Italian Grand Prix Preview

Wednesday 10th September 2008

Though the PF1 headline says "the debate rages on" referring to the events at the Belgian GP, it's fairly straightforward. All the three FIA-appointed amateur stewards have done is highlight the woeful inadequacies of the refereeing process for grands prix.

We don't need to delve into who thought Lewis got an advantage and conversely who thought it was "the worst decision in F1 history". All we need to know is that the most experienced person in making judgement calls in motor races, FIA race director Charlie Whiting, had no problems with Lewis Hamilton's avoidance of the unyielding Kimi Raikkonen at the Bus Stop chicane.

No matter what he is "supposed" to have said after the race, his race radio transcript is a matter of fact.

Now we move on to the Italian GP at Monza and we will have another happy band of three different individuals trying to interpret rules they have no huge experience of. If World Cup football referees or World Cup rugby referees or ICC Test cricket umpires were selected the way F1 appoints its referees there would be a global media outcry. It has to be put on a professional footing immediately.

This is something we have been banging on about in PF1 for the last five years. If Lewis Hamilton's four dropped points signal the end to the current system and a move to competent, consistent rule interpretation then maybe McLaren's Ron Dennis will view them as four points well spent.

Because it cannot go on like this.

At Monza we won't see as good a race as we got at Spa unless the heavens open, and I can't even remember a single wet Italian GP. McLaren wll head there with a point to prove and some healthy times from the Monza test. Hamilton's major drawback will be that it is the second race for his engine at a track where the cars are flat out for a lot of the lap. Felipe Massa will have a new one.

As a circuit, Monza oozes history and justifies the moniker, the cathedral of motorsport. But as a test for F1 machinery it's little more than a series of straights that have been altered to keep the car speeds down.

Given the distance that Kimi Raikkonen finds himself behind Lewis Hamilton it's strange that the marque who most favour the concept of team orders, Ferrari, haven't swung their full weight behind Felipe Massa. Either they're being a little bit coy or they fear more mechanical meltdowns, the kind we saw in Budapest and Valencia.

Or maybe they don't want to demotivate Raikkonen and see him give up in races, something that was prone to happen when he got shunted down the order at McLaren.

To compensate for his lack of horsepower Lewis may be tempted to monster the kerbs just a little too much in his bid to keep ahead. The Mclaren is good over them, the Ferrari F2008 less so. It's an important weekend for McLaren team-mate Heikki Kovalainen too. Heikki had a disastrous weekend at Spa and should have been playing tailgunner to Hamilton. Had he been there as a buffer, then the Bus Stop incident may never have happened.

Judging a lap round Monza is a far easier prospect than hooking it all up at Spa and so there should be a much smaller difference between team-mates lining up on the grid. Depending on how easy it is to follow another car there might be an absence of overtaking too. Last year Hamilton put an amazing move on Raikkonen from what seemed an impossible distance back.

The first turn as usual is the one that sorts the men from the boys. The concertina effect of cars braking often catches people out, though last year it was an almost impeccable getaway. In previous years there have been front wings and sidepods ripped off.as cars turned in.

The good news is that Ralf Schumacher is not in the mix any more. The bad news is that Sebastian Vettel, Kazuki Nakajima and Giancarlo Fisichella are. Michael Schumacher has the most impressive starts-to-wins ration in F1 but I'd be interested to see stats on Fisi's ratio of starts-to-first-lap-incidents.

Behind the McLarens and Ferraris will come the astonishing Toro Rosso versus BMW battle. Poor old Senastien Bourdais was close to tears after dropping from 5th to 7th in the final stages of the Belgian GP but he should have more opportunities yet. Vettel was a long way down for most of the race and then came bouncing back at the end.

Given that the Toyotas struggle when it's not warm, Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock will have their work cut out. Thanks to a combination of good fortune, good judgement and fantastic traction Trulli achieved the most mesmerising start to the race at Spa. It was ruined only be a shove from Bourdais and then a stupid spin of his own making.

Toyota's battle with Renault for fourth place in the constructors' championship will intensify after Fernando Alonso found an unexpected turn of speed from his much-criticised engine unit. At Monza his superior skills will make less of a difference and so the four cars could be thrown together. No guesses as to who'll be driving the slowest of the four.

Meanwhile Jenson Button and David Coulthard will both be struggling to get their cars out of Q1 and into Q2 - though on recent form you'd expect it to be Sutil, Fisichella, Nakajima, Barrichello and Button in the bottom five.

Don't expect anything other than a strategy-fest at Monza - and for those ghouls amongst you there's always the prospect of analyzing every tiny McLaren move to see if there's anything there for the stewards to penalize. There probably will be. They are the most penalized set of drivers in F1.

Andrew Davies

Post to del.icio.us

E-mail Article Print-Friendly Version Subscribe to Race Features RSS Feed