|
‘Are you here for the Formula 1?’ asked the clerk at the hire car desk as I handed over my licence on arrival into Milan’s Linate airport. He said it with a certain glee, so while confirming his suspicion, I inquired as to whether he enjoyed F1.
‘ Yes, I like Formula One; anything with an engine. Football, no. I hate football’ he glowered, ‘rugby is OK. But any sport with a motor, that’s what I like.’ As he tapped away on the computer keyboard I noticed his name badge said Stefano, and it made me think of Stefano Domenicali who came so close to leading Ferrari to championship success in both 2010 and 2012. Indeed in 2012, Ferrari’s man Fernando Alonso left Monza leading the championship with a 39 point margin over the driver who would ultimately win that year’s title, Sebastian Vettel. ‘So will Ferrari win this weekend?’ I asked. ‘ I’m not so sure,’ he said slowly, looking at me directly. ‘Mercedes is very strong, no? But what is good is the fight, one and then the other. That is what I like. I hope….but I do not know.’ And that in many ways is the story of the season. Nobody really knows which of the two teams will be the strongest at any particular circuit, or even on any particular day. Spa was a reminder of that, with Vettel pushing Hamilton throughout the race on a circuit that we thought would probably favour the Silver Arrows, but which proved incredibly close. Without that late Safety Car or without Hamilton’s instinctive racecraft, it could well have been a Ferrari victory and there was so little to choose between them. This weekend we come to Ferrari’s geographical territory but Mercedes’ competitive stomping ground in recent years; Toto Wolff’s team is aiming to become the first ever constructor in over 80 years of racing at Monza to win here four times in a row. They have a magnificent power unit combined with a relatively low drag chassis that should be a winning combo once again. But nothing is simple in this year’s championship. The Ferrari is an incredibly responsive yet stable car, shorter in wheelbase which should help with direction change through the chicanes, and superb on the brakes; even Toto admitted to that on our C4 programme last week. And being that this is their home race, one can only imagine the effort that will have gone into extracting everything possible out of what will be a pretty unique low-downforce aerodynamic package. Keep your eyes peeled for wafer-thin rear wings, much like Ricciardo and Red Bull experimented with in Belgium. I’m sure that in the bowels of Ferrari’s factory in Maranello, there must be a group of engineers whose sole task is to make the car fast at Monza… As for the drivers themselves, both key contenders adore racing here. Hamilton has as many pole positions (five) as anyone and his three wins have all come in the last five years. Vettel has also won here three times, including his remarkable first ever win at the wheel of a Toro Rosso in the pouring rain. They traded victories here between 2011 and 2015, and only Rosberg has snatched a victory from them in the six years since that sequence began. The history, the sense of interacting with the greats of Grand Prix racing is more powerful here than at any other circuit on the calendar, and both are striving to put their names at the very top of the list. This weekend promises to be another monumental showdown, and for the Tifosi, the army of Ferrari fans who live and breath every turn of a red car’s wheel, the sheer possibility of success should be enough to whip them up into an even more heightened fervour. The opportunity to see a Ferrari win at home for the first time in 7 years will draw them in from all over Italy, and I can only hope that the majority of them are as even-minded as the rental car clerk, and prepared to ride the wave of unpredictability in this season’s fascinating duel.
3 Comments
For some race fans that I know, the answer may be very short and begin with an ’n’ . Kimi Raikkonen’s last victory in F1 came at the Australian Grand Prix of 2013 when he was driving for the Lotus team, the Enstone based oufit that has morphed back into Renault F1 in recent times. That victory was three and a half years ago, and despite being with Ferrari since the start of 2014, he has been unable to add to his winning tally of 20, a number he shares with fellow Finn Mika Hakkinen. Arguably the closest he has come was at Monaco this year when he earned a genuine pole position and led the first part of the race until Ferrari called him in before Vettel, and as a result he lost his advantage. Similarly in Hungary last time out, he had the pace to pull away from Vettel but was never given the opportunity; it was all about giving the driver with the best chance in the title race every possible benefit.
As we go into the furiously busy last three months of the season, that objective will not change unless Vettel drops so far out of the reckoning that Kimi can no longer help. By announcing a year’s extension to Raikkonen’s contract, Ferrari have both rewarded his efforts to date and given him cause to carry on doing much the same in the future. His task for the remainder of this year will be to assist Vettel whenever he can, and to thwart Mercedes at every turn. Some would argue that he hasn’t done that effectively; after all, Bottas is well ahead of him in the points and has generally done a better job by comparison. Perversely however, the success that Bottas has enjoyed has given Mercedes a bit of a headache. Valtteri is still in with a shout at the title, and Mercedes pride themselves in allowing their drivers to race each other. Remember how we departed from Hungary, with Lewis Hamilton wondering if he had done the correct thing in allowing Bottas back into third place? Life is not as simple in that garage. Of course, who’s to say that Vettel will always be in a position to be helped? Here at Spa, the first corner is notorious for incident and last year the two Ferraris ended up hitting each other as a result of a racy move by Max Verstappen. Back in 2012 we saw an almighty shambles when Romain Grosjean flew over the top of Fernando Alonso and earned himself a race ban for Monza. At some point it is likely that Vettel will either drop out of a race or be taken out, and that will release Kimi from his obligations. Nobody on the current grid has won as many F1 races at Spa as Raikkonen. He is third on the all time list behind only Schumacher and Senna and his last ever win at the wheel of a Ferrari was here in 2009. Last year he ouqualified Vettel by a couple of tenths, and he displayed similar superiority on the high speed sweeps of Silverstone just a few weeks ago. He can still deliver. But to win here at Spa in anything other than a Mercedes is surely asking a huge amount. The Silver Arrows have been the dominant cars in Belgium since the current engine formula began in 2014, even if they did hand a win to Red Bull that year. Hamilton started at the back with engine penalties last season yet finished 3rd and and he will be looking to produce a Canada or Silverstone style performance this weekend to re-energise his championship hopes. It’s not a foregone conclusion, because Pirelli have brought their softest tyres and while Hamilton did use them to great effect in Montreal there have been other events where Ferrari have been able to run longer stints on the more pliable rubber. Add the fact that rain is forecast for Sunday, and this becomes a much harder race to predict. Kimi for the win? Stranger things have happened…. |
AuthorF1 commentator Ben Edwards sets out some thoughts. Archives
May 2018
Categories |
RSS Feed