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/
 
-Derek Daly;
“On lap 20, race director Charlie Whiting asked the stewards to look at an incident between [Felipe] Massa and [Jarno] Trulli at the second chicane. While looking at the slow motion video of this incident, I missed the Schumacher/Hamilton incident that happened at that moment."
“We as stewards probably let Charlie down with this one"
Utterly ridiculous.

It was never clear what happened to Trulli on Lap 5, and now we know he was hit by Massa in an incident that required the stewards attention. Good thing they tried to sort that out 15 laps later. :rolleyes:

Not to mention that the Lap 20 block pales in comparison to the Lap 16 chop, which I'm presuming they did indeed witness.
 
They're nothing more than pathetic excuses.

As you say, the Trulli-Massa incident happened on lap 5 and they were only just reviewing it on lap 20?
Not to mention the chop.

Hamilton must be wondering what he has to do to get fair and equal treatment.

(Mod's feel free to move this lot to the Hamilton or inconsistent stewarding thread if deemed appropriate)
 
Here's a still picture of the Massa-Trulli-Buemi incident at the Roggia on Lap 5. Felipe looks a long way from the circuit boundary on his left. Guess the stewards figured that since he had been hit earlier in the lap, he was allowed to do some bumping himself.

MassaTrulliBuemi.jpg


Not sure how all 3 cars survived that one though.
 
Here's a still picture of the Massa-Trulli-Buemi incident at the Roggia on Lap 5. Felipe looks a long way from the circuit boundary on his left. Guess the stewards figured that since he had been hit earlier in the lap, he was allowed to do some bumping himself.

View attachment 2412

Not sure how all 3 cars survived that one though.

Christ, Schumacher must have been in at least 2 of those cars. There's chopping from the left and the right. Did Jarno get on the hotline to Charlie? Actually, he was also in Heikki's car, weaving around and distracting the other 2 Schumachers. You can tell this from the picture.
 
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.
 
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.

To be fair, Lewis has tried everything he can, if he speaks up, he is arrogant, if he speaks to the other drivers they gang up and call him dangerous (Webber the gang leader LOL), if he brings up the race card even as a joke, he is liable to be lynched, with everyone saying 'tut tut tut'
If he gets arsy on track, he has become the new MS/AS and is dirty as well as dangerous

This has being going on from 2007, Lewis is not going to win his 3rd WC Edit: 2nd WC this season with McLaren, why continue to try racing hard when everyone is looking to condemn him for any racing incident. Why not cruise and collect to at least prepare for next year.

I cannot see what Lewis can do to make any type of difference

The farce with the stewards at the Italian GP has just completely confirmed this. There is nothing to be done by Lewis. How will he lose any more faith with a steward like Mansell who has publically stated that Lewis does not deserve to be in a McLaren F1 car?

Unless the consumers get up and stop watching and spending money, complaining of unfairness to one driver, nothing will ever change
 
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