Grand Prix 2018 Italian Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

MONZA.
The Autodromo Nazionale Monza. "The Temple of Speed." I suspect the second name is the Tifosi name for Monza. But with very good reason. It was built for speed, it was incredibly fast, and they have been slowing it down since 1933.
It was built in 1922, financed by the Milan Automobile Club. What they built for their fast circuit, was a banked oval linked to a road circuit. Obviously the racing car of the day that was slung off the oval onto the road section produced high speeds and spectacular viewing. We can only dream what that would look like with a modern F1 car. BUT .. by 1932 it had killed 9 drivers and 27 spectators. Obviously even the most fanatical speed merchant realised that things had to change.They stopped using the oval, introduced the Lesmo curves on the road section and started to introduce stands for the spectators. But then WW11 intervened , and all racing stopped at Monza.

Post war the circuit was totally revamped, and for whatever reason they reintroduced the high speed banked oval. The circuit was fully operational by 1955, and by now it was used by F1. Races were won by the likes of Moss, Hill, Fangio and Brooks. But in 1961 the racing driver Von Tripp and 15 spectators all died in one crash, and F1 abandoned the use of the oval, using only the road circuit. The oval was finally abandoned for all racing in 1969.
However the road circuit itself was still incredibly fast, and in the 1970's the first chicanes were introduced, the Variant del Rettifilo and the Variant Ascari, neither of which had the required effect. In the next few years the efforts to slow the circuit down as the cars got faster, introduced us to the, Vialone, Curve Grande and the della Reggia. All very familiar to us in 2018, but by now 48 years old. Most of them have been altered a little, moved slightly, generally messed around with, and a few more added for good luck, the curve del Serraglio and the Parabolica. Listen to the race commentary you'll hear most of them tripping of someones tongue.
But it remains a fast circuit, not nearly as fast as it once was. The old Oval is gently rotting in the trees behind todays' circuit, perhaps that's where the "The Temple of Speed" is. Todays modern circuit is a "Temple to the Tifosi" (my quote). It's still suited to cars that can go flat out, at high speed, and not fall apart, and we all know who they are. So all those curves and variants have been designed in such a way as to apply the letter of the law without adhering to it. Very Italian.
I'm obviously putting this up before we know what happened at Spa, as we only have a few days before the next round of PQR, and before we know the full outcome of the driver moveathon. Whatever has happened I hope it will throw up some interesting discussion. Most of all, I really hope that Monza and it's history plus the mad Tifosi will give us a good race.
 
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We did go to the Alfa Romeo museum in Milan though, and saw these lovely things, amongst many others
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I am with Carlo Sainz on the whole DRS thing. I have never been a fan of the artificial overtaking it produces, plus there have been quite a few accidents when the thing has failed to work correctly, most specifically when it's failed to shut at the right time.
Do they really need to see someone get seriously hurt before they take action? Ericsson was the most recent victim of this and thankfully he was fine after that shunt yesterday, but you could argue he was very lucky when you see what happened to his car, things could have been so different.
 
Food for thought - FiA has suddenly decided to help overtaking, and to that aim they elongated DRS zones in most of remaining races this season. Is it sheer coincidence that it is Hamilton who may benefit from this change? Dear old FiA and their bags of subtle and not so subtle heap of tricks.
 
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I am with Carlo Sainz on the whole DRS thing. I have never been a fan of the artificial overtaking it produces, plus there have been quite a few accidents when the thing has failed to work correctly, most specifically when it's failed to shut at the right time.
Do they really need to see someone get seriously hurt before they take action?
Really? I think I can think of two.
 
It didn't rain :(

Kimi is on pole :)

I was sat between my wife, who was cheering on Lewis every time he came past, and a young Italian lady who was also cheering for Hammy. The rest of the crowd were, unsurprisingly, cheering for anything red, apart from those dressed in orange.
 
Food for thought - FiA has suddenly decided to help overtaking, and to that aim they elongated DRS zones in most of remaining races this season. Is it sheer coincidence that it is Hamilton who may benefit from this change? Dear old FiA and their bags of subtle and not so subtle heap of tricks.
The Ferrari is up on power compared to the Merc. How does that hurt Ferrari more than Merc? Historically the FIA has favored Ferrari...
 
In race conditions Vettel is usually slightly faster than Räikkönen. I do however understand how Kimi probably feels about his career these days.
 
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