Race 14 of 19 and the last one in Europe this year. Monza is reputedly the fastest track and has hosted more races (60) than any other. Like most of the classic tracks it’s been shortened considerably though it is still 3.6 miles a lap. They’ve added some chicanes in recent years but it’s still full throttle most of the way around.
All the teams have reworked their aero for this race and during yesterday’s practice most were sporting a ‘Flow Viz’ paint job that subtly ripples under pressure so the engineers can see where the air is going. There are 2 aero strategies going on, one using the F-Duct to spoil the downforce on the rear wing and the other simply using a noticeably smaller wing. McLaren tested both, sending out Button with the F-Duct and Hamilton with the small wing.
It’s also notoriously tough on brakes and the drive trains, but those are most likely tomorrow issues when they’ll be carrying 300+ pounds of fuel at the start (unless, of course, someone blows up or parks it today- FLAMING CHUNKS OF TWISTED METAL RULZ!).
Being Monza the stands will be packed with Ferrari fans. The final ruling by the World Motor Sport Council is that the $100,000 fine for the Team Orders violation at Nurburgring is the only penalty they will suffer for that incident. In other off track news, no new Team qualified to participate next year (leaving it at 12) and they officially added a race in India bringing the total number of races to 20.
The results at Spa were pretty devastating for Vettel and Button who find themselves 31 and 35 points (respectively) behind the leader Hamilton. On the other hand they were pretty good for Alonso who is only 10 points out of third. In the Team standings McLaren is but a single point behind Red Bull, with Marlboro UPC a distant third.
As always don’t let my prattle keep you from making your own observations. I have to take notes because Richard gives a quiz after the race. bmaz’s F1 trash talk is here. There will be no re-broadcast of qualifying, tomorrow’s race package starts with GP2 at 6 am, pre-race at 7:30, start at 8, all on Speed.
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Just heard from the Shell Oil guy.
Yay Scuderia Marlboro UPC.
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Slowest 7 sit.
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Fire in the Air Box??? Water Pump yesterday.
Webber is running on an old engine which is a puzzle because he’s only on #6 and he could have swapped without penalty (not after he qualifies today of course).
Almost every team not running low on engines has a new one for this, the fastest race.
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Yesterday Hamilton was using the F-Duct and Button the small wing, today Button the F-Duct and Hamilton the small wing.
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Trulli
Kovalinen
Liuzzi
Glock
sit
No surprises.
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Once again Schumacher fails to advance.
Now it gets dicey about tire choice since you must start on the tires you qualified on.
Huge advantage to staying out longer because the field is very close and piling up enough differential to pit and leave still in the leads will be very hard.
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Big Deal, he washed out in Q1 anyway.
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Alonso 1
Button 2
Massa 3
Webber 4
Hamilton 5
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I’m not being disrespectful when I call it Scuderia Marlboro UPC. The official name is Scuderia Ferrari-Marlboro.
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Almost all of them came in for a last minute (literally) pit so they all have about 2 laps on them.
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6 Vettel
7 Rosberg
8 Hulkenberg
9 Kubica
10 Barrichello
nice commentary. I was up late so I slept in. Wow 5 hours straight. Just turned on the TV, sigh, CNN at least has some other news. More coffee, shower and then a walk, weather is lovely. So far no fires today.