Max Verstappen claimed victory at the Italian Grand Prix, the 66th career race win of his career with Red Bull Racing.
Starting on pole position after his historic qualifying yesterday, Verstappen had a decent start to the race but found himself battling McLaren's Lando Norris, resulting in going off at turn one.
The Dutchman was forced to give Norris the position as he had been adjudged to have gained an advantage off the track. He stayed within DRS range and on lap four regained his lead of the race. A few laps later, Verstappen had built a two-second gap to Norris behind.
Verstappen, who started on the medium tyres, continued to build a larger lead, putting in multiple fastest laps in the process, with over four seconds the gap to Norris by lap 15.
His teammate, Tsunoda, maintained his P9 position for 19 laps before Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli got past him around turn 1. This prompted an early pit stop for Tsunoda, putting on hard tyres after the Japanese driver started on mediums.
With his tyres needing to heat up, Tsunoda was overtaken by Haas' Ollie Bearman shortly after returning to the track, dropping him to P19, dead last. Verstappen, meanwhile, extended his lead to over six seconds by lap 24.
On lap 26, Tsunoda, while still last, moved up to P18 after Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso suffered a suspension failure and retired from the race.
Two laps later, he managed to overtake former Racing Bulls teammate Liam Lawson to move into P17. This came after Tsunoda had overtaken Lawson earlier but had been hit by the New Zealander, forcing him to relinquish his position to avoid receiving a penalty.
Verstappen's tyres started to suffer blistering around the 32-lap mark, prompting the question over when he would come in for his mandatory pit stop. With McLaren having not yet pitted, the Red Bull driver stayed out as long as he could to try to maintain his position.
On lap 37, Verstappen finally dove into the pits and took a set of new hard tyres for the remaining laps.
The McLarens held on until lap 46, pitting both cars with Oscar Piastri heading in a lap before Norris. Verstappen regained the race lead and had a gap of over 19 seconds with just a handful of laps remaining.
It was plain sailing for Verstappen for the rest of the race, seeing him cross the line comfortably ahead of the rest of the grid to claim the 66th Grand Prix victory of his career, the first with Laurent Mekies as his Team Principal after he replaced Christian Horner after the British Grand Prix.
The victory also coincided with the race being the fastest in Formula 1 history, coming in at one hour, 13 minutes and 23 seconds - culminating a record-breaking weekend after Verstappen broke the Monza track record as well as having the fastest average lap time in qualifying the day before.
Speaking after the race, Verstappen commented: "It was a great day for us. Lap one was a bit unlucky, but after that, we were flying."
"The car was really enjoyable, I could manage the pace, and we pitted at the right time. Just fantastic execution by everyone."
He added: "Step by step, race by race, but this was for us an unbelievable weekend."
Tsunoda, meanwhile, finished the race in P13, missing out on points after qualifying in the top ten.
