Grand Prix 2011 Italian Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

The fat bloke lady is starting to sing

Sebastian Vettel took a major stride towards a second world championship after a crushing win in Belgium, he extended his lead over Mark Webber who made a good recovery from a bad start to finish second after a fantastic overtake on Fernando Alonso into Eau Rouge.

Lewis Hamiltons indifferent season continued after a crash with Kamui Kobayashi into Les Combes, while he won't admit it, he will be close to giving up on closing down Vettel as he is over 100 points behind, but while he can't win the championship, that won't stop him going to win every race remaining and with Monza being a strong McLaren track, he will be up there in the running.

Monza is one of the most historic tracks on the F1 calendar and will be full of Ferrari fans as it is the teams home race and the tifosi are known for their support of the prancing horse and after a Ferrari win in 2010 they willl be expecting more of the same from Fernando who needs a win to keep alive his fading championship hopes but an average showing in Spa including losing third place late on will be a killer blow to the Spaniard. Massa is sliding further into obscurity after a good start, but faded quickly into the minor points.

The track isn't one of Red Bulls strongest circuits due to the low downforce and long straights but we have said that a few circuits aren't Red Bull friendly circuits and Vettel has gone on to get pole and win and Monza might not be an exception with Vettel in imperious form and the car seemingly bulletproof there is no-one who can stop the bull racing to the title in emphatic fashion.

After a turbluent weekend, Pastor Maldanado picked up his first point in F1 with a strong drive to tenth (and a lot of luck) to give his beleagured Williams outfit a small reason to be happy but it represents how far they have fallen in that a point is an achievement for them. Barrichello finished a dissapointing 16th finishing behind both Lotus cars.

Bruno Senna will be aiming to improve on a promising first weekend back in F1, he qualified a brilliant 7th, but rusty racecraft caused a bad collision at turn 1 and he eventually finished 13th, the last of the unlapped cars, Petrov managed to pick up a handful of points to go level with his former team mate Nick Heidfeld who is seeking legal advice after losing his seat last week to the young Brazilian.

Adrian Sutil continues his upturn in form after outpacing Di Resta who had a poor weekend with the German taking home 7 points and Di Resta just finishing outside the points in 11th, with Nico Hulkenberg challenging for a set at Force India next season, both these two drivers have improved lately with both taking home points from the last few races
At the back of the field, Jarno Trulli finished ahead of his team-mate showing that maybe he still has some pace in the Lotus now that they have fixed the power steering issues, with Chandhok just over his shoulder he will need to beat his team-mate to ensure that he still has a seat at the team next year and extend his long career.

For Galahads supreme circuit write up see here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/autodromo-nazionale-monza/

 

[F1ang-o]

0o

F1angp-o
IMO it is D.Coulthard who constantly snipes about LH
But shock...
At the last ace...when Maldanado chopped the front off Lewis' car in Q2...he actuall y said M should be sent packing...but this is LH...hey....who cares....let M stay & race & be in the points...
What is going on?
MB is not usually as bad

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Slyboogy
Neither commentator has "constant digs" at Lewis, all the drivers get criticism and praise from both commentators.[/quote]
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I disagree..............
Coulthard particulary....maybe because he thinks it's ok to take a pot shot at LH........or perhaps it's because....he wasn't a WDC or he is JB friend or LH is the threat to Coulthard's employers...RBR?

 

[FB]

Yup, my error.

My apologies F1 fan, didn't watch the forum so thought meant CTA

 

[Slyboogy]

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Slyboogy
Neither commentator has "constant digs" at Lewis, all the drivers get criticism and praise from both commentators.
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I disagree..............
Coulthard particulary....maybe because he thinks it's ok to take a pot shot at LH........or perhaps it's because....he wasn't a WDC or he is JB friend or LH is the threat to Coulthard's employers...RBR?

I constantly hear Coulthard praise Hamilton as does Brundle.

To claim that he criticise Hamilton because he, Coulthard himself is not a WDC is just absolutely ridiculous. So Brundle criticises every driver because he is not a WDC?

 

[f1fansp]

My apologies F1 fan, didn't watch the forum so thought meant CTA

No probs, my post wasn't clear, and I can see how is would read in the context of the Hamilton love-hate

Liuzzi's now blaming Kovi for the first corner shunt.
Watching back on the highlights, he did get the 'normal' first corner squeeze, but then inexplicably went for a closing gap on one of the Sauber's in the braking zone

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

Another thing: Schumacher caught Hamilton napping on the restart and made Lewis pay dearly for it.

Lewis lost Vettel's tow down the main straight and that losing of the slipstream didn't help him fend off Schumacher.

One old Schumacher fan gleefully called me up during the race and said:

The Old Man is "schooling" Hamilton...He's taking Lewis to "school" today and showing him how it's really done.

I said that the old German was being dirty in his weaving and blocking and that Lewis was trying to be super clean.

He said I was full of shit and that the Stewards were with him on it.

 

[teabagyokel]

The top 5 included 5 past World Champions, of every year since 2000 save for 2007 and 1994-5 as well!

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

The top 5 included 5 past World Champions, of every year since 2000 save for 2007 and 1994-5 as well!

Was just wondering when someone was gonna mention that!

Also why wasn't the Massa/Webber incident under investigation? I know Webber was out of the race but i still would have expect the stewards to investigate the incident.

 

[Slyboogy]

Also why wasn't the Massa/Webber incident under investigation? I know Webber was out of the race but i still would have expect the stewards to investigate the incident.

Interesting that, they don't really do that anymore, unless the offender is still in the race.

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

Interesting that, they don't really do that anymore, unless the offender is still in the race.

True but really think Webber cost Massa a chance of a 4th place today. Showly a reprimand for Webber would have been given, because he spun Massa around?

 

[Slyboogy]

Well then you can argue why didn't Hamilton get a penalty for spinning Webber around in the Canadian GP this year.

Don't know what the system is like these days but I haven't seen this for a while

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

Well then you can argue why didn't Hamilton get a penalty for spinning Webber around in the Canadian GP this year as he spun Webber around.

Don't know what the system is like these days but I haven't seen this for a while

I see your point, plus like you said at the end of the day Webber did crash out of the race.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Whitmarsh thinks the McLarens were the fastest cars in the race at Monza today

Is that what you think?

It's amazing that with pretty much everyone else saying the contrary you have found and quoted one rogue snippet to support your argument. Good work, Ray.

"cheers"

 

[mjo]

?
I was late switching on the TV today ...so missed the first few minutes of ButtonBC, EJ was having a rant about LH ...but later said his money was on LH for a win!
Does my head in...

The fans at the circuit in the forum were shouting 'Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!'
I actually find him quite annoying after a while.

 

[Tacitus]

So It seems we have finally seen a worthy battle of hamilton vs shumacher, no pathetic overtaking using drs on the long straight. I literally do not care whether anyone else thinks he deserved a penalty. Why? because there was no contact and gave us a battle that was exciting to behold. It was a pure dogfight between the two! Monza rarely holds such excitement that doesn't involve strategy.

 

[Il_leone]

That was an amazing weekend for Vettel.

He extracted the absolute maximum from the car and from himself in Q3 and the over-take of a driver the calibre of Alonso out of the Curva Grande for P1 was exceptional.

Alonso admitted he was hard with Vettel who was on the grass in that bend. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/94482

I think Vettel's completely broken the back of the title pursuit. They're all throwing in the towel now. Webber, Alonso, Hamilton. All of them.

Whitmarsh thinks the McLarens were the fastest cars in the race at Monza today but both drivers didn't have good starts and that's what cost them victory.

At least that's what Whitmarsh is saying on the official site.

The Double World Title beckons for young Sebastian. It's a fine achievement in the making given the extreme depth and quality of this driver era.

I guess Martin Whitmarsh has finally learned to take Ron Dennis approach to giving interviews in always stating that Mclaren had the ultimate pace but keep failing to utilise it in the race properly either being held up by slower cars or poor pit stops or poor starts

 

[Il_leone]

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I disagree..............
Coulthard particulary....maybe because he thinks it's ok to take a pot shot at LH........or perhaps it's because....he wasn't a WDC or he is JB friend or LH is the threat to Coulthard's employers...RBR?

I constantly hear Coulthard praise Hamilton as does Brundle.

To claim that he criticise Hamilton because he, Coulthard himself is not a WDC is just absolutely ridiculous. So Brundle criticises every driver because he is not a WDC?[/quote]

Agree I think people should listen today when DC thought some of Schumacher's defending against Hamilton was questionable
Dc also said Hamilton was the driver of the day at both China and Germany.

So DC favours Jenson when last year he said Lewis would beat Jenson when asked by Jake like the other BBC pundits over a season

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

Is that what you think?

It's amazing that with pretty much everyone else saying the contrary you have found and quoted one rogue snippet to support your argument. Good work, Ray.

"cheers"

That's what Whitmarsh said, not what I think!

And who is "everyone else"? Lewis Hamilton fans on CTA?

I suppose the Lewis fans on websites know more than McLaren's own CEO, a guy with an engineering background...

I suggest you go to the official FOM website - and I do mean official FOM website - and read Martin Whitmarsh's official comments before taking yet another dig at me about "rouge" lines.

Here, I'll help you out instead of being condescending...

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2011/9/12517.html

 

[Slyboogy]

I think you misquoted me

 

[Bill Boddy]

Another thing: Schumacher caught Hamilton napping on the restart and made Lewis pay dearly for it.

But Hamilton was not caught out by Schumacher. He was watching Schumacher and as a result was caught out by Alonso and Vettel. There is a difference.

....He said I was full of shit and that the Stewards were with him on it.

I could not possibly comment on that.

"Cheers"

 

[RayInTorontoCanada]

I didn't say that's what you think. I asked you if that's what you think.

Is that what you think?

I think and believe that had Hamilton had either A) a better start or B) not been caught napping at the Saftey Car restart (when he was alarmingly far off Vettel heading towards Parabolica on the Saftey Car-In lap), he could have beaten Vettel to the win.

Similarly I believe had Button not had such a horrible start, he could also have had a shot of winning.

Both McLarens were held up by Schumacher who, effectively, destroyed Hamilton's race.

Yes, I do believe and think the McLarens were the fastest cars at Monza during the race over an entire lap.

I think that. Yes.

Vettel got a repreive by Button's horrible start and Schumacher catching Hamilton napping.

On the SC-In lap you can clearly see Vettel right in Alonso's wheel tracks going into Parabolica with Hamilton WELL behind.

Speed TV's David Hobbs(*) noted the big gap Vettel-Hamilton right away and commented saying something to the effect he should be much closer...but Vettel's tow to Hamilton was broken and Lewis paid heavily for it.

So, yes, McLaren's drivers lost the race because of their shit start (Button's) and their driver's mental error on the SC restart (Hamilton's).

PS

(*) This was the Speed TV (USA) replay I caught about 9 hours after watching the BBC feed live. So, I paid particular attention to what happened on the re-Start having argued on another thread after the event earlier in the day.