Despite starting from seventh on the grid, Red Bull's Max Verstappen put in a dominating performance at the Italilian Grand Prix on Sunday, capturing his fifth straight win and 11th victory of the 2022 season.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, starting from the pole, finished behind Verstappen, losing the lead after pitting under yellow on Lap 12 while the Belgian-born driver stayed out.

Leclerc regained the lead when Verstappen pitted for the first time on Lap 25 but lost the lead for good when the Monegasque driver pitted for the second time on Lap 34.

The Grand Prix ended under a late saftey car, denying any shoot out between the home town favorite and the 2021 World Champion.

"Overall if you look at the pace of our car this weekend, especially today, I think we were strong. The pace was good on every tyre and we were comfortably the quickest on the track," said Verstappen.

Verstappen was 16.8 seconds ahead of Leclerc when the safety car came out.

"We would have liked to have seen the race play out today, we certainly didn't want to win under a safety car. We believe there was enough time to get the race going but the safety car picked up George Russell which delayed proceedings," explained Red Bull's Team Principal Christian Horner.

Valuable time was wasted when the Safety Car came out in front of George Russell's car, in third, causing a delay in the field taking up position.

The saftey car was released due to Daniel Ricciardo's McClaren coming to a halt on the track with five laps to go. Additional delays were added when a recovery vehicle had to be called for the McLaren which was stuck in gear and could not be moved.

Leclerc's teammate, Carlos Sainz, finished fourth with Russell's teammate, Lewis Hamilton, rounding out the top five.

"Overall, finishing second and fourth is a good result, although there is naturally a sense of regret at not bringing home the win after starting from pole. However, today, Max (Verstappen) was simply quicker than us," said Mattia Binotto, Ferrari's Team Principal & Managing Director.

"We were clearly the third fastest team today, so third and fifth positions was probably the maximum we could expect," said Mercedes Team Principal, Toto Wolff.

Verstappen's teammate, Sergio Perez, finished sixth.

Williams reserve driver, Nyck de Vries, filling in for an ailing Alex Albon (appendicitis), finished ninth - just the 67th F1 driver to score a point or more in his F1 debut. The Dutch-born 27 year old started the Italian GP in P8.

McLaren's Lando Norris and AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly finished seventh and eighth, respectively.

Alfa Romeo's rookie driver, Zhou Guanyu, rounded out the top ten - the third top 10 finish (six points) of the Shanghai, China native's F1 career. Like de Vries, Guanyu scored a point in his F1 debut in Bahrain at the start of the 2022 season.

Leaving Monza, Verstappen has an almost insurmountable 116 point lead over Leclerc. Red Bull leads Ferrari by 139 points in the Constructor's Championship.

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RESULTS
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1	Verstappen	Red Bull	53	1h 20:27.511
2	Leclerc		Ferrari		53	+ 0:02.446
3	Russell		Mercedes	53	+ 0:03.405
4	Sainz		Ferrari		53	+ 0:05.061
5	Hamilton	Mercedes	53	+ 0:05.380
6	Perez		Red Bull	53	+ 0:06.091
7	Norris		McLaren		53	+ 0:06.207
8	Gasly		AlphaTauri	53	+ 0:06.396
9	De Vries	Williams	53	+ 0:07.122
10	Zhou		Alfa Romeo	53	+ 0:07.910
11	Ocon		Alpine		53	+ 0:08.323
12	Schumacher	Haas		53	+ 0:08.549
13	Bottas		Alfa Romeo	52	+ 1 Lap
14	Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	52	+ 1 Lap
15	Latifi		Williams	52	+ 1 Lap
16	Magnussen	Haas		52	+ 1 Lap
	Ricciardo	McLaren		45	Oil Leak
	Stroll		Aston Martin	39	Engine
	Alonso		Alpine		31	Overheating
	Vettel		Aston Martin	10	Engine

(image provided by Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN)