Explained: How Ferrari threw away a glorious 1-2 home victory in Monza
The seeds of this defeat were sewn eight weeks before the race
The story coming away from this weekend in Monza has really got to be: “how did Ferrari, with the fastest car, a front row lock out and huge home crowd support come away from the weekend further behind in the championship than when they went into it?”
To really look at how this unfolded, we need to go back eight weeks to the tyre selection process. Ferrari arrived in Monza with only one set of Soft tyres for Sebastian Vettel and only two for Kimi Raikkonen. We’ve seen other people do this and I’ve never really understood why teams put themselves into a corner like this.
The Pirelli tyres are extraordinarily tricky to manage – much more than the Bridgestones or Michelins we had previously in F1 and by now every team knows that.
I can sort of understand bringing only one set of the hardest tyre because it’s very rarely used, but certainly with the two softer choices, you want to give yourself enough of a chance to run the tyre in free practice so you get a good idea of what you’ve got when you bolt it on in the Grand Prix.
Ferrari got their tyre strategy all wrong in Monza (Pic: Sutton)
Yes, they all have simulation tools and reports from dozens of engineers and ‘tyre groups’ but there’s nothing like good old fashioned real life practice sometimes.
Lewis Hamilton really forced his way into the victory this weekend and Mercedes played the team tactics game much better than their Italian rivals. There was a feeling in the paddock that the Ferrari was the quicker car all weekend but the Qualifying battle amongst the top 3 was closer than everyone expected. It truly was one of the best sessions I’ve seen in a long time.
The most confusing thing from Qualifying was Ferrari’s decision not to back their main title contender. The slipstream effect on the straights in Monza far outweighs the loss of downforce in the corners.
At other circuits, drivers try to do their Qualifying laps with about a 7 second gap to the car in front in order to avoid any turbulent air. In Monza, they were all aiming to be about 2.5 seconds behind another car, which the teams found to be a good balance between beneficial on the straights but not too damaging in the corners and braking zones.
Vettel was somewhat miffed that he and Raikkonen had not been in this formation when it mattered in qualifying (Pic: Sutton)
Valtteri Bottas seemed to suggest after Qualifying that being in front of Lewis gave the Englishman a benefit of a couple of tenths which was exactly what Mercedes wanted him to do.
Rightly, they are very clear now that if they want to win the World Championship, they need to start playing the number 1, number 2 card. So, when Raikkonnen came out of the pits behind Vettel for both runs in Q3, it was very confusing. Kimi himself seemed slightly unsure of the plan as there was a bit of team radio chat on the final out lap, asking if they stay in that order.
Seb got a distant tow from Lewis but Kimi got a much better double slipstream which I’m sure didn’t please their German ace. One thing’s for sure, in the dominant Ferrari era of Michael Schumacher, Ross Brawn and Jean Todt, there’s no way that the number 2 driver would have been given the same freedom.
Team orders?
Ahead of the race, I did wonder if Ferrari had decided to implement team orders. The easiest thing to do would have been to tell Kimi not to fight Sebastian into the first chicane or if they don’t sort it out straight away, then let him past into the second chicane before playing the rear gunner role. This was a golden opportunity to reduce the points gap from 17 to 7 by scoring a 1-2 when they clearly had the pace to do it.
As things transpired, Kimi moved across the track in front of Seb at the start and the two red cars fought hard into the first chicane. Once that was sorted, they then headed through the Curva Grande with Lewis firmly in the slipstream and ready to pounce.
Kimi even locked up his wheels as he fought to maintain the lead from Vettel (Pic: Sutton)
At that point, if they chose to play the team game, Kimi would have just stayed to the right and opened the door for Sebastian to go past cleanly, but instead he went to defend the inside which boxed Seb in a bit and opened up a gap for Lewis to dive around the outside.
What about *that* collision on lap 1?
The collision between Lewis and Sebastian was just a typical racing incident that we’ve seen many times at a chicane in Monza – two drivers both charging hard and neither really wanting to give in but with the benefit of hindsight, I think Sebastian will regret how he played that.
Every wheel to wheel battle you do as a racing driver is a game of risk versus reward and it’s clear that Seb would have been better off letting Lewis take the place at that moment. Being third on lap 1 was going to be a lot better than facing the wrong way.
The next key point of the race came around the pitstops. Kimi and Lewis were driving beautifully up front in that opening stint. Mercedes told Lewis to do the opposite of Kimi on strategy and when the Ferrari man pitted on lap 20, Lewis delivered three very strong laps on his worn Super Softs. This was key to what happened to Kimi later in the race.
With any race tyre, in general, the more gently you use it during the early laps of it’s first heat cycle, the longer they will last. Because Lewis was pushing like crazy and able to deliver some very fast laps, Ferrari was forced to tell Kimi to push hard straight away, not allowing him to bring the tyres in gently.
This meant that he started to get some blistering on the rear tyres sooner than they expected and when Mercedes played the team card of backing Bottas up into Raikkonnen, Kimi had to battle on in the dirty air which didn’t help the blistering.
It was interesting to see how many people on social media were tweeting with comments like “Lewis only won that race because of the Mercedes team tactics.”
I think that’s unfair. He won that race because Ferrari didn’t play the team tactics game as well all weekend, starting with their tyre choices.
He won that race by being opportunistic and with calculated aggression on lap 1.
He won that race because he unleashed some impressive pace in those laps after Kimi’s pitstop and forced the Finn to go too hard too soon on his Soft tyres.
It also really winds me up when people say we’re being biased towards Lewis. Last year, with 7 races to go, Lewis led Sebastian by 3 points when Mercedes still had the faster car.
This year, he’s 30 points in front when the Ferrari has been more competitive than in 2017. That’s not being biased – that’s just fact.
I would actually have loved to see Kimi win in Monza, as I think he’s driving very well at the moment and it would have been a great story for F1.
When Seb and Ferrari won in Spa, we complimented them and the brilliant job they did. They’re going to need plenty more of those weekends between now and Abu Dhabi to turn around that deficit!
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Comments (11)
As much as it annoys me to say this but Hamilton has indeed done a better job this season while Vettel has made too many unforced mistakes. In this particular race, I'll also agree that Lewis' skill in putting those fast laps in on worn out tyres is impressive but he'd have a much harder time against Kimi without the fantastic defensive driving from Bottas. I'd question the conversation between Kimi and Santi about how the tyres felt and any change in strategy after Vettel's unexpected Lap 1 disaster. Or if Santi could have told Kimi to watch his tyres and wait for a better opportunity once Bottas was out of the way given that they obviously had the faster car...
Ps, check out my race reports too if you feel like :)
Mercedes out Ferrari’d Ferrari with team tactics! And as for Seb, well unfortunately once again he’s proving just how over rated he is. He doesn’t seem to cope well with high pressure as once again he ‘bottled it’ it my opinion. He should still be thanking red bull for producing a car so much faster than the rest as I truely believe he’d have struggled to win one world championship let alone four had he had another team in the mix for him to fight with like we’ve seen him fight Lewis these last two seasons. I’m not saying he’s not fast because clearly on a flying lap he’s one of the quickest out there, but he’s far from the complete package. As for Lewis, I used to be his biggest fan, but after a couple years in the sport I started to go off him a bit when his attitude seemed to change but his driving....well that’s always been something to adore about him. I think it’s time even the haters (which let’s face it, there’s a lot out there) started ranking Lewis among the top 5 drivers of all time.
Comparing Mercedes' golden era ( Hamilto 's championships) vs RDB's golden era ( Vettel's championships), Lewis had a much better car taking poles at 1 second from the third place and finishing the championship early while Vettel won 3 of...
Read moreI seem to remember Seb only having to do one lap in Q3 quite regularly, knowing his car was that fast he was bound to end up pole anyway
Wanting people to understand the minutiae of GP racing is asking too much. We know what an amazing job Lewis did here with the help of his team and fantastic viewing it was too. The ebb and flow of car performance gave Vettel his titles but he was and still is not in the league of the greats - Hamilton, Hill and Clark for me.
With Ferrari having a faster car, Hamilton didn’t win, Ferrari lost that race. Vettel is overrated. He is too emotional behind the wheel. The crashes in Singapore last year and Germany this year have shown that. Also the way he ran into Hamilton in Baku last year. He gets too emotional and makes mistakes. Hamilton passed Kimi in the first turn yesterday and they didn’t touch each other, but when Hamilton passes Vettel, Vettel gets so frustrated he runs into Hamilton (if you look at the video Hamilton was in front of Vettel when Vettel hit him, Vettel had the entire outside of the track, but turned into Hamilton and then said after the race that Hamilton left him no space) like the article said, Vettel should have let him have that position and gained it back on the front straight... too emotional, couldn’t wait... he reacts in the moment instead of taking time to evaluate situations and set people up. Lewis had lap after lap to pass KImi, but he waited and waited and set him up to pass him... this is why Hamilton is a better driver. He is not so emotional behind the wheel and he rarely crashes out in races. If Hamilton has a DNF it is usually car failure, where yes Vettel does have car failures, but he also crashes out of races... Hamilton rarely crashes out of races.
I love Ferrari, but in this race they fuck all, start with Vettel and is ambitious idiot decision... mind time Hamilton stills cold. And about Kimi... well is Kimi, for my a good driver but it’s all, i don’t trust him. wake up Vettel and use you skill and your brain, i don’t want Hamilton win, but you need to use strategy.