© Red Bull Content PoolPreviously At The Italian Grand Prix Next up, the Temple of Speed, and after a Dutch Grand Prix swathed in orange we’re riding high going into the Italian Grand Prix.
Monza.EvenanaliencomingtoEarthwouldrealisethehomeoftheItalianGrandPrixisspecialbecauseofthesheernumberofnamesbeingthrownaround.ThisistheAutodromoNazionaleMonza,LaPistaMagica,TheTempleofSpeed,theRoyalPark.Thecornerstooarenamesratherthannumbers.Rettifilo,Roggia,Lesmo,Ascari,Parabolica.NocircuithashostedmoreF1grandsprix,nootherhasquitethelegendandmystiqueaffordedMonza.It’saspecialplace.
The setting, in the grounds of the former Royal Villa, is stunning. Always held at this time of year, it’s the last throw of summer, with the occasional hint of autumn blowing down off the Alps, off to the north and framing the start-finish straight. Everyone turns into a tourist at Monza and takes an excursion out into the woods to see the banking of the old circuit. Even the graffiti is cool, with tags in the underpasses surviving the decades, venerating
Villeneuve, Senna, Schumacher. It isn’t a museum piece though. It’s a living, breathing, raucous carnival.
Our record here is… patchy. There have been three victories, and three poles, a couple of fastest laps, and one other podium finish. And that tells a story: we’ve been here 18 times, had 36 starts, and finished on the podium four times. From that, you might deduce it isn’t our track.
At least some of that comes down to the nature of Monza. This is the race where the skinny wings come out, the downforce is pared-back, and everyone concentrates on straight line performance. And if we’re known for anything, it’s for designing cars that pile on the downforce. We haven’t always had quite the same prowess in the horsepower department. That said, despite the reputation, lap time at the Temple of Speed isn’t all about pure, unadulterated velocity.
An excellent illustration of this is our first victory at Monza, courtesy of Sebastian Vettel. Seb took pole position, and won the race having led most of it, despite having the slowest car through the speed trap. Of the 24 cars to take part in qualifying, with an average speed of 327.7km/h, Seb was the slowest of the slow, 22km/h down on a young lad called Sergio Pérez who was impressing people at Sauber. The straights are long at Monza, but it isn’t Baku or Shanghai: by running a little more wing than everyone else, the RB7 was able to carry more speed through the corners and thus be going faster at the start of the straight. Assuming everyone has fairly linear acceleration, that’s the gift that keeps on giving, with the car pulling away from rivals for the bulk of the flat-out section, before it tops out earlier and starts to be reeled back in – or vice versa.
2011 - Seb Wins© Red Bull Content Pool
Seb had won the previous race in Belgium, and Italy was to be his second consecutive victory in a run that would go on for quite a while longer. He was leading the Drivers’ Championship and we were well ahead in the Constructors’… but the driver attracting the most interest at Monza was Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo. The young Australian was announced at the start of the weekend as Seb’s team-mate for 2014, replacing Mark Webber who was retiring at the end of the season.
After qualifying on pole position again, Seb got off the line better this time around, though a lock-up into the first corner meant he had to complete the first stint with a flat-spot, accompanied by a lot of worried looks on the pit-wall given the amount of vibration that was sending through the suspension. It meant he was one of the first front runners to dive in for the one-and-only pit-stop, losing the lead for a couple of laps while the order shook out. At the flag, he was five seconds clear of Alonso, with Mark third to record our only double-podium finish at Monza. History tends to record Seb’s great nine-race winning streak – last week equalled by Max – as something of a procession, but then as now, things were a lot more tense during the individual races than they might appear outside.
2013 - Seb Wins Again© Red Bull Content Pool
2017:Daniel'sOvertakingMasterclass
It’s a myth that overtaking is easy at Monza. It isn’t easy at all – but it is possible. The braking zones for the three chicanes – Rettifilo, Roggia and Ascari all provide an opportunity, but it generally takes a really good exit from the previous corner and a driver brave on the brakes to make a move stick. In 2017, in a race with no Safety Cars or VSCs, Daniel pretty much demonstrated all of them.
In an era where PU penalties were a certainty, races at Monza were good ones to throw under the bus, particular for teams who knew they weren’t particularly in the hunt for a victory. Teams would pre-empt the inevitable, fit the extra components here, take the penalties and have a larger pool of engines available for later in the season for tracks where they had a better chance of pulling-off something spectacular. It’s why our racing record at Monza over the last decade shows starts from 18th, 19th and, in 2017, Daniel starting 16th. Few drivers enjoy a good overtaking move as much as Daniel, and the Force was definitely with him in 2017. Race engineer Simon Rennie was calling out the gaps, as Daniel picked off cars every couple of laps: Marcus Ericsson, Carlos Sainz, Nico Hülkenberg, Dany Kvyat, Kevin Magnussen, an absolute beauty on Checo and finally, the last of the late brakers to put a stunning move on Kimi Räikkönen to take fourth. You’re never going to make friends passing a Ferrari at Monza, but it’s a crowd that respects commitment, and Daniel duly got a huge round of applause as he made his way out of the paddock, through the crossroads and back to the car park in the evening. That’s pretty rare.
2017 - Daniel's Overtaking Masterclass© Red Bull Content Pool
Last year’s RB18 was a fantastic race car – but not quite so mighty on Saturdays. Ferrari had 12 pole positions last year, including one for Charles Leclerc at Monza. Max qualified P2 but was demoted to P7 for fitting a fifth ICE of the season. It didn’t seem to make much difference. Having won from 10th in Hungary and 14th in Belgium, he made short work on getting into the lead: fourth at the end of lap one; third at the end of lap two; second by lap five and into the lead on lap 12 when Leclerc pitted. The Ferrari driver did so under the Virtual Safety Car, while Sebastian Vettel’s stricken Aston Martin was removed from the grass verge… but rapid work from the marshals meant the VSC was surprisingly short and Leclerc lost out. He came out in third, 17s behind Max and, with fresher rubber, began to close that gap.
By the time Max pitted on lap 25, it was down to 13s, and Leclerc held a 10s lead when things shook out. Max, however, was far enough into the race to get to the flag without another stop, Leclerc would need to either stop again, or be extremely gentle on his rubber, and Max began closing the gap at around eight-tenths of a second per lap. Leclerc made a second stop on lap 33, when the gap was down to around 5s, promoting Max back into the lead with a 20s advantage. That should have been it, but a late-race Safety Car kept us on our toes, compressed the field again. The Safety Car came out on lap 48 of the 53 as Daniel Ricciardo stopped by the side of the track. The leaders all dived into the pits for fresh rubber, and Max prepared for a short sprint with a very rapid Ferrari in his slipstream – but the rapidity shown earlier in the race with the VSC was absent now, and the race finished behind the Safety Car, Max took the flag and our long victory drought at Monza was over.
2022 - Max Wins© Red Bull Content Pool
