Italian Grand Prix: Kimi Antonelli's stunning Monza victory will go down in F1 folklore

Briefly, for a few laps, Russell and Max Verstappen threatened to break away in the lead while Antonelli was finding a way past Gasly, the two McLarens and Hamilton’s Ferrari.

But Russell and Verstappen were fighting at the front, costing each other time, and Antonelli was up to third by lap 13, just 1.8secs off Verstappen in the lead, with Russell between them.

Three laps later, the Mercedes drivers were running one-two, and starting to swap places themselves, until, with Russell leading, it was suggested by that team that they give it a rest and try to break away from Verstappen.

If Russell could not do so, they said, they would “invert the cars” – put Antonelli into the lead to try himself. But slowly they began to inch clear.

At this point, coming up to half-distance, the race victory was still up in the air. There was a virtual safety car (VSC), called when Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin broke down at the first corner.

Mercedes called Antonelli for new tyres – a decision they had to make as he had switched to the medium compound at the red flag and that would not make it to the end. Russell continued on his hard tyres.

“It was the right thing to split the strategies,” Wolff said, “because we didn’t know what the better one would be. In the morning meeting, we said the hard tyre is going to go forever. You can start on it and finish on it. And you can see with George, it was a forever tyre.

“At that stage, the system said that the one-stop comes out ahead, that two-stop was coming close to the end, but didn’t catch it. That’s what the software said.”

Antonelli was in no mood to obey a computer algorithm. Rejoining 14.3secs behind Russell, with 24 laps to go and four cars between them, winning was not an easy task. But he made it look like it.

Antonelli caught Russell with five laps to go and the win now looked inevitable. There was a hiccup when he ran off the track at turn one with four laps to go after Russell blocked his attack on the inside, and Antonelli lost grip on the loose rubber off line and slid into the gravel trap.

That dropped him to 1.7secs off again, but a lap and a half later, he drove past Russell on the straight between the second Lesmo corner and Ascari, and that was that.

The home fans, with split loyalties before the race between Antonelli and Ferrari, screamed with delight as he crossed the line, 60 years since the last time an Italian won his home race.

“It’s one that I will remember forever,” Antonelli said. “Definitely the fans gave that little bit extra to push more. The support has been great this weekend.

“Definitely seeing the grandstand cheering every lap it gave that little bit of extra to push more and to try and do even better to win it.”