Ricciardo passed Verstappen at the start and got the fastest lap

  27. Good solid 6,5!

    Finally Dannyric showed something! Deserving DOTD and, arguably as well of the Weekend. Also, a McLaren 1-2, that’s refreshing! It has been some time.

    HOWEVER,

    This race reminded me how dull I find Monza and how I hate those truckish cars. Not to mention the rubbish Sprint yesterday. Today’s result came only as a frail compensation.

    Brittle battling, longstanding SC… As nice as it was the end, can’t help to feel bittersweet.

  28. Another Hollywood twist in the best title fight in years, a close, gripping contest throughout, and best of all, a truly feel-good win.

    And as an added bonus, we had none of those late pit stops for that stupid fastest lap point. Smiles all round!

  29. The same static race that everybody was complaining about in the qualifying race, and just some bad pit stops really changing the order.

    A safety car bunching up the cars is artificial entertainment, and even that didn’t deliver much.

    I very much like that cars can defend, but this track has been one of the worst for racing for a very long time now.

    1. Safety car was necessary. One car was partly above the other and both cars were beached.

      1. @pinakghosh That’s not the question. It’s that a race should be rated down once a safety car disrupts it and artificially changes the sportingly earned advantages.

  30. Anyone else think a race without Max and Lewis is more entertaining? Those two are so much better than their peers, they are in a class by themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy seeing their excellence, but the racing is more entertaining without them dominating everyone else.

    I actually am worried that when Lewis hangs his boots up, there will be noone to challenge Max. Hopefully George, Charles, and Lando can bring it.

    1. Yes it was more entertaining with the championship contenders out of the race.

    2. @sidziner No, Norris showed in this very race he is as good as they, and Leclerc has already beaten a mighty Merc here on pure pace.

      It’s just that Bottas and Perez don’t cut it.

      1. @balue, can’t say i agree on that. yes, they were stuck behind them today (and max behind “don’t cut it” bottas yesterday) due to aero. but both max and lewis are faster. i’m not saying the others will not get there, and i hope they do. but i don’t think they are there yet.

  31. A bit and pieces race with exciting parts and facepalm moments.
    First of all, it is good to see a Mclaren win. No doubt about that. The team had pace this weekend and both drivers delivered. For Mclaren, this is a crucial win too for the third place in constructors. Bottas was like a fizzy drink fading towards the end, but nevertheless a strong performance even with the lockups.
    The top two teams both faltered at pitstops which eventually ended in both cars coming together in turn 1. This could have been avoided which shows its not just the drivers but the teams too have to get their heads together. The collision itself was noobish but given that neither cars were able to overtake Mclarens on track, it is understandable.
    Perez was scrappy, not just today but the entire weekend. Vettel needs to be more impressive in wheel to wheel racing in a midfield team.
    Rated 7/10

  32. Could have been a good and proper race if it wasn’t for the HALO

    1. I really hope this is referring only to the aesthetics. 3 years too late in afraid.

    2. What the heck is this comment still doing here? @keithcollantine

  33. This was a solid 10 for me. Been waiting for this since 2012.

    1. McLaren fan by any chance? ;)

      1. Who? Me? :P

  34. Who gave that a 1?!

    1. Probably @ccpbioweapon as he seems quite cranky lol

  35. 1 (1%)
    2 (0%)
    3 (1%)
    4 (1%)
    5 (1%)
    6 (3%)
    7 (15%)
    8 (29%)
    9 (24%)
    10 (25%)
    Total Voters: 178

    Such scores, I’m among the 9s.

    Very exciting race, I think it was already shaping up well before the verstappen-hamilton crash, with a mclaren holding off each title contender, and I think ricciardo had good chances to win even without that.

    78% of people voted 8-10, unlike the sprint race where 78% voted 1-5.

    1. @esploratore1

      78% of people voted 8-10, unlike the sprint race where 78% voted 1-5.

      Exactly and this doesn’t make sense. There was no difference other than a pit stop.

  36. 8/10 for the racing and Ferrari 4,6 + Bottas resurgence.
    +1 point for Hamilton DNF but -1 point for Verstappen DNF so stays 8/10 (just like the top of the WDC table).

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