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/

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

Lewis just does not want to get the stewards involved in any of his incidents, does he?

It stands to reason that Lewis would not want to involve the stewards as he was clearly 50% responsible, at the very least, for Schumacher's blocking.
After all, if Lewis hadn't had the temerity to continually harass Schumacher and to make repeated attempts to get past him, those blocking moves would have been quite unnecessary.

 

[Fenderman]

Hmm, I guess I misinterpreted it then, never mind. I just thought what I was saying had some sense behind it lol, but you always feel stupid until people start to agree

Your earlier post (which I liked because you put so much work into it) raised perfectly reasonable questions. The truth of the matter is that understanding the way races play out it is an extremely complex process. How quick drivers are in their stints depends on a combination of factors including tyre strategies, car set up and, importantly the race environment.

It stands to reason that the guy out front will have called on more of his cars' capability in his first stint in order to build a gap and maintain that gap through the cycle of pit-stops. For those in the following field their pace in the early part of the race will depend a lot on their positioning. The performances of Vettel and Hamilton this weekend provide us with a very good example of how several factors came into play to cause the disparity in race pace that you alluded to in your post.

Vettel, although initially compromised by losing the lead to the fast starting Alonso, eventually got his break by passing the same and took off to build his margin. Having done so in the first half of the race he then had to do no more than maintain the gap through to the end. Conversely Hamilton's race was compromised, first by his sleepy restart after the safety car and then by the loss of a second a lap due to his battle with Schumacher which very effectively doomed any challenge for a win. His pace in the latter half of the race was significantly faster once he finally passed Schumacher. So, in this example you have the following key ingredients:

1) McLaren's set up, with low gear ratios and high downforce, meant that in the prime passing areas Hamilton's (and Button's) motor hit the rev limiter at 18k's making the use of ERS and DRS to pass effectively useless.
2) Unable to pass Schumacher until his tyres gave out meant that Hamilton was unable to get the full benefit of the set up as Schumacher was slower in the corners where said set up would have come into play.
3) Due to the time loss caused by factors one and two, Hamilton then had to push for the rest of the race in the hope that he could catch Alonso and at least secure the third step of the podium.

Of course, it gets a lot more complicated than that when you throw in vagaries such as inclement weather, incidents and safety car periods, strategy cock ups, etc.

So, in conclusion, I suggest one should never feel stupid until people agree with you.

Oh, there is a caveat: ... unless you haven't taken on board other's opinions, ideas and experience. In which case feeling stupid is justified!

 

[Vortex]

I think the stewards (or whoever) were correct at this race, the warning was correct and fair enough, I believe in the past penalties have bee handed out all too easily or eagerly for similar or less.

I loved the good hard racing, I don’t think Lewis was as cautious as we think, he was more cautious than usual yes but he was still trying hard.. but Schumacher fights back hard, very hard.

Maybe I speak for myself on this but I want to see more of this hard fighting, sometimes it seems its become too sanitized, but not this time.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

Personally I thought what Schumacher did warranted a penalty, they didn't afford Lewis the luxury of warnings in Malaysia, keep the stewarding consistent.

 

[Vortex]

Personally I thought what Schumacher did warranted a penalty, they didn't afford Lewis the luxury of warnings in Malaysia, keep the stewarding consistent.

Half agree with you, just the other way around, I think they should have afforded Lewis the same warning Schumacher received, I don’t want penalty after penalty.

What we need is common sense, but as they say, common sense is not that common. lol

 

[F1ang-o]

Lewis just does not want to get the stewards involved in any of his incidents, does he?

What would be the point...........

When Alonso spoke in the post race forum, he thanked MS for holding LH up. The commentator said........a former Ferrari employee helping F

 

[Tacitus]

 

[Brogan]

Quick action by Hamilton there.
Shame it ruined his race.

Quote from The Telegraph:

My (Couthard) view, based on the images we saw, was that his behaviour was right on the limit but arguably not over it.

Others feel differently, of course. Jenson (who had a prime view and who knows better than I what is agreed upon in the drivers’ briefings these days) felt Michael had consistently made more than one change of direction. Perhaps he is right.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mo...el-Schumacher-on-the-straight-and-narrow.html

 

[Johnny Carwash]

That on board footage showed that if Michael had moved slightly further to the right then there could have been an horrendous accident.

 

[Tacitus]

That on board footage showed that if Michael had moved slightly further to the right then there could have been an horrendous accident.

But he didn't

 

[Brogan]

Article 20.2 of the Sporting Regulations:

Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as more than one change of direction to defend a position, deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted.

 

[Vortex]

Personally I don’t think this particular incident was that bad, Hamilton was on the inside of the two, he may have lost a front wing but Schumacher was more likely to be spun off and crash if the two touched (which they didn’t).

I think the move with Alonso and Vettel at the same corner a little further in (so that would be at even higher speed) was potentially much more dangerous. Vettel was on the outside when he was forced to take the grass with his two outside wheels and luckily was able to maintain grip and turn back onto the tarmac, if he’d had lost grip on those two outside wheels that were on the grass he’d have headed straight for the barriers at 190+mph. Big shunt!

I just think people and the press like to focus more on the villain that is Schumacher.

(I’m not saying either was correct or either was in the wrong, but I will say I enjoyed, no, loved watching them! So lets either blow them both out of proportion or accept them both).

 

[Lewywo4]

Your earlier post (which I liked because you put so much work into it) raised perfectly reasonable questions. <snip>....

A well thoughtout, and expressed post!......

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Alonso was just taking the racing line. I don't think he expected Vettel to make it stick round the outside. Schumacher just plain chopped Lewis with irrefutable intention.

You have to admit that Vettel was pulling a very cheeky move round the outside of Alonso. I think Vettel is lucky he didn't put himself in the wall with such an audacious move. It could have gone very wrong for him. Great entertainment, nevertheless, but if he'd took himself out of the race I would have laid the blame at his door.

Schumacher's move was not entertaining. It was downright dangerous and very much, as coulthard said, outside the boundaries of sportsmanly conduct.

 

[Lewywo4]

Personally I thought what Schumacher did warranted a penalty, they didn't afford Lewis the luxury of warnings in Malaysia, keep the stewarding consistent.

I'll bet that Whitmarsh, would have liked to have been given a similar warning by the stewards in Malaysia.

 

[Fenderman]

Indeed.

 

[Vortex]

Like I said, I think one is being blown out of proportion and the other praised, possibly because one worked the other didn’t.

Watch the onboard footage of both moves, the Ferrari of Alonso and the Mercedes of Schumacher take more or less identical lines where the move with Hamilton happened. The difference is Hamilton tried to put his car up the inside where the racing line is and was never going to happen unless he was already along side where as Vettel chose to go round the outside, dangerous, daring and very impressive.. And it worked.

 

[tranquility2k9]

First. Thanks Fenderman for your comments and feedback on my post(s). Like you say, it's very difficult to make conclusions in races when so many different factors are behind the pace of different cars at set times. If you look at all of the races though and specifically the ones where Red Bull were fighting McLaren without either being particularly hampered, that is when you can see that Red Bull are faster at the start and McLaren seem to get better towards the end of races.

The next thing is that im very happy to read Martin Brundles column. So often these days, everyone is "politically correct" and do not bother saying what either they think or what is obvious to the general public. (no wonder everyone hates MPs)...but anyway, what he said is completely true and needed saying. So often, Hamilton gets very harsh treatment and others do exactly the same or worse and do not get punished. The stewarding is completely unequal and as much as I want F1 to be all about racing, I think for the future, there needs to be an even higher body that can review these decisions. As much as ex-drivers have helped, without a doubt, you have to feel some, if not all, have bias.

Finally, in a strange way, as much as im a Hamilton fan and was not happy with a few of Shumacher's moves during the race, I have to say, thank god someone was able to do something without getting a penalty. F1 is starting to look like it is wrapped up in cotton wool these days and a driver gets a penalty for everything, safety cars come out when drivers have intermediate tyres on, it is just getting ridiculous. I am all for safety and enforcing strict codes of conduct, but at the end of the day racing is racing. As much as Michael was pushing the limits a little, Lewis did not crash, and Lewis is more aggressive than any other driver out there, therefore, you've got to say that Michael was being the clever old fox that he always has been. Why the hell should you play safe when you can get away with doing that - that's his attitude and I say fair play to the guy. If stewarding and standards were fair then it would be no problem, the problem is that it is not. What I do not understand is that when Lewis Hamilton is overtaking someone, the guy in-front always has "track position" and can therefore pretty much do what he wants, because it is up to the guy behind to either back off or find the right place to overtake. Yet when Lewis is in-front, he has to leave the guy behind enough room and can get blamed for not doing so, even if he has not made 2 moves and has just taken the normal racing line. Please can someone sort this bulllshit out?

 

[Il_leone]

I keep telling people who were supportive of Schumacher trying to squeeze Rubens to the wall last year..he gets away with it with the car behind usually losing a wing...one day someone is going to go over the top off him like what happened with Webber and Kovalainen last year if he keeps doing this dangerous moves...the fact he did not get punished gives licence to other drivers to do it

I think its the fact that its Michael Schumacher at Monza and they did not want to ruin his race.

Schumacher at least moved twice two other times whilst blockign Hamilton

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Like I said, I think one is being blown out of proportion and the other praised, possibly because one worked the other didn’t.

Watch the onboard footage of both moves, the Ferrari of Alonso and the Mercedes of Schumacher take more or less identical lines where the move with Hamilton happened. The difference is Hamilton tried to put his car up the inside where the racing line is and was never going to happen unless he was already along side where as Vettel chose to go round the outside, dangerous, daring and very impressive.. And it worked.

Yep, just watched that. Alonso left a great deal more than a cars width between him and the inside of that corner. Thanks for the video, although it rather dismantles your own point.