viva italien

It was the Italian Grand Prix this last weekend.

It’s held at the Monza circuit, which is almost flat out - the track is mostly long straights with only a handful of corners.  They’ve actually added a few chicanes over the years to try to slow things down, but even with them it still only takes about an hour and 20 minutes to run.

When you think that some f the tracks (Singapore in particular) they’re often banging up against the two hour limit and that all races are intended to be about 200miles long (I think - there’s certainly an intended length) it dhows you how quick it is.

Despite that, the race was not normally one of my favourites.  See, while fast is probably great when you’re at the circuit, on TV it’s one of the first things you loose.  It also tended to make things processional - you don’t normally overtaken the straights, you overtaken the corners, out breaking or out manoeuvring the other guy.

But this weekend’s race was great, and I think is probably another testament to the clever things the Pirelli guys have done with the tyres.  There were also two DRS zones and I have to say it seemed to be giving the types of overtakes I’m not a fan of, where they just use the DRS to overtaken the straight, which is boring.

The race was also enlivened by a big battle between Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher.  Schumacher managed to sneak ahead of Lewis in the first couple of laps and then Lewis seemed to really struggle to get around him.

There seemed to be a few clear reasons for that.  Firstly, the Mclaren also uses the Mercedes engine, which is acknowledged to be about the most powerful on the grid at the moment.  Also Mercedes had gone for a slightly different strategy, using a very skinny wing that didn’t have a DRS flap, but also, crucially, gearing the car higher so it could take better advantage of the high speeds.

That meant Lewis didn’t have a particular advantage, but also I think he wanted to be a little more cautious and be sure to finish the race.  Also, and it has to be said, Schumacher was, while not really breaking the rules, flirting with them.  What he was doing would have been fine a few years ago, but nowadays they’ve added rules about how you can move about on the track.

Now there was no punishment, but it was odd that Ross Brawn seemed to have to warn Schumacher to leave room for Lewis.

Unfortunately, from a championship point of view, Vettel won, which means he’s got it all but sewn up.  Especially since Webber smashed into Massa and didn’t finish.