Italian Grand Prix Forecast

The Italian Grand Prix is the fastest race of the year, and I’ve a feeling not many Formula 1 fans can wait to see Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton charging towards the first corner at over 220mph to see what happens next in this thrilling title battle.

Monza is also the shortest race of the year because having the foot hard on the throttle for most of it speeds things up. It has no real corners apart from the two Lesmo's and the Parabolica, this year gravelless with tarmac replacing the run-off area which has made some drivers mourn the loss of what is a challenging corner. Now, as with so many other tracks the punishment for making a mistake is sadly lacking.

So with long straights and other than the aforementioned corners, slow corners this is really a track about power, with the drivers having to hustle the cars through the chicanes and the kerbs which can make a difference, but generally it's a track where a driver can't steal too much of an advantage.

There’s the usual two DRS zones, one on the start finish straight and one between turns 7 and 8. Pirelli are bringing their medium and hard compound rubber, I would have thought a one or two stop strategy would be the way forward, but tyre wear can be quite high, although a lot of the time manageable for just the one pit visit.

Of course those compounds won’t be used if it’s raining which looks a distinct possibility at the moment for at least one of the three days. Friday looks cloudy, Saturday could see rain for qualifying, while race day appears sunny for now. Mercedes would probably like it to be dry just to make it more likely there won’t be any unfortunate incidents.

There’s been huge amounts written on the rights and wrongs of what happened at the Belgian Grand Prix two weeks ago when Rosberg made an attempt to pass Hamilton at Les Combes that was never going to come off. The resultant damage of one puncture for Hamilton (and later retirement) and damaged front wing for Rosberg cost the team an almost certain 1-2 and left the Mercedes bosses full of anger and Rosberg with an enhanced championship advantage.

In no uncertain terms they blamed Rosberg for the collision, Hamilton then claimed to the press that Rosberg had said he'd not avoided the collision deliberately to 'prove a point' after a team briefing immediately after the race something which Rosberg denied at the time. Of course the press exploded with Rosberg being rather unfairly labelled a great many things.

Last Friday the Mercedes drivers were summoned to the factory where statements were hurriedly issued confirming that Rosberg regretted his actions and had apologised to Lewis and the team. Lewis on his side said that mistakes had been made on both sides and they would be able to work together in the future. The team said Rosberg had been sanctioned (rumoured to be a six figure sum of money) and that they would now move on with the drivers still free to race.

I do feel that Rosberg has been slightly hard done by. It was a clumsy move but I still think that Lewis could have left slightly more room. There's been a few times this season when the silver cars have been fighting where Lewis has rather robustly shut the door, only avoiding contact because Rosberg backed out. In a way it's understandable that Rosberg left the nose in to show he won't be shoved out of the way all the time. It could have been done better, like when there might have been a bigger chance for the move to have come off, but what's done is done.

Still if Rosberg wanted to prove a point it's not worked out too badly. Hamilton has said, admittedly before last Friday's statements, that he wasn't sure if he could trust racing alongside Rosberg anymore. Not what you want to hear as a racing driver as I'm sure you want to be respected for your skills but Nico might enjoy the thought that Lewis might hesitate when fighting him thereby making life a little easier. Having said that, I don't think that thought will last long, Lewis won't give up the fight so easily and when it comes down to it they both know that Hamilton has the edge in wheel to wheel combat and he always will.

He'll be on a  mission to finally put one over on Nico this weekend. A clean weekend where he can let his driving do the talking and get his title mission back on track. It'll start in qualifying where he'll be desperate to be back on pole position for the first time since Spain, six races ago. Then in the race he'll blast off into the distance leaving Nico trailing as Lewis thinks he should. It's just unfortunate that Nico seems to have been underestimated for such a long time, even now when he leads the world championship, I think it'll be a close one between these two.

Whether it's a fight for victory is very much open to debate in my opinion. In the last forecast I wrote that many others had written that Belgium would be a major chance for the Williams team to battle for the top spot. I always thought that was slightly optimistic, but on this one I think not. Powered by Mercedes, Williams often have the highest straight line speeds of anyone, as I've said there's a lack of any real corners to challenge the teams aerodynamic deficiency, so I would be surprised to not see at least one of them on the front row. Actually no, let's predict a Williams front row lock out providing it doesn't rain as H2O is not their friend.

Who'll be on top? On current form you'd have to say Valtteri Bottas, but remember it was Felipe Massa who scored their pole position earlier in the season in Austria. Massa particularly will really want to get on the podium this weekend after seeing his team mate on the rostrum four times out of the last five races. But if I was going for a winner I'd have to say Bottas. But wouldn't it be brilliant to see Massa score a win in Italy after his eight years of Ferrari service. I'm sure the crowd would appreciate that, especially as the likelihood is that Ferrari will be nowhere this weekend.

The Scuderia Team Principal Marco Mattiacci has made no secret that their home race is going to be a difficult weekend. This can be attributed to the power deficit Ferrari have to Mercedes. Still, they were expecting to struggle at Spa too but got a relatively competitive fourth and seventh out of Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso.

Obviously it isn’t the results Ferrari would usually like but it gives a little optimism for the weekend ahead. Having said that I think fourth at Monza would be very impressive, in general I think if they can get some decent points from the lower half of the top 10, they should be happy. It was nice to see Kimi finally shine a bit brighter last time out, hopefully he can continue that form, while Alonso had some tremendous battles, once again he’s always a driver to look out for.

I would think Red Bull will be the best non-Mercedes powered team this weekend. Running with the down on power Renault, they showed surprising speed on a power track like Spa. They did run with a miniscule rear wing but still were just about holding their own through the corners thanks to possibly the best chassis on the grid.

Daniel Ricciardo won his third Grand Prix of the year last time out adding yet more superlatives to what has been a brilliant year of racing for the Australian. He proved the better driver on race day over his four time champion team mate Sebastian Vettel despite being out qualified. 

Vettel seems to be able to extract his qualifying pace again in this car but too often his race day speed has not materialised. So far off the pace of Ricciardo and also damaging the tyres more was Vettel that he’s been given another new chassis this weekend in the hope of improved form. However, I don’t expect either Red Bull driver to feature on the podium this weekend no matter how small the rear wing, but if one were to appear I think we know who that would be.

Of course we’d like to see this race be more than just a Mercedes power unit fest, but Force India and McLaren could find themselves a bit further up the grid. Jenson Button would dearly love to have the car to show what he can do as he fights to stay on the grid. I think it’s a bit unfair of McLaren to be so publicly courting other drivers. Button is a good driver, if you build the car around him and give him exactly what he needs then he'll get you wins even if a title would be slightly optimistic.

Unfortunately for him it looks like they want a driver who’ll be able to be flat out whatever the cars circumstance. Kevin Magnussen was impressive at Spa but got handed a rather harsh penalty for being too aggressive. I'm sure he'll go all out to make up for it this weekend.

Toro Rosso grabbed a couple of points in Belgium curtesy of Daniil Kvyat. I’m sure he’s capable of doing that again but Jean-Eric Vergne needs to start beating him more regularly if he wants to stay on the grid next year. Sauber have been looking a bit more hopeful recently but it’s unlikely they’ll be points scoring. Kamui Kobayashi looks set to return to Caterham after the team failed to sell his seat to the highest bidder.

So, drivers fighting to stay on the grid, now and for next year, battles in the midfield, battles to take an opportunistic victory and the continuing and increasingly bitter inter team fight for championship glory. The Italian Grand Prix looks set to be unmissable.

all photo's taken from autosport.com