Highlights from the 2014 Italian Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa on the podium after the Italian Grand Prix

Slow start for Hamilton

After all said, spoken about, views, reviews and analysis, the whole F1 fraternity was eagerly waiting for the proceedings between the two silver arrows cars post the beligum gp crash gate. In the lead up to the race, Mercedes’ driver and Championship leader, Nico Rosberg, apologised to all the fans and his team for his accident with his team mate Lewis Hamilton. The Mercedes team clearly stated to their drivers that they should put the team’s interest ahead of individual, and any crossing of the line would be treated severely.

Like always, Lewis leads the pack through the practice sessions, but only this time he got his qualifying mojo off. He maintained his advantage over his team mate throughout the qualifying and secured the pole by nearly three tenths of a second. Nico Rosberg locked out the front row for Mercedes. Interesting feature here is that the first six cars on the grid were powered by the same power unit supplier (guess the first time since 1982) as the 2nd row was taken by the Williams’ of Bottas and Massa, and that of 3rd by Magnussen and Button.

The low downforce nature of the Monza track might have played a part in getting that result as the Mercedes engines have a lil bit more grunt when compared to the Renault and the Ferrari engines. The top 10 filled up by Ferrari’s Alonso, the two Red Bulls of Vettel and Ricciardo and the Force India of Perez. The qualifying gave the fans what they wanted to see. An all Mercedes front row in a drag down to the twisty first chicane with high chances of a repeat of the Belgium GP contact.

Come the race start, it was disappointing as Race Start assistance system on Lewis’ car bogged down which meant he had less time to get away compared to his team mate. Rosberg cleared off into the lead with Hamilton in a damage limitation process by steering through the chicane in 4th place. Due to Hamilton’s slow get away, Bottas didn’t have enough space to get around and ultimately had to give away places and was down to 9th. For a change, Massa had a clear get away off the grid and into 2nd place by the end of the first corner. After his initial problems with the energy recovery system, Hamilton finally got going and overtook Magnussen and Massa in quick time. On Lap 12, Rosberg made his first of 2 straight on runs after he outbraked himself into turn 1. This one didn’t prove costly, but reduced the gap to his team mate in 2nd place.

Team advise ignored

Vettel started the first round of pit stops when he chose an aggresive strategy to stop early, and go long in the last stinct. Rest of them followed in 2 to 3 laps. Meanwhile, Bottas was picking up places down the start-finish straight owing to his much quciker Mercedes powered Williams. In no time, he was into 4th place after his poor start in the first lap. The action for the whole race seemed to be around here from 4th place to 9th place almost through out the race. By the end of the first round of pit stops, it was the 2 Mercs followed by the 2 Williams.

Hamilton, who was asked to maintan a gap of 2 to 2.5 secs to his team mate to have a longer second stinct, did not heed to the advise and went on the attack. As in the qualifying, Lewis was clearly quicker than Rosberg by 0.3 of a second. Rosberg was thus pressurised into his 2nd mistake of the afternoon which lead to the hand over of the race lead to his team mate. From then on, it was Game, Set and Match for Hamilton, who just cruised to victory.

Smart move by Ricciardo

So, it was ain’t that spicy up front as everyone was hoping for. Both the Mercs maintained their pace and scored an easy 1-2 (seventh or the season). Massa, who for just the 2nd time in the season had a trouble free race in clean air, scored his first podium of the season and the first since 2013 Spanish GP. Bottas came in lonely 4th. But, the race for 5th to 9th places entertained the fans till the last lap.

Ricciardo is now making it a habit to strike late and strike hard. It was on Hamilton and Alonso in Hungary, and now on his team mate Vettel. May be due to his style of driving, he is able to save the tyre performance and increase its life in comparison to his 4 time world champion team mate, Vettel. Vettel who stopped early, had to do a much longer last stinct, and eventually had to give way to his team mate. The message from the Red Bull pit board “Lets get him Daniel” was the bottom line for the race!! Ricciardo’s move on Vettel was quite entertaining, round the outside through turn 3 and then flicking to the inside at the chicane into turns 4 & 5.

A little earlier, it was a simialr move by Perez on Button, the latter went completely out of shape through the chicane and had lesser traction out of it. Kevin Magnussen got penalised yet again for forcing Bottas off the track at turn 1 chicane. It was the 2nd time he got penalised in consecutive races.

Mercedes rule out any conspiracy theories

The race also saw a disappointing end for TIFOSI. The sea of Red who have come in to see the Scarlet car perform in turn saw their ace driver Alonso retiring from the race, and Raikkonen in 9th place. The last time when Alonso retired from a race is 2013 Malaysia when he damaged his front wing in a collison with Mark Webber. Now, the big question surrounding the F1 paddock post race is whether the Mercedes team did it on purpose and enacted the whole situation to give Lewis the victory in lieu of what happened at Spa.

Though the Mercedes team and Rosberg have ruled out even minute chances of such “CONSPIRACY” thoeries, the F1 fraternity is analysing the issue at length. Sir Jackie Stewart claimed that “The first straight on was understandable. But for the second one, there was no need for Rosberg to go straight on with just a slight lock up”. For the 2nd race in a row, Rosberg got the “booing” treatment on the podium as fans started “booing” as he was coming onto the podium.

Lot of entertainment left

The Italian GP marks the end of the European leg. With the remaining 6 fly away races in Asia and the Americas, it is going to be quite an end to the season. Will there be more “Conspiracy” theories on the way or just flat out racing to the heavy weight final race at Abu Dhabi.

2014 is turning out to be quite an entertaining season after all the initial hue and cry regarding the sound of the engines, the hybrid power units and lack of downforce. Next stop is at the streets of Singapore under the night skies!! It would be definitely another cracker of a race with back on to the high downforce nature of the circuits. Expect the Red Bulls back in their slot as the “best of the rest” tag after the Mercs, or who knws may be they can even challenge for their 4th win of the season, especially by the way Ricciardo is driving. He captilised on every situation, and was there to take the win when the Mercs ran into some issue (both Mechanical and Psycological ones).