F1: 2020 Italian Grand Prix

FLRacingFan said:
Mercedes isn’t built to run in traffic. Been racing for maybe 10 laps and Bottas is trying to avoid overheating issues again already.
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Bottas needs to be replaced. Bad resigning.

Guy hasn't passed a soul today. Lewis already in 9th.
 
Albon is finished.

Gasley did the impossible on a supposely inferior ride.
 
Exactly the Italian car we expected would win this year :D

Pierre has been phenomenal this year. Well done!
 
Kiante said:
Albon had floor damage all race and it makes no sense to switch them now.

Albon might as well wait the season out with RBR.
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If you look at it from a one-off standpoint, yes you might be right.

I was really high on Albon but he has seem to have peaked. Too much stagnation from the get.

Seems like that race in Austria messed with his head this year.

But overall you're right. He might as well stay in Red Bull for the year. Almost no point in demoting him this year.
 
Just watched the replay on DVR. That was exciting. Did they ever say what happened to KMag at the start? He was down 50 seconds on lap 2.

Bottas struggled mightily today. With the penalty Lewis had, if Bottas could've won it would have kept the WDC alive, but it is pretty well over now.

When Mercedes are not a factor (which is extremely rare) F1 is amazingly exciting. What a battle the last ~20 laps.
 
Just when I was resigned to watching the race during my afternoon nap, Formula One redeemed itself, by accident, maybe, but at least we had some entertainment.

First, and definitely the most entertaining aspect of the race was Ferrari missing out on sweeping the last two places. Instead they were 18th and 20th, out of 20 …….. and at Monza of all places! Ferrari will probably not be able to top this for faceplant of the year, but I'll be rooting for them to make an even bigger mess when they get to Mugello.

It's an awesome time to not be a Ferrari fan!

The last few years Ferrari principals have been a bit like Hamsters. They run like hell for year and then (figuratively speaking) die. Now the one time they really do need to axe the principal, it looks like they are going to keep him forever no matter how bad the team is running. The big disappointment is everyone is acting like adults when we really want to see some good old Italian hysteria and maybe even some back stabbing. Come one guys, you can do it!

Absolutely delighted that Sainz got such a great result now, seeing as how Ferrari will probably ruin his career. I think Carlos has always been underrated. Comparing apples to apples, he was pretty much right on pace with Max when they were at Torro Rosso together. Max has just had the car since then and Carlos has had midfield cars at best. The one thing Carlos will always have going for him are the teams he's left behind. They all absolutely love him and I think would probably like to have him back after his Ferrari deal is over.

Once again, the Red Bull tough love program produced a winner. There's a lot of speculation that Red Bull will replace Albon with Gasly, but I don't see it. Gasly has already failed at Red Bull, but he is thriving at Alph Tauri. Leave that program alone at least until next season and give Gasly the time to mature and develop. Same with Albon. It can't be good for either team to be shuffling drivers back and forth like that. Right now both teams would do well to have some more continuity. Once again you have to wonder if Danni Kyvat is running out of chances.

F1 needs to take a good look at this race. When you turn the field inside out with 20 laps to go there should be a lot of faster cars ripping through the field, but it's just too difficult to find enough clean air. F1 needs to drop all the gimmicks and just build a car that can race.
 
I watched the whole race again, just for the hell of it. This was certainly an odd one, not quite up to Twilight Zone standards, but definitely the most odd race we've had in awhile.

There's two schools of thought on the Hamilton penalty. First is that he broke the rules so clearly there was no grey area and the officials were forced to do what they did. The other school of thought is that's a damm silly way to throw a sure win away. You hate to see anyone lose like that, but at least we got an exciting race out of it. In the end it only lost Hamilton one point of his championship lead, so he was lucky it was only as bad as it was.

What the heck happened to Botas? He got a rough start and just sank backwards. I don't remember the last time a running Mercedes sank so fast. He just had to have had some sort of problem. Botas is much better than that, but Mercedes has to be looking forward at who will take over when Hamilton retires. At this point would you trust Botas to run the team, or do you plug in a young kid to grow into that role ala Verstappen?

Gasly has really found his form and he's probably only going to get better. On one hand you hate to yank him out of an environment where he's thriving, but then again, there's a perfectly good Red Bull currently going to waste. Hard to predict what Red Bull is going to do with this, but it would seem to make most sense to leave everything alone at least through the season.

It did not take Gasly long to bounce back from his demotion, so you have to wonder how many more chances Danni Kyvat is going to get. Since losing the Red Bull ride he hasn't really shown much. Red Bull has a huge investment in the guy, but I would think they have to get something back soon to justify that. I think Kyvat is hysterical fun, and one of the guys I like to see do well, but he's got to step it up. I mean, Gasly just won with the same car, and where was Danni?

What the hell happened to Red Bull? Unless I missed it, Verstappen was never in the top five and Albon just fell backwards at the start. To be fair, Albon has a major clanging together with Gasly at the start, so maybe the car was damaged. Either way, I can't remember the last time the Red Bulls just didn't show up to race like this.

Probably should not have been surprised to see the Mclarens run so well, but they took a big step this weekend. They went from top of the midfield to middle of the front runners, and even better considering they definitely outran everyone except Hamilton. If Mclaren can keep this form they could definitely claw their way back to winning form soon.

After all the stink about Racing Point and their "cloning" of Mercedes' parts, it took a bizarre race to get them a podium. Still, a really good run for Stroll, who really need it with all the mystery concerning those two seats. Perez had a big day, running off the straight on the start, then coming back over (presumably in his customary blocking fashion) and pushing Gasly into Albon. This guy honestly earthier doesn't know or doesn't care when other cars are beside him.

Renault was slightly disappointing considering they ran so well last race. At least McLaren showed Renault are going the right way with the motor. Renault is been improving slightly every weekend and I think a lot of us were really hoping Ricciardo could deliver on that podium he was predicting, but they fell a little flat. Still, not a horrible result, just less than we were expecting.

One of the things I didn't quite get is how the Mercedes pair didn't seem to have their customary straight line speed advantage. Hamilton was having a tough time passing cars on the straights, so what happened there? Did the ban on multiple engine modes kill their advantage?

I didn't even see the Haas cars except when Magnussen broke up a perfect Ferrari 19th and 20th place sweep.

Finally, what are the odds of Ferrari stinking up the show, in Italy, of course, for two consecutive weekends? Come on, guys! You can do it! Probably just as well we aren't racing on front of fans or the Tifosi could burn the whole country down!

In all, it was a fun race with a lot of surprises. I don't have the schedule handy, but I believe Mugello is next. The elevation changes are interesting and most of the turns are medium to high speed. I would expect the cars that ran well at Monza to run well here too. Maybe (hopefully) we can end up with another crazy race.
 
Kvyat didn't say much after the race. He knows with Tsunoda driving like he is, his time might be running out with AlphaTauri.

Honestly, his pace was equal if not better than Gasly's on hard tires. He just got the short end of the stick on strategy. Renault should be kicking themselves, too. They missed out on a perfect opportunity and this is why Ocon wanted to discuss with the team on the radio...
 
I was rolling on the floor when I saw this on the replay. Still waiting for the 180 bar spin.
 
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