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/
 
I really like Hamilton as a driver but he needs to take a leaf out of Vettels book, he needs to learn how to stick up for himself.
Vettel has gone up in my estimation, instead of putting up with what Alonso did to him, he firstly discussed it with Alonso immediately after the race and when he didn't get any sympathy from the Spaniard, he ask for it to be investigated.
Hamilton on the other hand gets more than one 'Alonso style' chop from Schumi and just says "well that's racing" afterwards and doesn't ask for it to be investigated.

This sends a message out to other drivers........'you can abuse Hamilton as much as you want and he won't take it further'.

I understand why he is behaving like this, particularly after a driver can just drive into you after quali ends and almost get away with it. The stewards have a long history of being hard on Hamilton and soft on other drivers who cross the line with him, but if he loses faith with the stewards it will only get worse.

Yeah, The difference is that Vettel had nothing to complain about. He wasn't chopped. He put himself on the grass.

Agreed, Hamilton should have made more of a fuss about that but he has come to realise that his protests are futile. It is sad to see that a racer such as Hamilton has been such a victim of mistreatment that he now has little or no faith in the authorities whose decisions he is subject to.
 
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Vettel has gone up in my estimation, instead of putting up with what Alonso did to him, he firstly discussed it with Alonso immediately after the race and when he didn't get any sympathy from the Spaniard, he ask for it to be investigated.
....

Did they discuss the overtake by Vettel after the restart or did they discuss Alonso getting past at the start? Or maybe something else?

It seems strange that Vettel is reported to have put in a complaint to the stewards but as far as I can discover form the FIA web site the stewards did not make any report except for their normal technical report. Surely if Vettel did complain then the stewards should have investigated, if they investigated then they should have either made or not made a decision. In any case there should be a stewards report about the incident. Or is it all a misunderstanding by the Daily Mail (no report on this on the Autosport website)?

During the Press Conference Vettel said:

"He didn’t give me much room there. I don’t know if he still believed I was on that side. I was half-way on the grass but it was just enough."

To me that doesn't sound like the language which someone would use just before putting in a complaint.[/quote]
 
The FIA website rarely publishes all documents from a race weekend, and certainly not for incidents for which there is no action.

For instance, there isn't even a document detailing Liuzzi's penalty and grid drop at the next race.
 
Im sure its all been said already, but very disappoionting race for me. I felt Lewis has finally let 'them' get to him. He wasnt driving as he usually drives and has to suffer the indignation of seeing someone get away scot free for doing way worse moves than he himself gets punished for.. Why wasnt Whitmarsh creating merry hell? Oh, let me guess........:rolleyes: Whether you like Lewis or not ,the guy must feel he has nowhere to turn. I hate unfairness and he's treated unfairly.
That said I was impressed with vettel's drive, I think thats the best ive seen him drive.
 
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