An absolutely crazy race today, where none of the big 3 finish in the top 3, and half of them don't finish at all. Pierre Gasly takes advantage of a red flag to finish first, a home race victory for AlphaTauri, with Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll coming in behind him to complete a podium that nobody saw coming.

The race started off well for championship leader Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes, who was on pole position. He got away very quickly as the race began, and quickly opened up his lead as usual. His teammate Valterri Bottas who started in 2nd did not have as good a start, falling back to 6th. Carlos Sainz in his McLaren was one of the cars who passed Bottas, after a great qualifying session saw him start in 3rd.

Red Bull did not have a great start either, at a track where they historically struggle. Alex Albon picked up a 5 second penalty on the second lap on turn 1 after clashing with Romain Grosjean in the Haas. At some point Albon picked up damage to his car, which hampered his whole race.

Things started to change on lap 6 however, when Sebastian Vettel suffered a brake issue with his Ferrari. He reported his brake line exploding, and his brakes no longer working. He did manage to hobble back to the pits, taking a detour through some polystyrene boards, and became the first retirement of the race.

Bottas was struggling in traffic, something Mercedes are not used to, as the car was starting to overheat sitting in the slipstream of the other cars. Because of this he was unable to make his way out of 6th.

On Lap 20, Kevin Magnussen had to pull his Haas over to the side of the track, just before the pit lane, as it seemingly broke down. This triggered a safety car, and Hamilton wanted to take advantage of this by pitting as teams usually do in these circumstances. However, due to the proximity of the Haas to the pit lane entrance, the pit lane entry was closed, a fact which Hamilton was unaware of. Himself and Antonio Giovinazzi in the Alfa Romeo were placed under investigation for entering the pit lane while it was closed.

The rest of the pack pitted once the pit lane re-opened, except for Lance Stroll in the Racing Point. After the safety car Hamilton was first, but under investigation, with Stroll second and Gasly in 3rd. Kimi Raikkonen in the other Alfa Romeo, Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari, and Nicholas Latifi in the Williams were 4th to 7th, with Sainz and Lando Norris 8th and 9th in the McLarens, getting rather unlucky with the safety car pushing them back from 2nd and 3rd.

The race restarted on lap 24, with Leclerc having a great start, flying past Raikkonen into 4th place, a small glimmer of hope for Ferrari at their home grand prix, after losing Vettel early on. However this hope was soon shut down, as on lap 25 Leclerc went flying into the tyre wall after losing control of his car. It looked like a big crash, however luckily Leclerc walked away unscathed.

The race was red flagged at this point, as the stewards had to remove the car and repair the tyre wall. During the red flag, Hamilton and Giovinazzi received the decision of their investigations, each receiving a 10 second stop/go penalty. So the race standings as the cars sat in the pit looked like this:

Stroll was the biggest winner at this point, he was able to get a free pit stop out of the red flag, so once Hamilton took his penalty he would be leading the race.

The race restarted from the grid on lap 28, so once again we got to see all the cars wheel to wheel. The start was really good for Gasly, who was battling Hamilton for first. Stroll lost control after a few corners and left the track, losing places and rejoining in 5th. So after Hamilton entered the pit and took his penalty, the race looked like this (Giovinazzi hadn't taken his penalty yet):

On Lap 31, Max Verstappen had to retire his Red Bull after having car troubles down in 13th. Between Lap 34 and 38, Raikkonen dropped from 2nd place, down to 7th, as the Alfa Romeo was not fast enough to hold onto it's position.

Now Gasly had the lead, around 3 seconds ahead of 2nd place Sainz. Sainz was pushing as hard as he could, bringing the gap down closer and closer, getting into DRS range at the start of the last lap. Gasly did really well to hold him off around the track on the last lap, and was able to cross the line a few tenths of a second ahead, becoming the first French winner of a grand prix since 1996.

Sainz at 25 years old, was the oldest racer on the podium, and for all 3 of them it was only their second time on the podium.

Hamilton, who was in last place after his penalty, did well to battle back up to 7th, only two places behind his teammate, and was also able to set the fastest lap and gain that extra point.

Here are the results from this week:

And here are the driver standings now, with Hamilton remaining 47 points ahead, but Bottas moving into second, 7 points ahead of Verstappen. Stroll's 3rd place finish brings him up to 4th place alongside Norris:

So despite all the troubles and the huge penalty, Mercedes still had the best day of the big 3 teams. Both Ferrari's DNF'd at their home race, Verstappen's Red Bull also DNF'd, and the damaged Red Bull of Alex Albon was only able to finish above Giovinazzi after he served his penalty. McLaren may feel hard done by, but their car did look really good in qualifying and in the race, and getting a Mercedes engine next year should give them an even bigger boost.

Next week we are once again in Italy for the Toscana Grand Prix at the Mugello Circuit.