2011 Italian GP **SPOILERS** + Race Statistics

can't help but rather admire how Schumacher has held up Lewis today...



RedSam
Winner: Not the Nickv Comment of the Year 2009
Due to the voting system in Germany, Governments are always made up of coalitions of different parties. At the last election, an almost unprecidented result saw the CDU/CSU (rough equivilant of the Conservatives) go into Government with the SPD (rough equivilant of Labour)

Vettel's going to do it.

Pole.
Win.
Fastest lap.

Everytime Lewis/Button sets a lap he goes and edges it. He is pure genius. I cant help but feel if Mclaren did not f*ck up their starts Vettel would have had a tough time but thats the way it goes.

edit - Good to see Button able to match, and beat Hamilton's pace. People were moaning about Button's balance issues on Friday yet he should have out qualified Lewis yesterday, and he has out raced Lewis by a long way today. Big boost for Button. Who could have predicted this in 2007/2008. Or even worse 2001/2002?

My driver of the day, but Vettel was epic. His overtake on Alonso was as awesome as Webber on Alonso at Spa. I thought Alonso was not fair with it, but Vettel was super brave.

edit - Lewis fastest lap. Vettel look it easy last lap. Shame.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2011 03:24PM by chet.

from grandprixworldf1.blogspot.com

My review of the race


Vettel Dominates in Truly Majestic Italian Grand Prix
Sebastian Vettel Led Jenson Button to take Red Bull's First Grand Prix win at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

Fernando Alonso Battled Vettel for the lead at the start of the race yet fell foul towards the end due to characteristics of the Hard Tyre. Jenson Button as ever passed his way from what was a bad start to finish ahead of Alonso with cool and calm overtakes during the race.

Lewis Hamilton will rue the mistake he made at the safety car period after he was swamped by the ever improving Mercedes of Michael Schumacher yet managed to redeem himself with a pass at the Variante Ascari.

Vettel continues his stranglehold of the 2011 Championship and can win the championship in Singapore, especially with Red Bull and Vettel's current Hot Streak.

Alonso moves up to 2nd with Button 3rd, ahead of Webber after his retirement.

It was the ever fast starting Alonso who took the lead on the first lap with a simply audacious move at the start. The race had to be under safety car conditions due to a collision involving, Liuzzi, Barrichello, Petrov & Rosberg. All but Barrichello retiring. But the Race was something so special to the crowd, Michael Schumacher putting in one of his fantastic starts again, from 8th to 4th, then subsequently 3rd after Hamiltons mistake during the safety car lap.

Webber's Race was over due to an audacious move on Massa which left Massa having to carve his way through to 6th and Webber straight into the Tepco Barriers at the Parabolica.

With Vettel way into the lead, the cameras were focussed on the fight between Hamilton and Schumacher. Schumacher driving with such defensive might and Hamilton quite edgy (especially with the recent collision with Kobayashi in Belgium). There was some controversy when it appeared that Schumacher had in fact defended twice, rather than the allowed FIA rule of only 1 defensive manoeuvre. With Michael's rear tyres Blistering and funny enough Ross Brawn telling his driver to calm down, Hamilton had the run on him before the Variante Ascari.

Jaime Alguesuari, Paul Di Resta & Bruno Senna (who scored his first point) rounded off the top 10.

what a great race...

first Alonso takes the lead in epic style, and Schumacher doing another one of his starts and getting there in 3rd

and Schumi... 26 laps holding Hamilton.. @#$%& awesome, the guy needs a better car, he still got it, no mistakes, no pressure, just ice cold Schumacher.. it was amazing to see him retake his place with determination.. and when i taught it was all down to the car, Jenson goes and overtakes them both with ease.. just like in Spa, Schumy and Jenson where the emotion in the race...

Ross might have told Schumi to let Hamilton by to prevent a "penalty?".. for me it was hard racing, but the overtaking maneuver appeard too easy compared to his previous attemps

Vettel's gone now, but it could've been different had the start went smooth, however he did more than enough by retaking the lead from Alonso..

another great F1 race, even if the same guy wins

ps: Liuzzi deserves a race ban... what was he thinking?

I really enjoyed today's race. Some incidents, quite a lot of action at all stages of the race, lots of strategy coming into play with the differing gear ratios, DRS zones and choice of when to deploy KERS. A big success for the new rules I think. Another very good drive from Button - he's really removed himself from that unofficial "number 2 driver" that most of us assumed (understandably) he would be when he joined McLaren. As for Schuey, what a bloody amazing defensive driver he is, I really respect that. So defensive that Martin Whitmarsh called it "aggressive". At the same time, I would have more than understood a drive through penalty for one or two of his moves but in general, excellent.

Hamilton's interview was weird and kind of sad. It seems like that guy more than anyone has come into F1 without much "life experience" as such - the difference in maturity between him and Jenson seems huge. I wonder if the combination of these accidents and the subsequent criticisms mixed with the general good performance of Jenson this year has kind of broken him mentally. From the various interviews and the grand prix today, he seems to have made a commitment to have more restraint on and off-track, but that interview was just inauthentic. No-one would have berated him for saying Schuey made a couple of moves he wasn't happy with, but instead just "sure [he drove fine]". In regards to Jenson, he still seems slower on absolute pace than Lewis but he has strengths Lewis does not, and the interview with Jenson and Martin showed how well Jenson has gelled with the team. Maybe Lewis doesn't feel as respected in the team? Who knows. Anyways, interested to see where this leads.

Lewis is having a difficult time in F1 but so did Jenson. The problem for Lewis is that he is always in the spot light, more so than Jenson in the early years.

Lewis will learn with experience as Jenson did but it is not helping Lewis as they are team mates, and one guy is getting it right on a constant basis.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

Excellent race! The Hamilton/Schumacher battle was fantastic, as was Vettel. That was a brilliant move on Alonso there. Once again in this race, Alonso is proving a little passive in defence. Obviously he thought he did enough against Vettel, but against Button, it seemed odd.

More bad luck for Massa, but I guess that's the way it is. His pace seemed good, so it would've been interesting to see where he, and Webber, would've ended up in relation to the Hamilton/Schumacher/Button battle.

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X (@ed24f1)

Liuzzi handed a 5 place grid penalty...... like that's gonna really make a difference

To be fair, a HRT has never overtaken as many cars in a race as Liuzzi did today...



RedSam
Winner: Not the Nickv Comment of the Year 2009
Due to the voting system in Germany, Governments are always made up of coalitions of different parties. At the last election, an almost unprecidented result saw the CDU/CSU (rough equivilant of the Conservatives) go into Government with the SPD (rough equivilant of Labour)

OMG HAHAHAHAH

last 2 post!, Brilliant!

What a cracking race. Anybody who thought Vettel can't overtake or Schumacher should give up just needs to keep replaying this one till the penny drops. I put Vettel's move on Alonso alongside Webber's move on Alonso into Eau Rouge for the sheer awe factor.

Fantastic performance by MS. Pushed it at times with the defensive driving, but it's in the guy's nature and none of the moves he made were exactly Hungary 2010 replays. He seems to have calmed down his defensive driving, there wasn't the element of desperation to it today that there has been in the past. Also his race pace was very strong yet again. He's now, IMO anyway, got himself up to a strong enough level of performance that he'd be a real menace to the RedBulls if only his car was on the pace.

Another great strong drive from Jenson. My joint favourite moment of the race was probably when he overtook Lewis and then MS in quick succession.

Another difficult race for Lewis, but I was impressed by his mature reaction to MS, both on the track and in his interview afterwards.

Webber: ...

Good drive by Alonso, did a brilliant job at the start and then did the best he could with the car he had.

A strong drive by Senna too, and what he needed to do after Spa. Getting past Buemi was what helped make the difference between a decent drive and a good one IMO. Hopefully he's done enough to secure himself the drive for the rest of the season at least. Good to see him score his first points as well.

Also good to see Ricciardo's promising start continuing. Outqualifying Liuzzi here must have been a sweet moment for him as well as a significant one.


gav écrivait:
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> Nah, they start on the tyres they did their best
> lap on, and Hamilton's was done on the previous
> set, so he'll be fine.

Ah, coolio. I'd forgotten about that! My bad then.

(Regarding the French quoting - I'm posting from my phone and the site comes up in French on here for some reason :-/ )

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Red Sam écrivait:
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> To be fair, a HRT has never overtaken as many cars
> in a race as Liuzzi did today...

Or got as much TV time!

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Senna and Alguersuari both had excellent races.

Great race in general, we haven't seen a pileup like that in ages.

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GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski

So everyone, Who was your driver of the day? Personally, I think 4 way tie, Vettel (had balls to pull off that move on Alonso), Button (As ever putting in a strong race, with some overtakes), Alguesuari (From 18th to 7th, the kids got potential) and of course last but not least Schumi (Great start, and showed he still has the speed and defensive strategy to block a quick driver like Hamilton)

TBH I think the penalty for Liuzzi was a little harsh. He was forced onto the grass and was then powerless to do anything about it. It wasn't his fault he was forced onto the grass, so how can he be at fault for what happened after that?

Reminds me of Heidfeld smashing into Sato in Austria (I think) one year and also the secondary accident at the start of Australia 2002 where someone went down the inside sideways and wiped out half of the field.

elpasho2005f1 Wrote:
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> So everyone, Who was your driver of the day?

For me it was Vettel, MS, Button and Senna, each one was outstanding in their own way.


loque Wrote:
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> Reminds me of Heidfeld smashing into Sato in
> Austria (I think) one year and also the secondary
> accident at the start of Australia 2002 where
> someone went down the inside sideways and wiped
> out half of the field.

Heidfeld in Austria 2002 had brake failure. The more similar accident would have been Australia 2002, and I can't remember exactly who caused the secondary pile-up, although something tells me it was Massa.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2011 10:58PM by EC83.

LOL it's on your sig. It was either Massa (who doesn't have a great track record of navigating turn 1 for the first time at Melbourne) or one of the Jordans. I do remember ITV's coverage showing it more clearly but I'll be buggered if I can find it on Youtube.

Yeah, I'm so used to seeing the sig it goes way over my head whenever that race start comes up in discussions. :D

Massa was spinning in the middle of the carnage with a badly smashed-up car and at that point in his career was inclined to run into anything that moved and a lot of things that didn't, so yeah, you'd think it might be him. Sato at that stage in his career was also an epic fail expert.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2011 12:17AM by EC83.

Quiet a few things have been said after this race all over the web.

Ms got away with murder today yet again, drive throughs have been handed out for less. Yet again though Lewis was to soft when defending a place, he should have blocked MS more after passing him. I think DC and Brundle over reacted to some of the moves MS done, I only saw 2 really bad ones if I am honest.

Webber got no penalty for causing a crash with mass and cost mass places. Massa got no penalty for spinning his car round and touched a Lotus, yet Lewis in Hungry hit no one and got one.

The penalty for Tonio is a bloody joke.

I enjoyed the race but I think DRS actually made it worse as the cars just sat in the rev limiter and without it they would have geared the cars up better. Also when will Mclaren learn not to fit big rear wings at Monza lol. Yes DRS is meant to get you closer to the car in front to help you set up a pass, did it work today? I don't think so.

Also Mclaren drivers keep on failing to make good starts, even single race this year it has been a problem.

Well done to Bruno in getting his 1st points, I think Petrov maybe the one who gets replaced next year in that team.

Luizzi wasn't forced off the track at all. That crash was all his fault and frankly he deserved more than a 5 place drop (which will drop him from... last to last?)

He got a slipstream from a Lotus, decided to use space that wasn't there - the grass that Alonso clipped at the start (though most of Luizzi's car was on it) - then decided that wasn't enough, so he forced his way alongside a Sauber by just not braking, and by then he'd scared himself silly and developed a tank-slapper.

His other alternative was to take a sensible pill, try not to lead going into Curve Grande and simply back out rather than running on the grass THREE TIMES on a straight, ruining several other driver's races in the process.

That's what you do on F1 2010, not in real life.

Had he gone in gearbox first rather than just touching him with the front-end, it could have been very, very nasty for Petrov - as mentioned much like Heidfeld's crash with Sato in 2002.