ITALIAN GRAND PRIX 2024: Review

✦  Free Practices:
  ✮ FP1:

• After 10min, Red Flag, Kimi crashed at the same place of the Safety Car on Thursday (29). He is already out of the car, he is safe!
• Unfortunately, I can't post a video, but it seems from his reaction that Franco was shocked.
• Kind of of 15 min later, green flag, cars already in track
• Sainz almost out, everything is okay
• Yellow flag at the end: it was 'cause of Colapinto went out on the parabolic in the same place that Kimi crashed, but he managed to save it
• The yellow flag at the end was  'cause of Colapinto went out on the parabolic in the same place that Kimi crashed, but he managed to save
• It's over, I'll summarize what a boring session it was:
• the track is new
• many drivers went out of track, probably they have grip, but not so much which brings false confidence and the car slips
• the drivers are complaining a lot about the car not being easy to control

  ✮ FP2:

• Frankenstein floor: RBR  are mixing so many parts of different versions of the car that they are calling Frankenstein floor
• For precaution, Checo changed the gearbox
• Red flag: Magnussen crashed on the wall, he's okay
• Green flag 10min

  ✮ FP3:

• Sainz with new engine, but still within the limit
• Impeding among Piastri, Leclerc e Ricciardo, since it is fp3 it didn’t come to nothing
• Stroll not following instructions in case of escape, incident noted and nothing happened
• Something wrong with the Haas the engineer asked Kmag to stop
• Perez complains of something wrong with the engine, something in the front, his engineer said it will be investigated

         ➤ PENALTIES:

➺ Stroll & Perez for not following race direction about returning to the correct place and as expected, there was no penalty

➺ Piastri impeding Ricciardo: nothing

➺ About Leclerc impeding, it was not announced as a postponed decision, but we do not have any decision document, so it will be nothing either

➺ Colapinto completed a practice start in the wrong place, he received a formal warning.

✦  Qualifying:
  ✮ Q1:

• Sainz makes a slip-up and asks Ferrari to check the floor
• Piastri unsafe release, Verstappen and Piastri almost crashed
• Both Mercedes drivers complains about their seats being hot since the Friday sessions, on Saturday was better but still hot. Russell also complained about the lack of grip
• Franco escaping
• Zhou, during the weigh-in, said there was something wrong with the car, it was not clear whether it was about the weight or a problem with the car
• Out:
• P16 - Tsunoda
• P17 - Stroll
• P18 - Colapinto
• P19 - Bottas
• P20 - Zhou

         ➤ PENALTY:

➺ McLaren for Piastri unsafe release: the team was fined €10,000

  ✮ Q2:

• Q2 will be delayed a little, they are cleaning up the mess from Colapinto's escape
• Leclerc complain about the car didn’t turn
• Out
• P11 - Alonso
• P12 - Ricciardo
• P13 - Magnussen
• P14 - Gasly
• P15 - Ocon

         ➤ Radios:

➺ Alonso: "P11 is better than we expected"

➺ Ricciardo: "Yeah, honestly that was about all I had”

  ✮ Q3:

• Ferrari made an unsafe release of Sainz, Max managed to avoid a collision, but FIA, where is the document about it? The stewards probably decided that it DID NOT HAPPEN
• Top 10
• P1 - Norris
• P2 - Piastri
• P3 - Russell
• P4 - Leclerc
• P5 - Sainz
• P6 - Hamilton
• P7 - Verstappen
• P8 - Perez
• P9 - Albon
• P10 - Hulkenberg
• Norris complaining that he had done badly, and the surprise when he heard his engineer say he got pole, priceless hahahah

✦  Race:

• The race started 14 drivers with medium and 6 (Perez, Verstappen, Ocon, Tsunoda, Stroll, Bottas) using hard tires
• Norris started well, Russell tried to pass and got out, but Piastri helped it. Due to that GR brake late and hot out and also broke his front wing.
• Perez said on the radio that George had damage and it was dangerous, Russell changed only on the lap 12  and also put hard tires
• Piastri was able to do a beautiful overtaking on Norris.
• On the starting Hulkenberg collided with Yuki, it seems he was trying to Tsunoda’s car as break. Because of the collision on lap 6 Hulkenberg faz pit stop change to hard and change the front and on lap 7 Yuki retired.
• Hulkenberg was penalized with +10s
• Hulkenberg was also involved in a collision between him and Daniel, this time being Ricciardo’s fault, Ricciardo was penalized with +5s And he didn’t pay correctly so more +10s, ‘cause his mechanic touched the car, power of the habit.
• I didn’t talk about Verstappen on the summarize of the past Grand Prix due to his shy but good race, so here it’s some moments of him, actually will be a RBR in general
• Unfortunately for RBR the car was very slow the whole weekend and they were using their Frankenstein flor, nickname gave by team.
• Max complains that Lewis squeezed him if that didn't give a penalty
• Max had a really bad pit stop 6.2s on lap 24, he even smashed on the steering wheel. He put another set of hard tires. Actually, he and Checo went for the 2-stop strategy
• Even knowing that he didn’t have chances of win, he asked to his engineer if he could defend from Norris, what was approved, for him that was good cause made Norris waste his tires and fuel this way making difficult for him  to get a better position, this way keeping his advantage.
• Checo had a shy race but he started as P8, and finished in the same position, Max started as P7, and ended as P6.

✦  My opinion:

As we know the asphalt of track is new so the grip were getting all the drivers confused, and a lot of time getting over confident an ending up at the gravel, specially at the variant 2 and parabolic.

Colapinto made a good debut race In F1, he started as P18 and finished in P13, with Ricciardo’s penalty he was promoted as P12. Depending of his results on the next races, if they are good I can see two futures for first and positive one be an option for Sauber/Audi, the second not that cool it’s be just like Lawson’s case, because it’s only 9 races he can go back to F2, but Williams is a mess we can predict too much what the British team is gonna do.

I said before and I’ll say again McLaren forgot how to be a winner team, they have THE car, but they don’t have the strategy, as a Papaya fan saying that hurts me. It were 9 races to the end and you let your drivers compete, when one of them is the one with more chances of winning the Drivers Championship is crazy.

Piastri overtaking on Norris was beautiful that is a a fact, but strategically thinking McLaren let the both drivers to compete just prove that they don’t believe in their driver, Verstappen created a big advantage in the begging of the season, so for the rest of this year the best would be prioritize Norris, if McLaren wants a chance to win both of the championships and then next year start from zero, the best win.

But at the the end we know the only thing they care is about the constructors tittle ‘cause come with money, right know McLaren is only 8 points behind RBR.

Let’s talk about pitstops now the fastest one was Ocon’s Alpine with 2.01s. The the average pit stop was was 2.2s to 2.5s, but we had a 3.3 (Norris) 4.2s (Russell), and of course 6.2s (Verstappen). The drivers that made only one stop: Zhou, Bottas, Ocon, Ricciardo, Colapinto, Magnussen, Albon, Sainz and obviously Leclerc.

To finished let’s go to Leclerc and back to McLaren’s bad strategy, they pit both drivers twice, the first time in the right window for the 2- stops strategy, what made Ferrari to pit Leclerc. The Monegasque driver questioned his engineer, why they pit at that moment if that made them to suffer an undercut, and it was a very good question at the moment.

But the moment of the second pit call from McLaren is questionable to say the least. And that was the opportunity for Leclerc once again show how good driver he is, specially when the topic is manage his tires, he received the nickname of ‘tyre whisperer’ for a reason. Leclerc made a really amazing race, very smart, and special, a win at his second home, and Ferrari home race.

  ✮ ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM - Magnussen suspension:

Magnussen collided with Gasly at the entry to turn 4, his penalty was +10s an 2 penalty point on his super license.

The problem for him is with this 2 points completed 12 for the 12 month period, he is suspended for the next race. And after the following this suspension, 12 penalty points will be removed.

Since this rule was stablished Magnussen was the first to get the suspension

Haas can appeal this decision, I don`t think they will. Magnussen being out next race, the American team will have to 2 options of drivers to replace:

• Pietro Fittipaldi: unlikely ‘cause will be on the same weekend of the NTT IndyCar last race of the season
• Ollie Bearman: most likely ‘cause he’ll be Haas’ driver next year

Until this moment Haas didn’t OFFICIALLY confirmed:

• if they will or won’t appeal the decision
• which reserved driver they are gonna used, but it’s a obvious choice

Let me be very clear: Fans have already started a theory about Haas replacing Kevin for the rest of the season, but this is all it is a theory

So, see you soon!

Fondly, Nina