Make no mistake. Right now, the prevalent colour is red but there’s sufficient passion in each front running team to cause a blackout to its rival on the track.
It’s as if the dominant search engine optimisation phrase for this forthcoming F1 race is Tifosi but again, as has been the case in the recent past, it’s the Tifosi who’ve often been left bereft of seeing their Ferrari driver on the top step of the podium.
Alonso won a famous race here back in the day in what was just his maiden season with the Scuderia family. Vettel spun around here and fought back valiantly. Some of the best have both entertained and had their hearts broken.
Home to one of the most widely watched Grand Prix battles, Monza sways and slays in equal measure.
Round fifteen of the 2024 Formula 1 season takes the racing entourage to Monza, the venue of the Italian Grand Prix and undoubtedly, Ferrari’s home race.
An old school track much like Spa Francorchamps, Monza is as fast as it is famous and bellied by quick overtaking. In the space of the last half a decade, the famed Italian racing venue has been home to two blistering fast lap times, both of which found their place in the annals of F1 history.
It was back in 2018, where Kimi Raikkonen, then in his final season with the Scuderia stable set a ballsy 1:19:119. It was the fastest ever lap recorded in Formula 1 history.
The enigmatic Finn, then 38, sent Monza wild with an exhibition of a supremely quick effort that came during qualifying of the Italian Grand Prix, a drive that saw even Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton emerge clueless. Later on, the 2007 world champion secured his 100th F1 podium upon the completion of the race while the man responsible for the cult phrase “Hammertime” hammered his opponents on the field with victory going to Sir Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes.
However, that was just one of the fast paced occurrences at Monza that defined the event in the most recent times.
As seen in the 2023 season, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz jr., who’s currently in his final year in red racing overalls, sent Monza and the Tifosi into a tizzy by clocking a speedy 1:20:294 during qualifying.
It was a heroic effort that saw the Spaniard claim pole on a day where apparently Max Verstappen’s racy Red Bull could so easily have smashed the speed charts.
Even then, the Smooth Operator’s rampant effort earned a much needed reprieve of sorts for his stable in a year where victories had been hard to come by for just about every single constructor that was on the same grid as Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team.
But as was the case with Kimi versus Lewis on race day with yet another smashing pole not resulting in victory for the pole sitter, Sainz was overtaken by Verstappen by lap 15 and later, by his the Dutchman’s teammate Perez as Ferrari could hang on to a third.
Over the years, Monza, the spiritual home of Grand Prix racing in Italy at its finest has seen action-packed, blazingly quick racing with drivers not holding themselves back in getting their elbows out.
Take for exampleDaniel Ricciardo’s 2017 drive at the venue where despite not even bagging a podium in his mercurial Red Bull, the Aussie clubbed and bettered one car after another in an exhibition of faultless overtaking. In that race, the likes of Nico Hulkenberg and later, both Ferrari drivers- Vettel and Raikkonen- were subject to backbreaking overtaking manoeuvres that saw them with little to no answers in front of the smiling assassin’s moves.
This time around, the team most likely to emerge triumphant is McLaren with Lando Norris fresh from his mega Dutch GP victory, a winning effort that saw him on the top step of the podium for just the second time ever. Not that Red Bull with a new floor and some improvements aren’t in it to win it, but who knows which way might the pendulum swing?
Verstappen, who claimed a tenth consecutive win here in 2023 when he clobbered Sainz and Leclerc as also his own teammate Perez would like to fight back having lost just last weekend and claim another Italian GP victory.
But in front of the faultless driving being exhibited by his young British opponent, would that be even possible? Can Perez get into the act or can any of the two Mercedes drivers- between Hamilton and Russell- find enough pace to claw their way back to the top step on the Monza podium? There’s so much to play for and so much has actually even changed this time around.
In what is the 75th installation of the Italian GP and, the track has changed somewhat. But how exactly?
The historic kerbs have, year, most noticeably, been changed to allow more scope for overtaking. Moreover, with the challenging Asphalt surface that could well lead to a relatively higher degree of tyre degradation, the Monza race of 2024 could be exasperating and exhausting even given the soaring heat in Italy at this time.
It could be said that one who keeps his cool to contend with track temperature and soaring challenges on the grid is the one, who’ll likely prevail in the end. But then who will it be? For now, it’s all down to qualifying that begins in the next few hours.
Source– YouTube screengrab from F1.com channel