Max Verstappen's stunning return to winning ways at the Italian Grand Prix not only saw the Red Bull driver break a number of notable Formula 1 records for outright speed, but also proved one of the most unexpected triumphs of the 2025 season so far.

The reigning world champion and the Red Bull team had gone eight grands prix and almost four months without standing on the top step of the podium, with Mercedes' George Russell at June's Canadian Grand Prix the only driver since F1's previous visit to Italy at May's Emilia Romagna Grand Prix to deny dominant title leaders McLaren on a Sunday.

But that winless run ended in emphatic - and surprising - fashion at Monza.

Verstappen first superbly beat McLaren title chasers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to pole position in a thrilling end to qualifying on Saturday, clocking Formula 1's fastest ever lap by average speed (164.466mph), in the process.

Then, after eventually outduelling Norris in an exciting start to the 53-lap race, the Dutchman stormed off into the distance and won by 19 seconds.

Impressively, it represented the largest race-winning margin of the season.

That gap led Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, whose team finished 32 seconds behind the race winner in fifth, to admit: "You can clearly see that there is only one guy that makes everybody look a bit stupid."

Verstappen helps lead Red Bull's Monza turnaround

Monza has not traditionally been one of Red Bull's strongest tracks.

Although Verstappen had twice recently won around the Temple of Speed, in 2022 and 2023, these victories came in his two most dominant title-winning seasons.

Otherwise, Red Bull's only successes in the Italian Grand Prix over their previous 17 years in the sport had come in 2011 and 2013, with Sebastian Vettel.

Furthermore, the 2024 edition of the race had easily proved Red Bull's least competitive showing of last season.

Verstappen qualified seventh, 0.7s slower than Norris' pole position time, and finished over half a minute behind the race-winning Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in sixth place.

Afterwards the Dutchman called his car a "monster".

Expectations, or at least those externally, were therefore not especially high around Red Bull on F1's return to its fastest circuit, particularly with McLaren appearing increasingly unbeatable and home favourites Ferrari often saving something special for the flat-out straights of Monza.

But after their weekend had started promisingly relative to their rivals in practice, with Verstappen noticeably upbeat about how his RB21 had handled from the off, the four-time world champion was able to step things up a gear when it mattered most.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 on the grid ahead of Sunday's race after his driver had put it on pole, team principal Laurent Mekies credited Verstappen for his influence in setting the car up.

"He really did some magic [in qualifying] so we are conscious of that," said Mekies.

"Not only in the car but also out of the car, he really pushed us into a rather unusual set-up direction, and it worked. So he did a very, very good job really in the car and outside of the car."

Those remarks were put to Verstappen by Sky Sports a few hours later after his runaway victory.

Asked what his input had been, Verstappen said: "Just experimenting at the same time but just trying to find solutions.

"Of course, throughout this season we have been a bit all over the shop and I think now we finally seem to find a direction that suits the car, so I hope that from now onwards it will be a little more consistent - let's see it like that."

Elaborating on the RB21's improved balance, Verstappen said in the press conference: "The car was doing a little bit more what I liked. It just seems like this weekend has been another step forward with the behaviour of the car and that also then shows in the race, I think.

"So that was a big positive for us. Then, of course, we did a bit more of a normal strategy, you know, medium-hard. Of course, McLaren stayed out to try and gamble for the Safety Car, and I think that's why the gap is a little bit bigger than it should have been.

"But still for us, an incredible weekend."

The Mekies effect?

Sunday's win represented the 125th in Red Bull's history but the first without Christian Horner in charge.

Mekies, Horner's replacement as team principal and chief executive, was overseeing his fourth race weekend at the helm.

Aside from a victory for Verstappen in the short-form Sprint in Belgium on his debut weekend in charge back in July, Red Bull had not particularly looked like threatening McLaren's supremacy, although a run to the podium the week before at Zandvoort had at least pointed to progress since the summer break after a particularly chastening weekend a month before in Hungary.

In his Sky interview on the grid, Mekies was quick to play down his own involvement in the team's Monza step forward - "absolutely not, there is no individual, it's a fantastic team effort" - but Verstappen did later reserve praise for the 48-year-old Frenchman, a former F1 race engineer.

On their long-running quest to bring more consistency to their car, Verstappen said: "Up until now we've had a lot of races where we were just shooting left and right a little bit with the set-up of the car.

"Quite extreme changes, which shows that we were not in control. We were not fully understanding what to do.

"With Laurent having an engineering background, he's asking the right questions to the engineers - common-sense questions - so I think that works really well.

"Plus, you try to understand from the things that you have tried, that at one point some things give you a bit of an idea of a direction, and that's what we kept on working on.

"I definitely felt that in Zandvoort already we took a step that seemed to work quite well, and then here another step which felt again a little bit better."

So are Verstappen and Red Bull 'back'?

While Verstappen outscored championship leader Piastri, who finished behind Norris in third, by 10 points on Sunday, F1's reigning champion remains well out of realistic title contention with eight race weekends to go.

The Dutchman's deficit to the Australian is a still-whopping 94 points, which is the equivalent of almost four race wins.

But what chance Verstappen and Red Bull at least adding further wins to their three 2025 triumphs at Suzuka, Imola and now Monza over the events that remain?

"I think it's still a bit track-dependent," cautioned Verstappen.

"Here you drive low downforce. It always seems like our car is a little bit more competitive when it's low- to medium-downforce. So it's not like suddenly now we are back. It's not like we can fight, I think, every single weekend.

"But the positive is that we seem to understand a little bit more what we need to do with the car to be more competitive. So I hope that that carries on into the coming rounds as well, and some tracks will be a bit better than others."

Formula 1 heads to Baku for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on September 19-21, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - no contract, cancel anytime

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