Luke’s Weekend Take – Italian GP 2023

Leave a Comment / News / By

Monza's Temple of Speed: Italian GP Weekend Highlights and Special Liveries

Monza 3

We are back at the legendary circuit in Monza for the Italian GP which is also known as the Temple of Speed and also the home race for 3 of the teams on the F1 Grid which are Alfa Romeo, Alpha Tauri but the most famous and historical one is of course Ferrari and a lot of Tifosi fans travel from all around the world to see Ferrari race on their home ground.

Talking about Ferrari they are again, running a special livery for this weekend which like last year the car and the driver race suits have some yellow elements which is celebrating the latest win back in June that the 499P was able to get at the 24 hours of Le Mans. I personally am a big fan of the yellow elements on the Ferrari, and I think they should run it for the whole season. Ferrari wasn’t the only team with a special livery this weekend as Alfa Romeo come out with a new livery as a tribute for their latest road car release, the 33 Stradale and the livery features the Italian flag with some gold elements to match the car. Again, I think this should be run for the whole season as it really suits the car and I think it looks exceptional.

Looking at the weekend ahead now, we can talk about the Alternate tyre allocation this weekend much like what we had in Hungary earlier this year, this will mean that the teams will get a total of 11 sets of tyres per car opposed to the usual 13 sets per car and in Qualifying the cars will be forced to use the Hard tyres for Q1, the Medium tyres for Q2 and the Soft tyres for Q3 in order to qualify and help with the fight against Net Zero Carbon which F1 are committed to achieve by 2030. Weekends like this will help the FIA and the teams to test potential future processes and tyre allocations to waste less rubber and still put on a great show for the fans and be safe racing on track.

In FP1 we start by seeing Felipe Drugovich replace Lance Stroll for the session in the Aston Martin and get his first running in an F1 car this season and what a way to start on such a legendary track with so much history. Drugovich had a good session and did no mistakes on his first outing in the Aston Martin and by the end of the session despite finishing in 18th place, he was less than a second off to the other Aston Martin being driven by Fernando Alonso.

For one of the home teams Alfa Romeo, FP1 was not a good session for them as in the beginning both cars driven by Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu had issues with their software and the cars were going into Anti Stall so they were not able to get going as early as they would have wanted. After the team sorted the issue out both cars were out on track but both drivers again were not happy with the driveability of the car as it was bottoming out a lot. Alfa Romeo did manage to get to the bottom of the issues though as we hear Bottas report that the car is much better towards the end of FP1.

The rest of the session was normal as all teams just put their head down and ran their programs for the weekend to gather as much data as possible ahead of the race on Sunday. One moment we saw is Alex Albon when he had a moment at the exit of the famous Ascari chicane as his rear end snapped on the exit and Albon dips the tyres in the gravel, luckily Albon was able to keep the car out of the barriers and got away with no damage. Max Verstappen tops the leaderboard followed by Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez in FP1.

In FP2 Lance Stroll had a bit of misfortune himself as 4 minutes into the Session his Aston Martin lost power and he had to pull over to the side which meant that his session was over before it started as he didn’t manage to set a timed lap given he was still on his out lap. This meant that on Friday, Stroll had no running in both practices given that Drugovich was driving in FP1 which put Stroll on the back foot ahead of the rest of the weekend. Strolls car brought out the Red Flag until the Marshalls were able to clear the car off the track.

Monza Qualifying Drama: Sainz Takes Pole, Ferrari Fans Hope for Home Win

Traffic is the word this weekend as from FP2 we started seeing and hearing drivers report of other drivers blocking them during their fast runs, and with a short track this is always going to happen to a certain extent as everyone tries to find some clean space in order to be able to do their fast runs and run their race programs as well. Lewis Hamilton was one of the names that was being mentioned the most over the radio by other drivers as he had a few moments where other drivers felt like he was in the way of them. Stewards took no actions against Hamilton or anyone for that matter but at times you could see the last straight before the Parabolica corner, it was like there was a traffic jam.

Midway through the session we see both Ferraris in the top 2 spots of the leaderboard which dare I say it, was giving me hope on what we might get on Sunday for the race. Towards the end of the session, we see Perez lose control of his Red Bull on the last corner and after a few spins in the gravel comes to a halt slightly hitting the rear wing into the barriers. This incident brings the Red Flag out again on Friday for the Marshalls to clear his car from the track. The session restarts with 4 minutes left and all cars went out for one last run, and we see Sainz top the leaderboard in FP2 followed by Lando Norris and Sergio Perez taking P3 for the 2nd time on the Friday despite him taking an early exit in FP2 following his crash.

FP3 was practically eventless as all the teams again put their head down and got on with their programs they planned to run for the weekend and apart of a few drivers getting in the way of others we had nothing exciting happening in FP3. The only thing of note was that Sainz was once again 1st on the leaderboard in FP3 followed by Max and Hamilton. Hope continues to grow for all the Ferrari fans out there.

We now head into the afternoon and qualifying gets under way at the temple of speed. In Q1 we see Esteban Ocon have a bit of a moment at the exit of the Ascari chicane and potentially picked up some floor damage, unfortunately the team had no time to fix this and Ocon had to live with it and go back out on track to try and get out of Q1. Unfortunately, Ocon was unable to do so as we see Zhou Guanyu, Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon, Kevin Magnussen and Lance Stroll eliminated at the end of Q1. This was a major shock to see both Alpines and Lance Stroll eliminated in Q1, however given that Ocon had damage and Stoll had limited running this weekend, it was slightly understandable.

 In Q2 it went more as one would have expected as we see Yuki Tsunoda, Liam Lawson, Nico Hulkenberg, Valtteri Bottas and Logan Sargeant eliminated at the end of Q2. Q3 on the other hand was an amazing one especially for all the Ferrari fans who travelled so far to see exactly this. After the first run Sainz had provisional pole with Charles Leclerc in 3rd spot which was looking highly promising and when it came to the second run is when the nail-biting moments came. Leclerc was leading the pack so he was the first to cross the line and what a lap he had to take provisional pole from Sainz, this moment was short lived as Max Verstappen managed to go quicker and pushed Leclerc in 2nd spot, this is the moment where I thought that this was going to be just another weekend where Max takes pole and that’s it. Sainz though had other thoughts, He was showing speed all weekend long and he managed to snatch pole from Verstappen by 0.013s and the crown went wild. Top 10 for tomorrow will look like this: Carlos Sainz on pole followed by Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Sergio Perez, Alex Albon, Oscar Piastri, Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso.

As if Q3 was not enough, at the end of Q1 all the Tifosi fans had their heart drop as we all saw the message that both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were noted for not following the lap time process and potentially drove too slow on their out lap at the end of Q1 and that this will be investigated after the session. Luckily after qualifying ended we saw the message pop up saying that no further investigation was required for this incident and Sainz was able to keep his pole with Leclerc starting in 3rd place which if I’m being honest, I thought that the Ferrari curse was going to strike again and they were about to get grid penalties.

Do you think the Ferraris can keep up the pace they have shown all weekend so far and stop Max Verstappen from breaking the record for most consecutive wins in a row (he is currently tied with Sebastian Vettel), or do you think the Red Bull car is far too quick and will manage to take the top step once more? I for one will be cheering for the boys in red, black and yellow tomorrow hoping they can get a 1-2 in their home race.

Share this article with your friends

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *