Lewis Hamilton managed to secure his 90th win in the category, as he stormed away from the back at Mugello. His teammate Valtteri Bottas got a better start initially, however lost out to the Brit in the later stages of the race. Alex Albon gained his first podium in F1, after being denied in Brazil and Austria in the last year.
Early stages
The first lap of the race was strewn with chaos, seeing last weeks race winner Pierre Gasly and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen retiring within a number of corners. The crash would also bring out an early safety car, bunching up the back further. The real winner out of the first stint of the carnage was Charles Leclerc, who managed to make up places, finishing the first lap in third position.
One man who was caught up in the chaos, but managed to get through it was Carlos Sainz, who was spun coming into turn three, narrowly avoiding the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel.
The cars would have five laps under the safety car, with the race restarting on lap six, however immediately after, there was another safety car. Following the restart, another three cars were caught out, being Sainz, Kevin Magnussen, Antonio Giovinazzi and Nicholas Latifi, who were all left stranded on the back straight of the track.
Consequently, given the amount of debris on track, a red flag was bought out, making that two red flags in the last two races. The incident was caused when Bottas backed up the pack, Giovinazzi tried to predict the movement of the rest of the pack, and ended up rear ending the Haas of Magnussen.
Coming into lap nine, following the red flag period there were 13 cars on the restarting grid, following the retirement of Esteban Ocon due to brake issues. Hamilton managed to produce a sterling move, around the outside of his teammate into the long turn one, establishing himself as the lead Mercedes. This spelled the start of 'business as usual' as the Mercedes took off, opening up a gap of six seconds by the end of lap 15.
Following the restart
Quietly going about his race in tenth place at the time was the Williams of George Russell. The young Brit managed to keep his nose clean for long enough to see himself into the top ten, a position he would keep until the later stages of the race, after being overtaken by the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel. Following the race Russell stated "We had the race under control in P9, im disappointed for myself and the team. I feel like we deserved it."
The race would remain consistent in the mid stages, with many drivers coming in to the pits for their stop. The main issues the teams were having surrounded the lifetime of the different compound of tyres. It was a 50/50 split between the hard and medium compounds at lap 34, with the bulk of the fight for third donning the yellow walled tyres.
Stroll crashes and Albon capitalizes
In the last 20 laps, Albon slowly began to pick up the pace in the pursuit of Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo in fourth and fifth place respectively. Albon's battle to gain time of Stroll was annulled when Stroll hit the wall, creating massive damage to the side of the Racing Point. As a result the race would see its third safety car of the race and its second red flag, with only 12 cars restarting the race.
Ricciardo got a fantastic get away from the line, taking Bottas into turn one, with the remaining Racing Point of Sergio Perez following suit, passing Albon. However both Bottas and Albon managed to regain their positions.
In a matter of two laps later, the Thai driver managed to replicate his move on Perez into turn two on the Australian racer, getting into fourth position.
The race would finish with Hamilton setting the fastest lap of the race, securing the added point of Mercedes. Mugello provided a glimpse into what we can expect from some of the older tracks that have been added this year, contained carnage.