🏆🏆 CENSORED: for race spoiler reasons

Good morning. Here I thought Monza was going to be a “milk run”. For my non-American friends, that means an uneventful affair. The fast track with minimal corners and limited passing opportunities, I was sure we would see the quali result hold up (for the most part).

Boy was I wrong. The Italian GP was full of feverish races up and down the grid and plenty of drama leading up to the feature event.

I honestly don’t know how the remainder of the season will shape up, but I know my predictions for each race will be wrong every time 🙂 

-Jake Williamson

📊 Standings

🏎 Monza Unpacked

If you haven’t watched the race, then do yourself a favor and go watch the highlights here.

Go ahead, I’ll wait

The most exciting part of building up to Monza was seeing the impressive qualifying results with many of the top teams returning to some form of competitiveness and trying to figure out what the tyre strategy will be going into a hot, freshly paved, track.

Turns out this race was anything but normal.

Highlights:

• McLaren shows up for the start with a clean launch by Norris (Finally…)

• Piastri looks like he is prepped to act as rear gunner for Norris into turn 1

• Russell has a bit of a moment behind Piastri and takes a detour

• Hulkenberg goes off roading in turn 4

• Piastri takes a big brain move through 4-5 to overtake Norris - potentially losing the race for Norris

• Hulkenberg uses Tsunoda as a brake and Tsunoda retires

• Ricciardo gets a 10 second penalty and then doesn’t serve it properly which earns him a follow on 10 second penalty

• Kevin Magnussen picks up a penalty and a one race ban…

• Piastri pits from the lead basically handing Leclerc the win

• Ferrari pull a 1 stop and clinch the win at Monza

No matter what kind of fan you are or who you support, the Ferrari winning at Monza and the subsequent roar from the diehard fanbase in Italy should send shivers down your spine. This is an historic win for an historic team at an historic track. Congratulations to Leclerc and well done for an epic run on those incredibly old tyres.

Now…what the f*ck was McLaren doing. Mercedes and Red Bull were dispatched as non-threats early in the race and the fight between Scuderia and Papaya was on. It looked like this was McLaren’s race to lose. A front row lockout and a potential for some real team work that all came unraveled by the end with some bizarre early intra-team battling and strategy calls from probably a cheap strip mall psychic who had too much to drink.

These weren’t the only silly incidents. It looked like a rallycross event with cars taking the rarely used grass line, braking deep and exploring access roads, and a bit of bumper cars at the mid pack.

It must be said, this was an action packed race the likes of which we haven’t seen in quite some time.

🌎 Still 2 “Number Ones”?

Remember when Zak Brown (CEO of McLaren F1) said that team papaya proudly has two “number 1 drivers”? Yeah, we remember that as well. So how is that working out for them now?

At the start of the Italian GP at Monza, we saw a superb launch from both of the Papaya cars. Lando seemed to have broken the curse that plagues his launches and Piastri moved to close the door on George Russell who was making an early move into turn 1. The race started to look like team mac would go on the attack and Piastri would act as the rear gunner to ward off threats to a Norris win.

However, Piastri made a decision to take the outside of the Roggia Chicane and overtake his teammate with what should be called the move of the season. This put Norris on the back foot and resulted in him dropping to P3 behind Charles Leclerc who was salivating over the opportunity to take advantage of the intra-team fighting at McLaren.

Piastri would go on to lead the race for 38 laps and both drivers were given the order to obey “papaya rules” when racing each other. This was later clarified by Lando to mean:

 “Just don’t crash. That’s all.

“There was no contact, so he did a good job.”

Later in the race Norris was given a late call to pit for an undercut attempt on Leclerc which ended up putting him ahead of the Scuderia briefly until the team pitted him a second time for a fresh set of hard tyres.

Piastri had one pit stop and continued to lead the gp on hard tyres with zero pressure from the Ferrari team until the geniuses at team papaya decided to pit Piastri for his second stop around lap 40 for a fresh set of hard tyres.

The wheels fell off

Two things destroyed McLaren’s chances at keeping the front row:

1. Papaya rules

2. The bizarre strategy calls

Papaya Rules - Throw Them Out

Arguably the “papaya rules” lost the rapidly evolving team the race. This is where Brown’s comments about having two “number 1 drivers” bites the team in the ass. With a constructor championship almost certain and a driver’s championship within spitting distance, you cannot afford to let your team race.

Let’s face it, Piastri is a champion in the making and deserves every bit of credit for the glorious overtake in lap 1, but the team orders should be clear going into a front row lockout situation. P2 should do everything is their power to cover off threats from the back. Think back to when Checo defended an attack from Hamilton in 2021 to clinch the world title for Verstappen. That was his job, to secure the titles for the team and the lead driver. That should be the types of conversations happening at McLaren for the remainder of 2024 or they may lose a driver championship chance. A chance that may not come back around because Mercedes and Ferrari will find their way back to the top.

Strategy Calls

Pitting Norris at lap 11 to catch Leclerc makes sense. If Norris could have pulled a wide enough gap and left Piastri alone, he could have secured P2 for the team even with an inevitable second stop. This is a normal strategy call that just didn’t pan out.

Piastri boxing at lap 38 on the other hand is an incomprehensible decision made by seemingly blind men with a gambling addiction. The thought process going through the strategists heads may never be known but one could only assume that they either thought the 21 lap old hard tyre wouldn’t last until the end of the race or they figured the Ferraris has more pace than than expected.

The hard tyres had an expected expiration date of 33 laps, so being worried about the tyres falling off the cliff is reasonable. However, the Ferraris weren’t showing significant performance loss and Piastri has holding a gap in P1.

All this is to say that McLaren just had to keep an eye on the red garage and pit only to cover off a Ferrari undercut. Otherwise, Piastri could have nursed those tyres to a race win. A move that ultimately secured the win for Leclerc.

What’s next?

Look, all this is being written from a kitchen table after a long day of not racing in F1. It’s easy to judge from a distance and forget that these teams are under immense amounts of stress as they calculate all of the possible options. However, when a team on the rise makes a simple mistake like an uncalled for pit stop for a race leader, it makes you think about their ability going forward.

Is McLaren ill prepared for their domination as of late? Are they regretting their decision to implement “papaya rules”? Can they collect themselves and decisively win two championships this year?

All of these questions and more are probably being discussed and will continue to be discussed in the team garage over at McLaren this week. We will see if they go into the next GP with a more solid plan.

🚀Headline Sprint

🚒Kimi Antonelli crashes in FP1: The 18 year old Italian driver was officially announced as the new seat owner of the Silver Arrow next to George Russell from 2025. Toto Wolff handed Antonelli the keys to the W15 for FP1 at Monza and he drove that car like he stole it right out of his dad’s garage. Within a couple of laps, the young talent was taking his car from edge to edge on the track and finding champion quality pace. But, 10 minutes into his practice, he stuffed it into the wall at the Parabolica and ended his joy ride for this weekend. But, the data from his stint is massively impressive and should scare the current grid.

Monza repaved and reshaped: After a fabulous race at Monza, you wouldn’t think the drivers were somewhat frustrated by the changes to the historic circuit leading up to the weekend. Monza was a bumpy track with fairly aggressive kerbing but that is no more. Several subtle changes were made to Monza heading into the race. The most visible of these changes was the shiny new pavement. The less obvious changes were the reshaped (less agro) kerbing, smoothed surfaces, and slightly fattened entry and exit into turn 1-2. Some drivers argue this took away “the character” of the older circuit.

🛞 French Protesting

The Renault drama continued at Monza with a group of employees turn protestors showing up in support of the Viry Chatillon team.

Some background:

Renault F1 has supplied engines for the pinnacle of motorsports since 1979 and has been a part of 178 GP wins. However, this long, successful run could be coming to an end as the company eyes a shift away from Formula 1 onto other projects.

In late July of this year, Renault management announced that they are plotting a transformation of their manufacturing projects. A move that would cease F1 engine development and make Alpine (owned by Renault) an engine customer of another supplier (most likely Mercedes).

The reasoning behind this move is said to be a part of a retooling of the Renault manufacturing efforts to shift focus to their consumer technology and other projects outside of F1. A slightly important note is that the company would trade their 120 million euro development costs for a 17 million euro supply contract which is significant savings for the French company.

What is Viry?

Viry-Chatillon is a suburb to the South of Paris and the home of Renault’s performance division. It is here where the French manufacturer produces and develops F1 tech. The factory employs 334 ish team members who all have a keen eye on the developing news.

What would happen to the employees?

According to Renault, all employees who work on the F1 focused projects would remain employed at Renault but shifted over to other projects in an effort to future proof the French car maker. This may include hydrogen power, battery technology, etc..

However, some jobs may be at risk according to the protestors.

"If a decision is made by 30 September, they will not have a job by the end of the year, and it means like, 200 people. And also all our network of suppliers who are working in F1 will have a lot of loss of projects, parts, studies and so on.

Bottom line, shuttering any major operation like this leads to loss of jobs. Whether it is on September 30th or much farther in the future, jobs will naturally disappear as Alpine/Renault realize they have too many employees for fewer projects in racing. A company can only run with a bloated staff for so long and by removing the F1 engine project, they will have redundant team members.

Some words from the protestors

“The announcement of the end of the development and production of French power units for Formula 1 is incomprehensible.

“We cannot accept that Alpine and the Renault Group damage their images, which is why we ask Mr. De Meo and his board of directors to renounce this decision.”

"And also we do believe in Viry's involvement in F1, because F1 brings competencies, technologies - means attractiveness – and also it keeps us at the top every day. Because we have competitors who never sleep, we need to be at the top to be able to fight in Formula 1.”

🏎 It’s early but can we talk Colapinto?

Franco Colapinto who comes over from F2 and the Williams Driver Academy had quite an F1 debut that was as lackluster as one would expect from a crash prone rookie.

This may be harsh, but William’s decision to axe Logan Sargeant with only 9 races left and replace him with a rookie driver who will also be replaced at the end of the season was clearly ill advised.

The proof of this is in the Monza pudding as it were. Franco Colapinto, like many other drivers, had trouble with the grip levels and speed at Monza this weekend. In fact, Franco fancied himself a sort of drift championship the way he was sliding into turns over the weekend. All of which is to be expected from a new driver learning a new car on a track with a fresh face lift. But, this looked more like the start of a season for the British team then a late season run.

The rundown on the Colapinto performance:

• FP1 was quiet for the Argentinian after getting used to the car. He ended a fast lap run six tenths slower than Albon - Not bad

• Also during FP1, Colapinto and Albon ran positive race run for 7 laps and Franco was 1.2 seconds off of his teammate.

• FP2, Colapinto was a bit more aggressive and set the highest top speed of the weekend up to that point

• FP3 was relatively mundane

• Colapinto ended up having a major moment in Q1 of qualifying and he set a grid position of p18

• He ended his first F1 race at P12

How did he do?

Frankly, the Argentinian driver was impressive all weekend. He was two tenths off of his teammate in FP2 and was outperforming other drivers with much more F1 experience. There is no doubt that Franco could be a great addition to the grid in the future.

However, nothing matters in the championship below P10. Outside of valuable telemetry collection and upgrade testing, running out of the points with a new driver is no different from keeping Logan Sargeant in the car for the remainder of 2024.

So, the only thing Colapinto needs to do now is impress. Impress every team up and down the paddock so that he can keep his eyes on the his promising future in the pinnacle of motorsport. Obviously, Franco could complete his 9 race run in F1 and return to F2 to participate in another championship before returning, but he has every chance to prove that he belongs here, so we hope he uses it wisely.

💨 Hot Laps

Zhou gives up in the fight for the Sauber (soon to be Audi) seat against Bottas.

New F3 car announced and is designed for sustainability, affordability, and extreme wheel to wheel racing.

COTA gets a facelift with fresh pavement and a much needed track leveling.

Kevin Magnussen picks up a much deserved penalty at Monza and walks away with a race ban as a result.

McLaren is fined 10,000 euros for an unsafe release during Monza qualifying that almost resulted in a crash with Verstappen.

🛞Marbles

Random links from the authors not always car related

✅ Listen: now you can connect your friends and find out which one listens to Nickelback :)

✅Drink: Know what to order to at the pub around the world.

✅Chew: Why is bubblegum pink?

✅Relax: Does anyone else use ambient Youtube to relax or focus? Here is a cyberpunk blade runner video to put the mind at ease.

✅Space: Learn all about the Artemis missions to get us back to the Moon.

🤯Brain Food

Can you guess this famous Monza moment?

📖Answer

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen come together in spectacular fashion leading to their retirements from the 2021 Monza Race.

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