What to expect from the 2018 Italian F1 GP?
Last weekend we saw a great race on the beautiful Spa-Francorchamps circuit in the Ardennes of Belgium.
This weekend we're already going to be treated with the last 2018 F1 race on European soil, race number 14: The Italian Formula 1 Grand Prix.
The battle of the best current F1 drivers last Sunday was a great one between the two 2018 drivers title contenders: Lewis Hamilton & Sebastian Vettel. Both legendary drivers can win their 5th drivers championship this season. There are only 2 other drivers in history who won more than 4 F1 drivers titles: Juan Manuel Fangio (5x) and Michael Schumacher (7x).
After Vettel's convincing win in Belgium he added 7 points more to his total than Hamilton. The gap between both drivers has shrunk from 24 to 17 points in the 2018 F1 drivers championship.
Mercedes and Ferrari both worked hard on their homework during the "summer break". Both engine departments worked day and night to generate even more power out of the tiny 1600 CC V6 combustion engine with giant turbo and their sophisticated hybrid system with electric engine. The power units generate well over a 1.000 horsepower now, which is an astonishing figure.
Out of the 2 teams, Ferrari seems to have done it's homework most efficient. The Ferrari SH71H power unit has become even more powerful and reaches it's top speed now even quicker than before the summer break. After 4 years of engine domination, Mercedes seems to be flabbergasted by this fact and finds it hard to deal with this new reality.
Their are still 8 races left on the calendar and the next one in Monza is the one with the highest average speed. Therefor you want as much engine power as possible. Last year Mercedes had a dominating one-two finish in the backyard of the Ferrari factory. This season things look much better for Ferrari. Hopefully for Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen has also run out of bad luck, so they can have their revenge and get a 1-2 finish at their home race in Monza.
The silly season seems to have had it's peak in Belgium. Persistent F1 rumours say that Raikkonen will get another season at Ferrari in 2019. Rookie Charles Leclerc will step up to Haas next season to replace the struggling Romain Grosjean. Stoffel Vandoorne will keep his seat at McLaren to drive alongside Carlos Sainz who came from Renault.
It won't be a surprise that Lance Stroll moves to the "new" Racing Point Force India team. It will be interesting to see how he performs next to good old and very underestimated Mexican "Checo" Perez.
Stroll's empty seat at Williams seems to get filled-up with more money from Russia. Nikita Mazepin (3rd in GP3 series) and Artem Markelov (5th in F2) who also have very wealthy fathers seem to be the main contenders. On our 2019 F1 teams page you can see the race seats that are still "available" and what drivers are fighting for them.
Next stop is the shortest Grand Prix in time. Last year the race of 300 kilometres was finished in only 1 hour and 15 minutes. With an amazing average speed of 250 km/h, the Monza circuit which also is located in the town Monza, is the circuit with the highest average speed on the F1 calendar. What more to expect from the 2018 Italian F1 GP?
2018 Italian GP facts & Figures
The first Italian F1 Grand Prix was held in 1950 on the Monza circuit. It was won by Italian driver Nino Farina in the Alfa Romeo 158 and took 2 hours and 51 minutes to finish the 80 lap race. The circuit has become legendary and is also called the "Temple of Speed". It's also one of the few circuits that has been on the F1 calendar since the beginning of Formula 1 back in 1950. Only in 1980 the race wasn't held on the famous Monza circuit, because it underwent a major upgrade.
Again almost all tickets are sold out for this weekend race, so the track will have a great atmosphere with lots of Tifosi (Ferrari fans) to support their hero's Raikkonen and Vettel. It's also the home race of Scuderia Toro Rosso and the sponsor of the Alfa Romeo Sauber team
Autodromo di Monza is off course an old school circuit. It's very fast and not very difficult to memorise. This years edition will be the 77th time that the Italian Grand Prix will be driven on the track.
The Monza track is driven clockwise and has 11 corners with 6 left-handed and 5 right-handed corners. The circuit is 5.793 km long and has 2 DRS-zones nowadays. Overtaking is not very difficult, but you have to get it right, because most overtaking takes place at the end of the start/finish straight with over 345 km/h. The best zones to overtake are the braking zone of turn 1 and 4.
The highest speed driven in last years race was 357.4 km/h at the end of the start/finish straight. The slowest part of the track is few hundred meters further in turn 2. Here the cars have to be slowed done to around 60 km/h otherwise they can't make the corner.
The official lap record on Monza is already 14 years old. the 1:21.046 min was driven by Rubens Barrichello back in the 2004 Italian F1 Grand Prix. He also won the race that year and it's the quickest race ever in F1 history.
Last year the fastest lap of the race was driven by Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull. He drove a 1:23.361. Which is more than 2 seconds slower than the official track record. The cars of today are over 1.5 seconds faster a lap than last year. So the track record might get broken this year at last.
Out of all drivers that won the Italian GP, Michael Schumacher is again the one who won here the most races. He won 5 times and Nelson Piquet 4 times.
Out of the current drivers Lewis Hamilton won the most Italian F1 GP victories. He won it 4 times (2017, 2015, 2014, 2012) and is the only current driver who won the race twice in a row. Sebastian Vettel won here 3 times and Fernando Alonso won it 2 times.
Not many drivers got there first F1 victory on Monza. Out of the current drivers only Sebastian Vettel won his maiden Grand Prix in the 22nd race of his F1 career back in 2008. He also won his first pole position that weekend the day before the race. Juan Pablo Montoya also won his first F1 race here back in 2001 in a Williams.
In the 76 F1 races before, Ferrari won the most races with 18 victories. McLaren won 10 times, Mercedes and Williams both 6, Red Bull and Renault 3 races.
What happened in last years 2017 Italian F1 GP
Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, Italy.
Sunday 03 September 2017.
Because qualifying last year was driven on a drying track and a lot of cars received grid penalties the starting grid was very different than usual.
Hamilton scored his 69th F1 pole and took over the all time pole record of Michael Schumacher. Lance Stroll started 2nd and Esteban Ocon 3rd!
Right after the start Ocon overtook Stroll for P2 and In the first chicane a few cars collided but without much damage. Both Finns Raikkonen and Bottas had a nice fight during the first laps, but Raikkonen's Ferrari wasn't powerful enough to keep in front of the Mercedes of Bottas. In lap 3 Bottas passed the Williams of Stroll for P3. A few laps later Vettel overtook Raikkonen and Ocon for P3 when Bottas already was driving on P2.
Daniel Ricciardo had an entertaining race with the Red Bull that was suppose to under perform at the "Temple of Speed" with the less powerful Renault engine. He started on P17 but made it all the way to P4 ahead of Raikkonen.
Both Mercedes W08 cars finished an easy 1-2 victory with a mighty 30 second lead on 3rd place finisher Sebastian Vettel in the Ferrari.
After this race Lewis Hamilton took the lead in the 2017 drivers championship and we know what happened next.
Italian F1 GP 2018 Tyres
Pirelli will bring the Medium, Soft and Supersoft tyres to Monza. Just like they did last weekend in Belgium. But, as usual in 2018, with all the compounds a step softer compared to last season and the cars faster than ever. Monza is one of the fastest circuits of all thanks to its long straights, which places some of the highest centrifugal forces of the year through the tyres. As one of only four tracks to have been on the F1 calendar since the inaugural 1950 season, there’s always a passionate fan base at Monza, in a country that remains synonymous with grand prix racing.
A one-stopper was chosen by the majority of drivers last year, with the fastest lap of the race being more than two seconds faster than 2016. In 2017, Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo used an alternative Soft-Supersoft strategy (with a late
pit stop) to finish 4th, making up 12 places in the race after picking up grid penalties. He also set fastest lap time.
Among the top three teams there’s a wide divergence in the tyres chosen: all six Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull drivers have made different choices.
Selected sets for the 2018 Belgian F1 GP
Monza Weather Forecast
The weather is usually dry and warm around Monza, but last year we saw a very different scenario.
This year the weather also seems to be wet on Friday. During Friday night thunderstorms are predicted and rain will fall all day.During the practice sessions the temperature will be around 20ºC.
On Saturday morning it looks to be dry during the final practice. In the afternoon thunderstorms are predicted agian. The rain will start from around 15:00 hours (local time), the time that the qualifying session starts. There will be a light breeze of 11 km/h and the temperature will be around 23ºC. So we might witness a similar qualifying session as last year.
On race day Sunday it looks to be warm and dry. At the start of the race 15:10 hours (CET) it will be partly clouded and dry with 0% rain probability with ambient temperature of 24ºC.
It's still only Wednesday. Hopefully the weather wills stay unstable to give us fans some much needed excitement during qualifying and the normally kind of dull race.
Who will be on the 2018 Italian F1 GP podium?
The Monza circuit isn't called the "Temple of Speed" for nothing. Although the cars are faster than they have ever been, this speed increase doesn't come from the increased straight speed alone. Because the cars are much wider than before 2017, they generate much more downforce and can go faster around a corner. They also have more grip because of the wider tyres. So the benefits aren't always obvious at Monza, which is dominated by straights.
You saw that last year, with the less powerful car of Daniel Ricciardo, the Red Bull. He started from P16 and finished on P4. Why? Because Red Bull had a great tyre strategy and the car has the highest cornering speed of all cars on the grid. Because of the lack of torque and horsepower, the Red Bull loses the most time with acceleration from slow corners.
When you look at the highest top speed list of last weekend in Belgium you will see Daniel Ricciardo on 2nd place behind Valtteri Bottas with an amazing speed of 342 km/h. Ricciardo is obviously the slipstream king of the paddock and the well designed RB14 has very low drag with DRS enabled.
Renault announced that Red Bull gets a new spec power unit in Monza which should give them 0.4 sec of an advantage. It will be tested by Ricciardo during Friday practice and might stay in the car if it performs well and keeps running. The downside is that because of the replacement of the power unit, Ricciardo will get grid penalties, which will push him to the back of the grid.
the Ferrari SF71H is without a doubt the fastest car, but when it comes to a wet qualifying session, we will probably see Hamilton on pole and both Red Bull's on P2 and P3. Just like last year.
I think it will be a very close race between Ferrari, Mercedes and even Red Bull, but Ferrari will have the home race advantage and Vettel will win the race and Raikkonen can't get more bad luck than he had this season.
The F1 2018 Italian Grand Prix betting odds at this moment says that Vettel will win, Hamilton will finish 2nd and Raikkonen 3rd. This might change because not all F1 betting fans know it's going to rain this weekend in Italy.
My prediction is: 1. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari), 2. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari), 3. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
New for the Monza race is that Milan will hosts a new F1 fan festival during the Italian Grand Prix weekend, including entertainment and a live F1 car demo, in the Navigli district of the city.
✅ Check out more posts with related topics:
