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/
 
And for the weather google still says chance of storm today and tommorow
1000-Light Rain shower (0.2mm) 1300-Sunny skies (0.6mm) 1600-Patchy rain possible (1.0mm)
Sunday
0700-Patchy rain possible (0.2mm) 1000-Patchy rain possible (0.6mm) 1300-Sunny Skies(0.4mm) 1600-Patchy rain possible (1.8mm) 1900-Patchy rain possible (1.3mm) 2200-Thundery outbreaks possible (0.1mm)
Now I know I went for after the race but if this starts earlier we could have a wet monza!
 
The FIA have made the Pirelli imposed -3.25 camber limit a safety issue, due to the threat of blistering.

Which means any car going over those limits will be classed as mechanically dangerous and excluded from the race.
 
Any team that would run the tyre till it burst would be totally irresponsible and dangerous just to avoid an extra stop, the risk of having to do an extra stop to gain performance should be a risk they can take.

Anyway, this rule really should only be used or needed in circumstances like Spa where no dry weather practice was done, I doubt Red Bull would have set the camber at that for the race had they discovered the problem in practice.
 
Hamilton losing 3-5 tenths in sector 3.

Have McLaren messed up again with setup?

Right at the end of the session, Vettel shows everyone that he can pull out the time whenever he wants.
 
I just don't know why McLaren think this setup is going to work.

Sure you may gain 3-4 tenths in Sector 2, but they're getting hammered on the straights, and that's WITH DRS!

This is not looking good.
 
McLaren are too frickin stupid to sandbag. They fell in love with this HIGH downforce setup during a cooler FP1 and now it's proving to be well behind in qualifying trim. One can only imagine how pathetically slow that thing will be on the straights during the race.

They're taking themselves off the podium with this setup. I think Nico's looking good for P3.
 
Hamilton is losing the time through the final corner and Ascari compared to Vettel in sector 3, it's not that the Red Bull is much faster in a straight, as Hamilton is quicker than Vettel in sector 1. I really do not understand how Hamilton can set a 1.23.8 in first practice on the medium tyres and then only narrowly beat that on softs at the end of FP3 where cars usually run on very low fuel. McLaren appear to have slowed down from FP2 onwards. Either it's the temperature or they are hiding their pace after realising how fast they actually are after 1st practice.

I'm sure they'll be quick in qualifying. I'm still sticking to my prediction of a McLaren front row lockout, as nuts as it may sound.
 
Hamilton is losing the time through the final corner and Ascari compared to Vettel in sector 3, it's not that the Red Bull is much faster in a straight, as Hamilton is quicker than Vettel in sector 1. I really do not understand how Hamilton can set a 1.23.8 in first practice on the medium tyres and then only narrowly beat that on softs at the end of FP3 where cars usually run on very low fuel. McLaren appear to have slowed down from FP2 onwards. Either it's the temperature or they are hiding their pace after realising how fast they actually are after 1st practice.

I'm sure they'll be quick in qualifying. I'm still sticking to my prediction of a McLaren front row lockout, as nuts as it may sound.

Good point. I'm going to go and change into my McLaren shirt and hat and shout at the TV for a couple of hours. They were so fast in FP3. It's odd that there performance has been relatively lesser since then.
 
Interesting...

Autodromo Nazionale Monza

02:00weather

0.gif
Clear Sky


05:00weather

0.gif
Clear Sky

08:00 weather

1.gif
Sunny

11:00 weather

29.gif
Thundery Shower

14:00 weather

10.gif
Light Rain Shower

17:00 weather

3.gif
Sunny Intervals

 
Back
Top Bottom