Grand Prix 2020 Italian Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

So it my job, to try & breathe positivity into the next grand prix. usually my favourite race of the season because whereas last time out Spa is the best location. the passion & emotion of Monza usually is a nice reminder of why i got into the sport. as for the 1st time since 2010 we got to see 1 of the great sights in motorsport with a ferrari victory at monza 12 months ago. not that we will get that this year, much to mattia binotto relief. but not much beats italian national anthem at monza with a packed start straight

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Despite it being the 2nd scheduled race of the calendar & the 7th race of expected 17. makes this a very unusual italian gp in a very unusual year as it has never been this early in the calendar, for most of F1 history it would be known for being penultimate race or finale of the season, previous earliest it had been was in 2015. another fascinating part is that with the upcoming trips to Monza Mugello & Imola, F1 will be racing in the same country 3 times for the 1st time since 1982 when they raced in american 3 times at Long Beach, Detroit & Caesars palace. but weirdly not 1 of them was called the USA GP as that was on an eventual 8 year hiatus. but thats F1 for you

we all know about the 2 layouts that monza had, but in 1960 & 1961 they combined both for 10km blast which i anticipate wouldve been an interesting car setup problem to try to make the car fast on both oval & the GP circuit. but 1 driver Phil hill seemingly mastered it because he won in 1960 & then won again in 1961 sealing the F1 championship but winning the F1 title should be 1 of the happiest days of sportsman life. but it would not be happy memory but quite a sorrowful time, so the story begins on the controversial 10km layout used in 1960 & 61. the British teams & their drivers refused to enter the 1960 Italian GP because they considered the banked track too dangerous. issuing an ultimatum saying they would not enter unless the race was exclusively held on the road circuit. it fell upon deaf ears & 1960 event went fine, everyone came home safe but 12 months later dejavu the same concerns were raised, this time the owners reduced the race distance from 500km to 430km. but on lap 1 at the parabolica, tragedy struck as the polesitter & Phil Hill's teammate Wolfgang Von Trips collided with Jim Clark. shot up the grass bank which flung him out of his car killing him instantly & tragically killing 11 spectators. after that unsuprisingly the 10km layout was banned. it was tragic end because after this race Phil Hill instead of celebrating becoming world champion was mourning the loss of his teammate off & on for 3 years. he would never win another race or ever finish in top 10 at monza again

1960 monza.jpg


but on this year its going to be interesting return to Monza for Sebastian Vettel. because it be his last Italian gp for Ferrari but the question still remains will it be his last, period. as starting to feel like the racing point pendulum is moving towards sticking instead of twisting. but monza was the start of the vettel story. when he took that great win in rain of monza. which for me was the last great underdog story in F1. but last 2 years havent been kind to him. the 2018 title race unraveled here. when Ferrari had locked out the front row. for me they were huge title favourites & with favourable races upcoming, 1 hand on a 1st drivers titles for 11 years. but instead of playing long game over 53 laps. he made an ambitious move on Hamilton at Roggia chicane he spun to back of the field & 2 weeks hamilton put it 1 an inch perfect qualifying lap at singapore, ferrari never recovered. hamilton went on to win the world title with ease. Then 2019 in hindsight was the end of the road at ferrari for him. you could tell by the team celebrations & love from tifosi that leclerc was getting. that Vettel could've gone on a early flight home. very few would have realised he was absent for a long while. because the torch had been passed at that point

finally im interested to see if the qualifying farce of 2019 will carry on to 2020, when drivers were so focused on getting a slipstream that they forgot the concept of time & ran out of time to do a flying lap in Q3, many embarrassing amateurish moments to pick but Riccardo deliberately outbraking himself into the chicane so people would overtake him only for crawl to end of slip road still at the front of the queue was my pick of laughable moments. in potentially biggest farce to hit F1 since indy 2005

monza 2.png
 
Has anyone at Red Bull congratulated Gasly? Despite the calling for his promotion I'd doubt will happen this season and Helmut and Christian seems to hate admitting mistakes on the management side. If the treatment of Kyvat is to go by then I expect Helmut to promote Tsunoda instead .

Bottas missed a chance today so did Stroll
 
just caught up what a :censored: incredible race. that why we watch F1 & thats i why sit through all the crap week after week after week. on the blind faith it will get better & the jubilant scenes of Toro Rosso AlphaTauri pit crew & Gasly brought a huge smile to my face. how badly did F1 need that. maybe 3rd proper underdog story in last 6yrs (unsure if brazil 2019 counts)
because it nice to see a team over the moon & win means everything because Mercedes are great but winning is normal & has become boring. "oh thanks another trophy ill put it with the other 90 & next weeks"


by the far best GP of the season
 
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Happy for Gasly, but what a bunch of contrived bullshit. I expect those kind of ****y safety cars in NASCAR, but not in F1.
i dont see the issue. Magnussen stopped outside the pitlane, shouldve tried to roll in on the power it wasnt like it was far & they needed to do it for marshalls safety as you cant be pushing a car into a live pit lane because the cars will be flying into pits at around 100mph. hence the reason for pit lane closure

red flag made sense to repair the barrier that had taken absolutely battering. & to retrieve the bits of leclerc car which were deep in tyre barrier
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also that penalty was a slam dunk. im shocked it was most severe it could be as i assumed drive through. but as is said many times by toto wolff its a team game. if lewis miss it someone shouldve noticed it on the screen as it pit lane was shut at the same time after safety car deployment

this wont effect Lewis Hamilton as he will be world champion & just brake Schumacher wins record in Schumachers home country instead of ferrari home track
 
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also that penalty was a slam dunk. im shocked it was most severe it could be as i assumed drive through. but as is said many times by toto wolff its a team game. if lewis miss it someone shouldve noticed it on the screen as it pit lane was shut at the same time after safety car deployment
Agree the penalty was a slam-dunk, but I was surprised how lenient it was.

In a race, if you exit the pitlane when the pit exit is closed, it's an automatic disqualification (cf Mansell Canada '89, Massa & Fisichella Canada '07, Barrichello, Australia '08, Montoya, Canada '05).

The only precedent I can remember for a stop-go on entering under a closed pitlane was Singapore '08 - and even then, there was mitigation, as cars were about to run out of fuel!
 
good point, just reading an article talking to micheal masi & the penalty must have changed as they said it was set in stone. 10 second penalty. but yeah thinking back it has to be harsh to stop teams willing to take the penalty as advantage outways it. as we see it so many times with the 5 second penalty & for safety reasons to protect marshalls. apparently micheal masi says that the teams as whole were told 3 times the pits were closed

in hindsight was surprised giovinazzi didnt get black flagged. because hamilton you can understand why it went wrong. but alfa romeo was more calculated pit lane had been closed a while , was he a lap after?
 
Can we assume the next time Hamilton gets a penalty he will pop in to the pits, park up and go and have a chat with the Stewards about why? No, I thought not. So why did he think that it was acceptable to do that as the race had been red flagged?
 
Can we assume the next time Hamilton gets a penalty he will pop in to the pits, park up and go and have a chat with the Stewards about why? No, I thought not. So why did he think that it was acceptable to do that as the race had been red flagged?
i said that to my dad when watching, ive never seen that in all my years. unless he looking for clarification but the teams as they widely say no the rules inside out. what could he not get from the team that needed from stewards

but i disagree hamilton should've been disqualified 1 was human error & instinque. it drill into if you see a safety car pit , even button said he's never seen that in his career. giovinazzi was calculated to gain an advantage. a long time after it widely known pits where closed
 
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A DQ is a DQ. Doesn't matter if it was an error or deliberate. He broke a safety rule that says if you break it you get DQ'd. Sorry but thats how it should be.

Slippery slope once you start bending that rule on circumstances. What's next? "Oh well I was shaping up for the move before we came to the waved yellows and me overtaking under them was just driver instinct and human error"
 
RasputinLives - in a way, that's why I was highlighting the cases where drivers have been DQd for driving out of a closed pitlane - in some of those cases (Mansell and Nannini in Canada 1989, they were actually waved out of the pit lane, and the lights were on green...)
 
I'm not 100 percent certain but Giovinazzi was given his penalty before the red flag.

After the race was stopped Hamilton was called to the stewards office to be told his punishment in person. I believe the stewards normally penalise the driver in person if they can as shown by the queue at their door after qualifying.
 
Time to put down the pitchforks and flaming torches folks:

28.14 Under exceptional circumstances the race director may ask for the pit entry to be closed during the race for safety reasons. At such times drivers may only enter the pit lane in order for essential and entirely evident repairs to be carried out to the car. A penalty under Article 38.3(d) will be imposed on any driver who, in the opinion of the stewards, entered the pit lane for any other reason whilst it was closed.


Article 38.3(d). A ten second stop-and-go time penalty.The driver must enter the pit lane, stop in his pit stop position for at least ten seconds and then re-join the race.
 
Okay, I'll calm down on the DSQ thing but surely someone at Mercedes should have taken him to one side and advised him not to go the the Stewards Office. It was as pointless as the stupid footballers who argue with the referee about penalties. They weren't going to change their mind and it just made him look petulant.

I was hoping they re-opened the pit lane whilst he was sitting in the motorhome having a whinge and he had to wait until the race had restarted to get out. Alas, this hope was dashed.

Back to the race, how conflcited were McLaren? Yes you can win this, but bring the car home Carlos. I had visions of him taking a crazy dive down the inside of Gasly on the last lap, getting it all wrong and handing the win to Lance Stroll.
 
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