The European leg of the madness that is this year's Formula One season comes to a conclusion at the historic surroundings of the Monza circuit in Italy, where the wings will be skinny, the race will be short and KERS will be very useful indeed.
Talking Points
- Destroying the formbook
F1 2009 continues to amaze, astound and confuse. Reading the formbook for each race has become an impossible task just recently, as just about every team on the grid has a go at being "the quick ones" for a bit. The last six races have produced six different winners, which equaled a record last set in 1985 by Senna, de Angelis, Prost, Alboreto, Rosberg and Piquet, and is the most open and competitive F1's pecking order has been since the barely-credible combination of farce and tragedy that was the 1982 season, when no less than nine different drivers won a string of races. Two weeks ago in Belgium, everyone left the track with the confusing knowledge that, pound-for-pound, the best car of the weekend had been a Force India, and that only Kimi Raikkonen's KERS button had prevented one of the oddest wins of all time. But what now? Fisichella has swapped cars and will race for Ferrari at Monza, so can Adrian Sutil and newly-installed Fisi-replacement Tonio Liuzzi remain up front in Italy? Who really knows, is the rather honest answer to that one.
In theory, the forecast for cooler temperatures should favour Red Bull over Brawn from the championship contenders, but their own title fight has been out of the real headlines at race weekends more often than not just recently, as both teams have struggled to get on the ultimate pace. Mark Webber has finished the last two races out of the points, Jenson Button leads the championship despite having failed to threaten the podium since his Turkish GP win in early June. However you want to look at this year's championship battle, it has certainly been an odd one.
At the front for this weekend at Monza, the recent resurgence of the KERS-shod former championship rivals, McLaren and Ferrari, could well step up another level, with their six-and-a-bit seconds of extra boost seeming to be an immeasurable advantage around the super-fast Monza layout. Well, ok, not immeasurable. In fact Renault's Pat Symonds reckons it is worth a quarter of a second around the speedy straights of Monza, and will surely prove crucial on the long run to the tight first corner. So much of a bonus is the little button that Renault are unpacking theirs from the attic, dusting it off and sticking it back on their cars for possibly the final time. Farcical though it may be, we could well have some sort of bizarre KERS/non-KERS two-class race on Sunday.
So, given all that nonsense, Kimi for the championship anyone?
- Fisi's Ferrari
An Italian driver, in an Italian car at an Italian racetrack. The debut of Giancarlo Fisichella in front of the baying mob of Malrboro-emblazoned t-shirts that constitutes the modern-day Tifosi is one that perhaps deserves some sort of dream ending. Any pressure on Fisichella this weekend is likely to come from himself or the fans, given that the team will probably just be glad if he can manage to finish anywhere other than last after the farce of Luca Badoer's two races.
But that's not to understate the pressure that he'll get from the stands and from within. Being a home hero, and striving for the not-impossible feat of becoming the first home Italian GP winner since Ludovico Scarfiotti in 1966, Fisi will be feeling the sense of occasion no matter how often Rob Smedley takes him to one side and asks him to "Take it easy" while casually leaning on a jukebox in a leather jacket. A safe and solid quantity of points should be his realistic aim, leaving Kimi Raikkonen to chase the race win, but all the while he'll be reminded that Italy expects.
- Pressure points
6th, 5th, 7th, 7th, DNF. That's not the recent record of a plucky, young gun trying to establish himself in the midfield, but the run of results in the last five races for our esteemed championship leader. But it speaks as much of his title rivals as it does his excellent early-season form that Jenson Button remains 16 points ahead of his nearest challenger in Rubens Barrichello. It is by no means the most elegant method that a world drivers championship has ever been wrapped up, but it seems to be working.
Whether the reasons behind Button's recent paucity of pace is due to his own limitations, as some believe, or because he is slowly but surely choking under the pressure placed upon his shoulders by his remarkable run of wins in the first half of the season, as others believe, the fact of the matter is that he remains in need of a decent result, through his own good work or even through a bit of luck, to get his head properly together before he chokes what might end up being his best chance to win a WDC.
Or does he? After all despite his poor results in the last five races, and despite the fact that there are another five races to go, Barrichello has closed up a mere 10 points on his then-26 point lead since Button's last win in Turkey. Likewise, Sebastian Vettel has only made up 13 points (remaining 19 behind), and Mark Webber a similar 13 points (still 20.5 off Button's haul). So mathematically speaking, his rivals need to boost the number of points they take off him over the remaining events if they are to pass him in the standings, rather than he boost his own dribble of points per race. Granted, that's a fairly dubious series of calculations to base an observation on, but hey, it's late and we're tired. And it's really rather true.
- Qualifying Matters
A big part of the hopes of the title contenders, along with the other hopefuls looking out for points this weekend, will be the qualifying session, with grid position now becoming even more crucial as the grid order tightens and jumbles up. It is becoming more and more difficult to predict who will make it through Q1 and Q2 as the pack gets muddled, and the dangers of qualifying out of position were demonstrated ably by the grid's pair of Brits at the last race. Neither Button or Hamilton made it through Q2, and both got tangled up in a first lap incident which is always a possibility for the midfield runners.
At Monza, the chances of a first lap coming-together are even higher. The funneling down into the three chicanes on the first lap are always the source of some bumping and barging, and this season, the option to play it safe and shortcut the corner to put your fate in the hands of the stewards rather than the guys around you has been detracted from by the addition of new, higher kerbing, meaning that anyone who shoots straight on to miss out the nasty part of each turn risks damaging the undertray of the car instead. The epitome of damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
For the KERS runners, who should be blissfully up the road by the time any of the bottlenecking becomes an issue, they probably won't care, but the likes of the Brawn and Red Bull drivers, with championships at stake, may well find themselves in an impossible situation at one or more of the Rettifilo, Roggia or Ascari chicanes.
Track Facts
Autodromo Nazionale Monza
Number of Laps: 53
Circuit Length: 5.793 km
Race Distance: 306.720 km
Lap Record: 1:21.046 (Rubens Barrichello - 2004)
2008 pole: Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso - Ferrari)
2008 winner: Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso - Ferrari)
Timetable
Friday 11th September
Free Practice 1 - 10:00 (Local Time) / 09.00 (BST)
Free Practice 2 - 14.00 (Local Time) / 13.00 (BST)
Saturday 12th September
Free Practice 3 - 11.00 (Local Time) / 10.00 (BST)
Qualifying - 14.00 (Local Time) / 13.00 (BST)
Sunday 13th September
Race - 14.00 (Local Time) / 13.00 (BST)
Race Revisited - 2001
In times of crisis, panic or tragedy, Formula One is not a sport that manages to get it's collective heads together to show a united front with any great amount of dignity, and so was the case at the 2001 Italian Grand Prix. The Monza event represented the first time F1 had hit the track since the twin (though wildly different) tragedies of the September 11th attacks in America and Alex Zanardi's horror smash at the Lausitzring that led to both his legs being amputated. Though there had been some discussion about possibly cancelling or postponing the Italian GP weekend as a mark of respect, it was finally decided that the event should go ahead. Ferrari did their best to treat the event with some dignity by running their cars sponsorless and plain, save for a black nosecone, though for everyone else, it was sponsorship as usual.
But even in the buildup to the race, there was confusion as to how to proceed. Given the backdrop to the weekend, along with the fact that the event the year before had seen marshal Paolo Ghislimberti killed after being hit by debris from a first lap pile up, Michael Schumacher was to be found prior to the race stalking around the pit lane, trying to convince his fellow drivers to accept the idea that they would take the first lap at safety car, single-file speeds in order to remove the possibility of another incident. Predictably, his efforts to achieve a united front throughout the grid ended in failure, as the likes of Jacques Villeneuve and Flavio Briatore refused to go along with his slightly odd plan.
Thankfully, the race itself proved to be free of incident, almost remarkably so, in fact. With Schumacher having a quiet and seemingly disinterested race, Rubens Barrichello had a rare moment of leading the Ferrari charge, though on a two-stop strategy he was powerless to stop the grunt of the one-stopping Williams-BMWs coming to the fore around the horsepower-friendly track. In the end, it was Juan Pablo Montoya who picked up his first GP win, after plenty of near-misses earlier in the season. Barrichello came home in second, ahead of the second Williams of Ralf Schumacher and Michael's other Ferrari. Further back, anonymous Prost stand-in driver Tomas Enge acheived something which, in hindsight may well be on his CV, as he outqualified Fernando Alonso in his first ever grand prix. Though to be fair to the Spaniard, he was in a hapless 2001 Minardi at the time.
Watch highlights of an eerily stilted F1 weekend here.
One Year Ago
In Monza twelve (ish) months ago, we were treated to a weekend dominated by an inspired performance from an underperforming team every bit as sensational as Fisichella's heroics in his Force India back in Belgium. Sebastian "The New Schumacher(TM)" Vettel took advantage of the performance-levelling nature of the wet conditions to secure a lights-to-flag win for Toro Rosso from pole position, taking the first win for a Red Bull-backed team some seven months before he was to repeat the trick in China for the main Red Bull Racing team. He was helped by the predictable predilection of modern F1 to start races behind the safety car when there is anything other than a light dusting of rain on the track, and comfortably held off Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren for the win. Elsewhere, the main action came from Lewis Hamilton's recovery drive, necessitated after a dodgy tyre call in qualifying left him down in 15th place on the grid. Although he recovered to 7th by the end of the race, it was the manner in which he achieved that which was the issue. Coming shortly after he was roundly sympathised with over his Belgian penalty which stripped him of the race win, he performed some astoundingly brainless bits of driving as he scythed through the field, running Timo Glock and Mark Webber off the road, and getting involved in another needless tussle with Fernando Alonso as he did so. While he could probably legitimately argue that the ends justified the means, given the extra two points he gathered, it wasn't the sort of driving that is particularly becoming of a world champion. Unless you're Jack Brabham. Or Ayrton Senna. Or Michael Schumacher. Hang on a minute...
Recall Vettel's triumph and Hamilton's naughtiness with Patronise's race review here.
Best Race Odds
Lewis Hamilton - 5/1 (Expekt.com)
Sebastian Vettel - 5/1 (Coral)
Kimi Raikkonen - 11/2 (William Hill)
Mark Webber - 9/1 (Bet 365)
Jenson Button - 10/1 (Stan James)
Patty's Tip - The odds for this race are more jumbled than a jigsaw puzzle in a tornado, with everyone confused as to exactly who will be fastest around the Monza track, given recent events. Fernando Alonso, in his new, improved KERS powered Renault is available at 25/1 for the race win, though, which could be worth an each-way punt. Though don't trust us, we lost all our booze money on the dogs weeks ago.
On Patronise
Patty will be with you throughout the Italian GP weekend, though predictably our plans are somewhat vague right now. We'll be covering Friday practice live, you'll be pleased to hear, with the usual hasty reviews of the on-track action as well. After that, Saturday practice, qualifying and the race on Sunday will be typed along to live on this site in glorious technicolour by one of our always-reliable team. Reviews? Fifth Column? Opinion pieces? YES! All in good time. Join us from 08.45 BST or thereabouts on Friday morning for the start of the fun.
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