Monza may not have witnessed a spectacular race but the historic high-speed venue clearly remains a fan favourite.
Highlights and lowlights
Highlights were Raikkonen’s recovery, the Williams battle for third – which we didn’t see – Perez here and there, Verstappen going round the outside of people a couple of times and Rosberg providing an element of surprise.
Otherwise, only two other teams with a realistic shot at the podium and the whole penalties mess, added to the Honda and Renault situation, to Lotus being on the brink of collapse, to Monza losing its slot in the calendar because it can’t support Ecclestone ridiculous hosting fee, to the drivers being silenced down on commercial grounds… it really makes the whole show unpleasant to watch.
Antonio Nartea (@Tony031r)
Much better than usual. Rosberg’s weak engine certainly helped, with him pushing Bottas first, beating both Williams on strategy and finally closing in on Vettel. Raikkonen dropped to last, recovered to fifth. Ricciardo, Kvyat, Sainz, Verstappen all made solid drives with several overtakes. Hamilton had it easy but the last laps were thrilling with anything ready to happen, Bottas finally caught Massa and we missed what was (emotionally) the most thrilling part for me. I’m pretty satisfied, if this is were the average race I’d be happy with F1.
@Fixy
Monza isn’t the same when cars aren’t screaming round there, they merely hum around the fastest track on the calendar nowadays.
Ben (@Scuderia29)
Monza looks fantastic to be at, great fans, lovely weather and what a track it is to see the cars flat-out on low downforce. But the races can be so dull. Even with Raikkonen out of position and fighting through the field it was still quite boring.
The strange “do not ask questions, just execute” Mercedes comments peaked my interest a bit towards the end but even so, nothing really came of it.
@Calum
DRS
As at Spa, many of you felt the Drag Reduction System was too powerful at Monza and spoiled what racing there was:
Whenever there was a nice battle shaping up, the car behind would conk out. DRS was stupidly powerful, the result could well be decided in the steward’s office, and except for the Toro Rossos being exciting, absolutely nothing was worth shouting about. Even Raikkonen’s climb through the field was very bland.
Craig Woollard (@Craig-o)
Some moments of interest but DRS had too much impact. None of the passes were entertaining. “oh he’s close enough for DRS, oh he’s got down to the chicane first and yep he’s held it.” Yawn.
Philip (@Philipgb)
This track shouldn’t have DRS.
Matheus Ramos (@jedimaster9)
Not nearly as exciting as some earlier races, but still a good race.. hampered by the TV coverage, I’m afraid.
Highlights for me were watching Raikkonen climb from last place to finish well within the points, Bottas and Massa battling for the last podium spot (not covered well by the broadcast sadly) and some more brilliant passes from Verstappen.
Michael Baumert (@Nothingreal)
TV coverage
The standard of television coverage left many asking for more racing and less ‘glamour’:
The TV coverage was dire, as usual. They need to stop focussing on female team members and spectators and show the race. The TV director comes across as a creepy old pervert.
@Jules-Winfield
The best moments in the race were not even shown live on camera such as the Massa versus Bottas battle. Add to that the errors in the on screen graphics if anybody noticed.
@hzh00
Who were all those kids/women we constantly switched to during the race?
@Zimkazimka
The media love calling it the ‘cathedral of speed’ and such but apart from one camera in the kerbs at Ascari, [FOM] didn’t do a whole lot to emphasise the sense of speed, most of the onboards I saw didn’t have the telemetry on either.
@WilliamStuart
Save Monza
While it may not have produced one of the best races of the year, Monza remains a highlight in its own right:
Monza’s crowd is phenomenal. It has to stay on the calendar, it’s F1 history, home race of an F1 historical team, the crowd is awesome. And there’s no better track where engine performance of teams can be precisely observed as this track.
After all, we have Monaco and Singapore, Spa and Monza should be there to equal it out.
Duc Pham (@Ducpham2708)
I really enjoyed that race. The sea of people swelling to see the podium ceremony suggests that they enjoyed the race too.
Chris (@9Chris9)
2015 Rate the Race results
| Race | Average score |
|---|---|
| 2015 Australian Grand Prix | 4.754 |
| 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix | 8.369 |
| 2015 Chinese Grand Prix | 5.721 |
| 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix | 7.366 |
| 2015 Spanish Grand Prix | 5.154 |
| 2015 Monaco Grand Prix | 5.627 |
| 2015 Canadian Grand Prix | 5.545 |
| 2015 Austrian Grand Prix | 5.602 |
| 2015 British Grand Prix | 7.949 |
| 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix | 9.115 |
| 2015 Belgian Grand Prix | 6.391 |
| 2015 Italian Grand Prix | 5.636 |
Italian Grand Prix Rate the Race results
| Race | Average score |
|---|---|
| 2008 Italian Grand Prix | 8.153 |
| 2012 Italian Grand Prix | 7.640 |
| 2011 Italian Grand Prix | 7.494 |
| 2014 Italian Grand Prix | 7.420 |
| 2009 Italian Grand Prix | 7.049 |
| 2010 Italian Grand Prix | 6.759 |
| 2013 Italian Grand Prix | 5.840 |
| 2015 Italian Grand Prix | 5.636 |
2015 Italian Grand Prix
- Perfect Hamilton wins Driver of the Weekend
- Little action in 2015 but Monza remains a favourite
- Mercedes investigation a “misunderstanding” – Pirelli
- 2015 Italian Grand Prix team radio transcript
- Top ten pictures from the 2015 Italian Grand Prix
petebaldwin (@)
14th September 2015, 12:11
Yeah I’d say most of those comments were fair enough.
I absolutely hate how the cameras miss any last lap battles. I get that they want to show the cars crossing the line but once they have done so, cut back to the battles! Instead we get onboards of the winner cruising around thanking his team. Surely at least, they could use a split screen to show the remaining battles!?
In regards to the race, it had the potential to be great but DRS took that away from us. There is no suspense when overtaking is so easy.
It’d be like making the goals in football the same size as the end of the pitch. Every match would end with 50+ goals and instead of a goal being a big deal when a goal is scored, it would be like a basket in basketball or a run in cricket.
Apex Assassin
14th September 2015, 16:20
Agreed about the last lap battles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also I’d rather watch a “boring” race at Monza (though I could do without the gimmicky DRS) which has massive historical relevance but I can’t justify Singapore (which is at least pretty to look at) or worse, Sochi. These races are like Korea, sooooooo boring and utterly without relevance.*
* Singapore gets credit for proving night races can happen, but let’s face it, the circuit sucks for racing. And chaos due to poor man’s tyres or pit fires or Nelson Piquet jr isn’t good racing!
DaveD (@daved)
14th September 2015, 20:33
@petebaldwin
Agreed, again: DRS took a great deal away from the race! It was terrible at Monza.
So…why isn’t everyone screaming bloody murder as Charlie Whiting casually says: “Yeah, let’s just increase the size of the front wings in 2017. Yes, it will mess up overtaking but who cares…we’ll just put in an even stronger DRS”
I saw almost zero reaction to that comment which stunned me. I know we all respect what Charlie does but that was a completely daft comment and he should have been called on it.
knoxploration
14th September 2015, 21:26
Yet another poor race.
Based on the Rate the Race ratings — which if anything skew far too positive (for example claiming Hungary to be a 9.115/10, which would have to make it one of the best races of all time when it clearly wasn’t) — we’re now running at a 6.436/10 average for the entire year. At 5.636/10, Monza was almost a full point below average.
Looking at the overall ratings, only five races out of 12 so far this year have been rated lower, placing this just ever so slightly below average for the season by that metric too. (And I don’t think anyone would claim this to have been a good or thrilling season, with only four out of 10 races polling better than a 7/10, and only two better than an 8/10.)
Can we please have proper rules that actually allow rivals to do anything to catch up, now?
lala
14th September 2015, 21:41
For the last 2 years number of overtaking has been drastically declining. And it’s not like we are back to fewer and better overtakes either. Mostly DRS stuff. 2010-2013 seems like the golden years of Formula 1.
Jonny Edwards (@racectrl)
15th September 2015, 15:00
2010 was the last golden year of F1. All downhill from then on and showing no signs of stopping. 2011 onwards will always be remembered for being DRS years; I patiently wait the day when DRS is abolished and we get back to proper racing.
Matthijs (@matthijs)
14th September 2015, 13:03
The average rating of 2015 so far is 6.436.
beneboy (@beneboy)
14th September 2015, 14:01
@matthijs
I’m sure Sochi and Yas Marina will help bump it up a bit…
Apex Assassin
14th September 2015, 16:20
ahahahahahahahaha!
jak
14th September 2015, 16:27
Is there avg rating for whole seasons somewhere on f1fanatic? @keithcollantine
Park
14th September 2015, 13:11
Did we really have a TV director in the last race? Or was just Bernie playing buttons there?
Jules Winfield (@jules-winfield)
14th September 2015, 19:10
I think the TV director was drunk.
Panagiotis (@papalotis)
14th September 2015, 13:52
every year the italian gran prix gets more and more boring
beneboy (@beneboy)
14th September 2015, 14:13
@papalotis
You could say the same for most GP’s, the current formula is rubbish: DRS and designed to degrade tyres have robbed us of any excitement and turned once great circuits into borefests. The only thing that spices up a race these days is bad weather and watching guys driving through the field after being dropped down the grid after taking penalties.
By historic standards even great circuits such as Spa, Silverstone and Monza are producing boring and predictable races where most of the passes are done in the DRS zone and the drivers spend most of the race nursing their tyres.
I’m glad I cancelled my SKY Sports package, if I were paying to watch this season I’d feel like I was being mugged.
emi
14th September 2015, 14:54
DRS and designed to degrade tyres were here before 2014 and F1 was not rubbish. We had the most enjoyable domination of all time. That guy won the 2012 championship with a car which was at best the 3rd fastest car for the biggest portion of the year.
But, I agree that they should do a better job with establishing a formula that makes sense. Both enjoyable to watch AND scientifically sensible.
ColdFly F1 (@)
14th September 2015, 15:22
Don’t dispair @papalotis. Bernie will resolve that one for you!
Apex Assassin
14th September 2015, 16:21
Edited for truth: every year F1 gets more and more boring
Sven (@crammond)
14th September 2015, 14:02
Confirming Hamilton´s win on the same day was absolutely negating the potential entertainment value of the tyre-pressure-story. Even more so when it was presented in a well argumented way. They should have disqualified him first and waited for an appeal and a trial weeks later to then reinstate the result.
russ
14th September 2015, 14:34
Disqualify him for what? Winning by such a large margin?
Gabriel (@rethla)
14th September 2015, 15:35
Winning by such a large margin with illegal tyre pressures
Jon (@johns23)
15th September 2015, 3:05
FIA should of pulled them up before the start. Once the cars are off, they missed their chance. Withholding the info till towards the end was just stupidity on the FIA’s behalf and made them look really average
Dan
14th September 2015, 14:11
A suggestion for the site Keith: how about after each race doing a piece on the media’s performance and opening it up to comments? Given that F1 is a sport almost entirely experienced via television, and to a lesser extent newspapers, magazines and websites, I think it would be worthwhile to allow F1F readers to vent over the coverage. I’m in the UK and an unhappy customer of Sky. I’d like to think that if the feature took off, the producers might take notice. It’s rare to get a critical comment past the moderators on the Sky site, even though I think they’ve been doing a pretty abysmal job for some time.
Egorov (@egorov)
14th September 2015, 15:08
Ok, so the Redbull era races were rated better than the current one at Monza
jale
14th September 2015, 15:12
I think those races were underrated tbh. Especially the ones in 2009 and 2010. People were used to such races, but if they were included in 2014 or 2015 seasons, we would have rated them much higher.
ColdFly F1 (@)
14th September 2015, 15:30
Only half the ‘Redbull era races’ at Monza were won by RBR! @egorov Maybe that’s why.
(probably less as RBR was stronger than Brawn during 2nd part of ’09)
hamman
14th September 2015, 15:58
More like: RBR and McLaren was as strong as Brawn for the 2nd half of 2009.
George (@george)
14th September 2015, 18:42
I’m with @Fixy on this one. I enjoyed the race, the rating seems rather too low to me.
hamman
14th September 2015, 18:53
There was NO thing to enjoy.
f1bobby
14th September 2015, 19:51
I was there this year, great atmosphere, so-so race.
I’ve just watched the San Marino MotoGP race and on any measure it puts F1 to shame.
SauberS1 (@saubers1)
14th September 2015, 23:30
It was really very boring, but this is a good track.
ILuvSoundtracks (@)
16th September 2015, 17:44
If there’s one more race lacking action…