Martin Brundle's had his eye on the McLaren drama at Monza, and he thinks Lando Norris managed to snatch an advantage that tipped the scales in his favor. The defending F1 champion squeezed past Oscar Piastri right at the wire, finishing P4 just 0.197 seconds ahead of his teammate. It was a cracking battle that had real heat to it, especially down the stretch, but Brundle reckons there was something a bit sneaky going on beneath the surface.

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Oscar Piastri had the upper hand through most of the race, even after taking a three-place grid penalty for impeding Liam Lawson in qualifying. He qualified P3, got bumped to P6 after his penalty, and still managed to stay ahead of Norris for the bulk of the Italian GP. But Norris turned up the heat in the closing laps and started making moves that got increasingly aggressive. On lap 51, Piastri forced Norris off when the Brit went for a squeeze into the Della Roggia chicane that frankly wasn't there to take.

Here's where Brundle reckons the advantage came into play. When Norris came tearing up the pit straight, he was too late to make a clean move into the Rettifilo chicane. Instead of stuffing it and potentially taking both McLarens out, he cut through the gravel at Turn 1. That detour, according to Brundle, actually helped Norris recover energy and battery power for the final push. By the time they hit the Ascari chicane on the final lap, Norris had erased a 0.5-second deficit and had the juice to get ahead.

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The whole thing felt personal from Brundle's perspective, and he wasn't shy about saying so on Sky Sports. Piastri had already shown during qualifying that he wasn't exactly keen on giving Norris a tow, and that tension carried through to the race. Norris managed to pull alongside on the braking zone before Della Roggia, though he was on the outside with nowhere to go. Then came that crucial moment at Turn 1, which gave him enough of a battery boost to complete the pass before Ascari and take the bragging rights.

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It all wrapped up in a photo finish that left just 0.197 seconds between the two papaya machines. Norris got his P4 and the satisfaction of beating his teammate, but Brundle's analysis shows there was definitely a clever bit of race craft involved, whether intentional or not. That's modern F1 for you, where tenth-of-a-second margins often come down to finding every scrap of advantage you can grab.

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