Rate the race: 2017 Italian Grand Prix

2017 Italian Grand Prix

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What did you think of today’s race? Share your verdict on the Italian Grand Prix.

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What were the best and worst moments of the race? What was the main thing you’ll remember about it? Rate the race out of ten and leave a comment below:

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This poll has now closed. The 2017 Italian Grand Prix was given an average score of 5.93 out of ten.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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110 comments on “Rate the race: 2017 Italian Grand Prix”

  1. The car’s width rule is for when you’re defending, it doesn’t mention whether the other car is alongside you.
    The stewards are a mess, as always. 4/5

    1. Are you referring to Magnussen outbreaking himself? I think the stewards made mostly the right calls this weekend

      1. @strontium well you can’t deny Max has a little bit more leniency, i’m not talking about Magnussen’s incident. I think the stewards were their usual poor selves.

        The race and weekend was more entertaining than I thought it would be, 7. SPA last week was also more entertaining than it should have been, these cars are not helping. From mid race onwards, the fuel burns of speed increases, aero reliance increases, and even on a track like this, the 3 Merc cars of SFI and Williams didn’t really race each other, 30 laps of nothing.

        1. ou can’t deny Max has a little bit more leniency

          Please tell.
          Massa caused a stupid contact.
          Magnusson just outbtaked himself and got frustrated by the point miss.
          And?… please tell.

          1. Looks to me like Massa had the upper hand and the inside line. Max would have been smart to back out and live to race another lap. How did he think that would work out for either of them? Seems to me he does this a little too often, and throws his own race away. Shame, because he’s talented and quick. Ricciardo on the other hand is very level headed, and always plays the long game. The different tire strategies are working well, kinda reminds me of when Raikkonen was at Lotus, gambling and getting a little lucky.

          2. Seems to me he does this a little too often, and throws his own race away.

            I think that in the same way that he expects a little too much space from rivals, he expects his car to take a little too much abuse.

            I don’t buy the “unlucky” theory, I think he just won’t take care of his equipment.

    2. No, its for when part of the other car is alongside.

      1. You’re wrong Mark. The rule is “More than one change of direction to defend a position is not permitted. Any driver moving back towards the racing line, having earlier defended his position off‐line, should leave at least one car width between his own car and the edge of the track on the approach to the corner.”

        1. Yes, if the car is alongside. From Mag’s on board it looked like Verstappen was already past the Haas before he moved across.

          1. Yeah, you probably haven’t been watching F1 for the last 5 years, or you’ve just forgotten. Every single time this rule has been in question it’s when the other car is not alongside. Article 20.3.
            If the other car is alongside and in the racing line, and you’re running him off the track, it’s Article 20.5, regarding the crowding of another car. Article 20.3 didn’t need to be created if it were for when the other car is alongside you.
            I’ll remind you this rule was created because of an even less dangerous move, when Schumacher was weaving all over the track defending from Hamilton, back in 2012. NEVER during that maneuver was Hamilton even a little alongside Schumacher.
            Learn your F1, please.

          2. My comment is wrong. See below.

          3. Yes I have learnt my F1. I’ll try a little harder next time and make sure I watch more F1 in the coming 5 years to improve myself.

          4. After a bit of investigation on my part, I’m pretty sure the article numbers changed over the years. I’m probably wrong on the article numbers. I still stand by my argument, but I’m not as knowledgeable about F1 as I thought, after all :P

    3. I agree with @strontium here, the overtake was complete so Verstappen moved across to take the racing line and Magnussen outbraked himself. It was a close call though, from the front it looked like Verstappen squeezed him but from Magnussen’s camera you could see he was already behind.

      1. That’s not the point though, Magnussen was clearly behind Verstappen when Verstappen moved back to the racing line. The problem is the rules don’t allow the defending driver to move back to the racing line. I doesn’t matter if the other driver is alongside.
        The rule would be pointless if it were only for when the other driver was alongside. There’s already a rule against that: you don’t drive into another car (of course the racing line and who’s in it matters to know who runs into whom).

        1. James is right and my comment above is wrong. Rule 27.6 says nothing about the defending car being allowed to move back to the racing line even if he is clear of the car he/she was defending against.

          It seems like the rule should be clarified to allow this, but at present it does not. Penalty should be applied to Verstappen according to the sporting regs, assuming the stewards read them that is.

        2. So your repeated interpretation is that passing a car you can not follow the racing line afterwards, …. maybe you should do some more reading :)

        3. James, actually on reflection all that is not included at all in the 2017 sporting regulations. I suggest you read up on these before you post about this everywhere.

      2. Indeed. Max has a reputation of ill advised moves and it can be bad for him in the future but it didn’t this time and rightly so because Kevin Mag outbraked himself and Max did nothing wrong.

  2. That was really great to watch. Exciting battles everywhere, ruined only by constant whinging by almost every driver whenever the overtake didn’t go exactly as they wanted it. It’s a shame that there wasn’t a fight for the lead but at least there was other stuff going on. And for the first time in 3 and a half years, you could actually hear the engines properly, which in my opinion made a big difference to the experience of watching. 8/10

    1. Exciting battles everywhere

      Uhm….. Like where? What race did you watch, man?

      1. No kidding. If not for the Red Bulls there would have been nothing going on. Tired of Hamilton blow out wins.

    2. I hate to bring this up any time there’s a high score, but if this was an 8, what was Brazil 2008?!

  3. Gets 7 from me.

    Wasn’t great but wasn’t bad & there was enough good racing through the field to keep me entertained.

  4. 5/10. Meh.

  5. I rated it a 7, the max I give for a race without a fight for the win. There were some great stories throughout the race, each with their own battles on track. It wasn’t a boring race to follow, finally after some time.

  6. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
    3rd September 2017, 14:07

    Quite a dull race. Typical of the era.

    1. 7/10 a shame Bottas didn’t give Lewis a fight.

      It really would have been epic if Daniel taken Vettel.

      1. Not bad for a Number 2 driver.

    2. @come-on-kubica, I’d say that it is more typical of the circuit – let’s be honest, the races at Monza have been a bit dull for quite some time now, even with some fans admitting that they’ve overinflated their scores for this circuit in the past because it happens to be a historic venue.

      1. Still heaps better than Monaco.

  7. A relatively exciting race for Monza’s standards. Better than last year’s edition for sure.

  8. Fairly dull after the first 5 laps.

  9. 7/10
    Quiet but good race in overall, too bad we did not get a Ricciardo/Vettel battle in the end, but anyway I enjoyed watching the GP.

  10. The most boring race of the year.

    1. You must have missed some races then..

    2. Russia and Monaco man. Russia and Monaco.

      1. We had a chase for the win in Russia though

  11. Probably the most boring race of the year so far. A shame really given how good the Monza track is. Ricciardo’s charge was the only excitement – disappointing the Red Bulls started so far out of position.

    Oh well.

    1. How was this more boring than Hungary or Spa?

      1. Well I agree neither of those races were that fun. That said, in Hungary the fact Vettel could hold the lead with dodgy steering and was interesting. Personally I expected Raikkonen to have passed him, or the Mercedes to cruise up and take it from them as the Ferrari’s were slower than they should have been. You could say it had tension. As for Spa both the championship leaders were separated by what, 1.5sec for the whole race? It was good to see Ferrari weren’t being ditched by Mercedes on a track that theoretically didn’t favour them. It had intrigue.

        During both Spa & Hungary the two teams looked fairly matched – this being most surprising for Spa given nobody expected Ferrari to be as close as they were. But here at Monza the Mercedes looked on a different planet. At no point from qualifying to the race did the Ferrari’s look a match for the Mercs – not even close. I mean that’s just from a championship perspective but further down there wasn’t a huge amount happening, save for Ricciardo and Verstappen coming back through the field to where they should have been and Alonso ranting at Palmer.

      2. @spafrancorchamps Yes. Actually it was more boring than those. I still give this a 7 just because Monza is usually so poor. No fight for the lead at all this weekend which there was in Hungary and SPA, so that’s where this race has to be a dull race.

  12. I don’t usually say this, but I found the race dreadful. It just wasn’t very exciting, with the most enjoyable parts being Alonso’s radio messages! That can’t be right. I do love Monza though, aside from the booing.

    Mercedes are too far ahead with regards the engine. At tracks like Hungary and Monaco the short wheelbase really helps, but on most tracks they are too far ahead of Ferrari.

    1. I think the problem is the top 3 teams are just so much quicker. The grid set this up to be a classic but Bottas was P2 after only 3 laps and from around lap 10 the end result was set for the top 3. It was interesting to see if Ricciardo could catch Vettel but it was fairly obvious that was a non starter. Overall a 6/10 as there was some on track action but there wasn’t any tension for the podium so I’d agree if felt a bit flat.

    2. Sundar Srinivas Harish
      3rd September 2017, 14:39

      Alonso’s radio messages weren’t up to their usual standards either. No humour, just complaints. It was a 5/10 for me, since I dozed off for a bit after lap 13 or so and woke up again at lap 18. Ocon, Stroll and Ricciardo stole the show.

  13. Matt (@hamiltonfan1705)
    3rd September 2017, 14:23

    OK race but DRS killed some amazing battles. Imagine how much more exciting the race could’ve been if the passes at the beginning the drivers actually had to work for instead of being able to just breeze past

  14. 5. Boring…..

  15. boring apart from the williams/force India and the Red Bulls race. Mercedes is racing alone as of today

  16. A solid 7. Lots of close battles. Nice overtakes, not meaningless easy ones like DRS at Spa, where the DRS zone needs to be shortened by half. Yeah the Mercs were cruising up front, to be expected, this being 100% a power track. So 3 marks lost for the Merc domination in my book. But apart from that quite good.

  17. 6/10 decent race
    +1 for WDC change
    +1 youngsters doing well (ocon, stroll, vandoorne)
    -1 no battle for the lead, 31.8 seconds between Mercedes and the rest
    -1 double DNF for McLaren

  18. Zzzzzz….

  19. Race 4/10 + Ricciardo= 6/10

  20. ILuvSoundtracks (@)
    3rd September 2017, 14:31

    5/10. Only Alonso’s radio rants were the highlight.

  21. I’ll score it a 7/10 thanks to Ricciardo’s charge and moves.

  22. Pretty straight forward GP. Top 3 teams in order except for RAI and VET that had troubles. Merc PU clients fill rest of top 10

    Max had an amazing start but he probably better could’ve waited to pass MAS. After seeing the replay I think MAS was to blame for not letting any space but Max should have waited for the DRS to be enabled.

    1. VET must be VER

      1. Put Ver in the car of Vet and you get the results of Ham.
        Indeed quite confusing.

  23. 7/10. 5 for the usual nothing much happen race, +1 for Ricciardo overtaking moves and +1 for the sick burn Lewis said in the podium. The tifosi is a great crowd but only to Ferrari and for last few years they pretty rude to non Ferrari drivers in podium so it kinda nice to hear someone tells them right in the face that something can be better than Ferrari.

  24. 5/10
    To be honest, the race was not that impressive. Mercedes came on the top as was expected. After Spa, there was hope that it would be close. But with such a big deficit even in dry condition, Ferrari have to be satisfied that they could salvage a podium.
    Individual performances of the race however are worth mentioning.
    First Ricciardo. I like this guy. I really do. Some of his performances in 2017 such as the one in Monza shows he is ready for a championship winning car.
    Second Lewis Hamilton. One word…supreme.
    Third, and I cant believe I am typing this…Ocon and Stroll. Backed up their performance on Saturday with a decent show on Sunday finishing ahead of teammates.
    Finally Vettel and Bottas. Pretty much did what they could.

    1. Sorry, RIC is ready for a champ winning car for quite some time: since 2014. If I had a champ winning car now, I’d hire RIC to drive it and not VER. Really got my attention in 2014, he’s obviously at least 1-champ material. He’s in the “in-between league”, together with Rosberg, 2005-2007 Raikkonen etc. Not (yet) really tier1 (HAM/VET/ALO) material, but he’s better than tier2 drivers like Coulthard, Barrichello, Button, Massa, Bottas. His dive-bombs remind me a lot of 2008 HAM racing style.

  25. 6/10. As this was Monza, it was over pretty quickly. While there was nothing going on at the front of the field after the first few laps, the midfield battle was pretty entertaining.

  26. Holy crap. This got a 1 from me. I dont even know where to start. This was a snooze fest. Maybe ricciardos pass on kimi. But one nice pass is not enough.
    If we had excitement yesterday, today was pathetic. I hope for the opposite in two weeks.

  27. 5, Nice pass on Kimi by Dano, other than that another faultless high speed Sunday afternoon drive in the park by Lewis.

  28. Dreadful race I reckon 4/10. But that’s what you get at Monza in a field with performance divergence is very big.

    Even there’s no tension upfront. Some overtaking moves here and there but that’s it. Even for average F1 race this is too boring.

  29. 6.

    Phew, just as the armchair experts of HAM and Mercedes warned us already… that Ferrari was scary-fast… just it didn’t win. Actually, even 2nd wasn’t in cards at all. 3rd position was lucky indeed too. Best car, scary fast indeed. This race proved again – if it was much doubt left for reasonable guys – that Mercedes is the best all-around car by quite some margin. They turned off the power halfway through the race and still won easily. Could have made another pit stop and still win by some margin. Today it proved that actually yesterday’s poor Quali wasn’t some gamble Ferrari took with a dry set-up (in order to be strong Sunday)… cause today 1 of the cars (RAI) was trashed by a RBR which started 16th, almost beating the 2nd Ferrari too. So, no matter how you take it, this race Ferrari was only the 3rd best car overall. It was no set-up gamble or some other stuff. RBR trashed them in a wet Quali and as RIC proved in the race, would have done it again in a dry race if it wasn’t for the RBR penalties. Today Ferrari was good only for 5th and 6th. Let’s hope HAM won’t run with the WDC so soon.

    1. Your comments are hilariously bad, long may they continue.

    2. Drama queen.

      Ferrari have been having the best or close second best car for most of the season. One race where on car gets hit and has tracking issues and Vettel had an engine issue. Both drivers complained something was wrong with their car.

      This is the first race where they finally didn’t have a chance to go for the win where it wasn’t a driver error in Q3 or the start. Although Raikkonen bumping his rear wheel into someone for no good reason after the start, perhaps should count as driver error too.

      Anyway, where was this 15km/h speed trap gap that you claimed would make it impossible for Vettel to overtake a Mercedes powered car? Didn’t exist huh? He just drove straight past them with no trouble at all.

      Don’t you at least learn a bit at how wrong your perceived “reality” is from things like that?

  30. I didn’t think it was that bad. For a Monza race especially though.

    There were some nice overtakes (RAI/BOT/RIC/VER) and some good battles (STR/OCO).

    Would have been better if the Red Bulls had been more in front. I wonder if they don’t rue the choice they made to take all those penalties here. They could easily have ended up 3 and 4 here. Ah well, hindsight is nice I guess.

  31. 7/10. Final laps were pretty exciting, but the rest was so-so.

  32. 6/10, half points for “Karma” and Ricciardo’s moves. Another clean race for him, patient and clinical, In contrast to Max – who at least finished this GP!

  33. 7/10
    No battle for the podium,but Ricciardo’s drive was excellent & the F.I-Williams battle was really good.Lance vs Felipe was pretty interesting i reckon,as Lance had his best race of his career & fought on the limit with Felipe.A good lesson for Lance for the future

  34. 5/10 for Ricciardo’s overtakes and some of the Force India and Williams moves. Apart from that, utterly ruined by DRS and Ferrari making fools of themselves on Saturday.

    I used to be for radio messages, but at this point I feel the FOM is only broadcasting messages that either have a driver shouting things in the heat of the moment or can be heard as a potential car failure.

    When you’re getting endless start replays, shots of the helicopter and barely any focus on drivers that are overtaking (ie. stick with Max or Ricciardo when they’re clearly making up time) I don’t know what to tell you about this race.

  35. The director missed a lot of the action a d some shots were barely visible. Like the helicopter shot of the start from 10.000 feet.
    Not a bad Monza race but very bad visualized.

  36. A 3. Game of Thrones Nice weather

  37. Would have liked to see what Ver could have done, but Massa interfered. But i understand many teams, like Red Bull, already sacrificed this race to be in a better position for the next few. Tag Heuer seems to be coming up in power, unless VET was in preservation mode.

    1. In hindsight RB might wish they had not taken the penalties after all.
      With both RB drivers setting lap records several times they might have stayed ahead of Valtteri and the Ferraris.
      A big result mostly down the drain.

      And Massa… Though you can say Max should have waited longer he was ahead going into the corner and basically did nothing wrong there, except for relying on Massa to not bump him out of the race.

  38. Quite a good race, with a lot of nice battles in the midfield. Great drive by Ricciardo. Shame there was no battle for the lead, even though Bottas’ race pace was very good.

    1. what race you saw? you mean the WEC race currently?

  39. Boring and what is worse is that it signalled a return to the Mercedes dominance that we all had to sleep through ( I mean watch ) since 2014 when F1 let Mercedes bully them into a PU formula which Mercedes had developed for a decade.
    A 30 sec. gap between Hamilton and Vettel ! Hamilton,Vettel was supposed to be the ideal match up F1 waited for for years and a 30 sec. gap is what we get ?!
    I think Gene Haas said it all . In case you missed him he said : that Haas is committed to F1 but, that he felt he could not possibly beat the teams who are essentially manufactures because of the advantage that status carried with it . Further, and more important he said that if there was no chance to win races there was no point in competing .
    I took this to mean that unless F1 changed its rules and made it possible for the mid-pack or smaller teams to win at least some races Haas would pull out of F1.
    That ,in a nutshell,is the problem.
    Right now,since the hybrid PU’s were made part of the formula and until there is a major formula change NO ONE can compete with Mercedes and that is BORING .
    It took Mercedes a few races to work out the details but, today’s event ( I would not call it a race ) showed how dominant Mercedes is ( a 30 sec. margin over the nearest non-Mercedes car is a joke ).
    I literally fell asleep for a moment during the event today ,that is how bad the event was and since the popularity of F1 is down and falling I am not the only one disappointed in what has happened.
    For a moment last year when Haas ,a US based team ,entered the circuit I thought things were going to get better. It is clear I was wrong and if the only US team leave the circuit it will mark a fall from which F1 may never recover.
    Was giving Mercedes their way worth it ?

    1. Forgive my ignorance, but wasn’t F1 set for 4-cylinder engines until both Mercedes AND Ferrari pushed them into V6?

      1. @john-h, the only reason that F1 went for a four cylinder engine to begin with was because, in the initial meetings to establish the current engine rules, the VW Group had promised to enter F1 if they went with an inline four cylinder engine because a four cylinder engine would have been better for their marketing – only for VW to promptly walk away from the sport. At least, that is what Adrian Newey has previously stated – and was rather relieved that was the case too, since an inline four cylinder engine would have caused real problems for chassis designers like himself.

        Whilst Mercedes did eventually come to support the V6 proposal, most of the early pressure to change the engines came from Ferrari (Mercedes were more neutral to begin with, with Renault initially in favour of the four cylinder option).

  40. Verstappen is going to have to learn to be more patient. No reason to allow Massa to ruin his race at that early point, when a safer overtaking possibility was sure to come. Massa was surely at fault, but Max responsible for the risk. I don’t buy this constant ‘bad luck’ problem.
    Ocon and Stroll, great race considering the disadvantaged equipment.
    Ricciardo, racer of the day.
    Kimi, what a disaster.
    Hoping Merc have been working toward an upgrade for high downforce tracks, to make it close with Ferrari in Singapore.

    1. + 1

      I did not read your comment before I wrote mine below. We have said almost the same thing! Great minds…

    2. Completely agree. Never thought this but you are right VER needs some patience. Thanks for the insight. Maybe growing up for VER means knowing which drivers can be pushed and which ones need to be babied.

  41. I give it a 1 since zero is not an option.

    1. You can put the zero after the one.

  42. another solid mehhh….. well deserved 3

  43. A 7 /10 for me…Probably not the most exciting right at the front….but nowhere as boring as some comments on this forum made it out to be….
    Max was a little too enthusiastic in his overtaking at times….Ricciardo made a stunning drive….and their was too much booing for Mercedes on the podium…..love them or hate them…Mercedes were a class of their own
    ps Why should McLaren want the Renault engine package, as its not that much quicker and only slightly more reliable than Honda is now???? Wouldn’t want to have to make that decision

    1. Too much booing? For Monza I thought the crowd showed restraint given how they treated VET several years ago. But I thought HAM really antagonized the crowd with his comment; Surprise he said that.

  44. 6/10.

    I toyed with a 5 but I like the atmosphere of Monza and it was better than last year which I gave a 5 to I think.

    No action at the front after the first few laps and once Hamilton got a clean start the victory was a foregone conclusion. Some good action in the midfield and Ricciardo’s move through the field, and especially his overtake of Raikkonen, was excellent.

    Verstappen seems to think other cars are going to somehow evaporate when he tries to overtake them. He is young though and he will learn. His recovery drive was very good.

    Ferrari were disappointing really and especially Kimi. This is why Ricciardo or someone else should be in the Ferrari next year along side Vettel.

  45. 5 for me. Felt like Canadian Grand Prix, but more boring.

  46. 1, the worst race weekend of the last 2 decade,very bad practice, disaster qualifying, massive grid penalty, Boring race, fake overtake, non consistent and certainly not proportionate in the Race-control decision, inappropriate team order in Mercedes & Ferrari, the race result know in start of the season

    1. Spot the tifosi.

  47. Solid 8; would have been a 9 had Ricciardo made the podium.

  48. Jason Blankenship
    3rd September 2017, 23:00

    Very boring but then again, every Hamilton blowout win is boring. Something has got to be done to make the driver mean more. I have a feeling that Mercedes is going to cruise to another Constructors and Drivers title. We’ve got to have more winners and less of a performance gulf between cars.

  49. This place is becoming filled of sad moaners because their driver don’t win.
    Quite pathetic, but actually a good representation of this annoying generation that don’t know to deal defeat. They even have a driver on F1 that is like them (yes, it’s Max).
    Well, the internet is great platform for the moaning, so there you go.

    1. I don’t expect my driver to win, Ed, I would however like competitive races where the winner isn’t decided on the exit of the first chicane. Don’t like our opinions, move on past them.

  50. Very average race. Danny Ric made it exciting though

  51. Mark in Florida
    4th September 2017, 2:56

    Mostly a yawn fest. Some good battles in the midfield, but the lack of real competition up front lately is starting to wear thin. Either Mercedes is a lot better in reality than Ferrari or Ferrari is much worse than Mercedes in fact and only luck has played the role in Ferraris performance.

  52. 7/10 at least there was overtaking and if the rules are tweaked correctly it will improve. Places like Monaco can’t be helped.

  53. It’s Monza!!! Like Silverstone and Spa, starts with a 7 and goes up from there. Assume most of the moaning was because they missed qualifying. I did too. Stupid PVR timing.

    Crazy grid – although the combined 2,000 place penalties seemed a little excessive. Watching the reruns of qualifying made the race tame in comparison. However, an average race at Monza is better than most any ‘exciting’ race at the Tilkedomes.

  54. ALO moaned, HAM was completely unchallenged, RAI underwhelmed, VER had an incident, ridiculous grid penalties, PAL/MAG were rubbish, anyone who wasn’t a Merc/Ferrari had zero defence due to DRS, race died after the first few laps.

    Just another hybrid era dullfest.

    The inevitability of everything hit me this race. I stopped paying attention half way through. I really miss the days of unpredictability.

    4/10.

  55. 7, entertaining, but… Quali was more fun.

    Also race win was kinda decided in advance. Mercedes had so much pace in hand.

  56. I wrote in the Rate the Race-thread for the Australian GP that it was going to be a long and unexciting season, with limited on-track action. The typical response then was, that the Melbourne track layout was mostly to blame. After that things looked better, but in reality it was just the weather (China) and a Safety Car (Bahrain), both outside influences, that caused some excitement. The thing is that the 2017 aero rules combined with the long-life tyres cause these kind of races. Looking back at the year now, they’ve pretty much all been like this GP. In Monza there was a mixed grid and still the cars finished in the same order as everywhere else.

    So in conclusion:
    -Race results will be predictable with only minor shifts in the results for the rest of the year
    -We need outside influences to make a race exciting (or a collective off-day like Baku)
    -We need to change the aero and tyre rules for next year (2016 aero, 2012 tyres??)

    The 2nd point will not happen often and the 3rd point will not happen at all, so expect many more races like this until the end of the 2018 season.

    1. We need to change the aero and tyre rules for next year (2016 aero, 2012 tyres??)

      There’s no way you’ll see any fundamental changes for next year. Plus, the reason for these extra durable tyres was to handle the huge increase in downforce generated by the new cars.

      In all honesty, I don’t think following a car this season has been all that different to last season. We hear the same moans and groans from the drivers.

      All changes are heading towards the 2021 season, where there’s new engine regs. Ross Brawn has already said he wants DRS dropped for then, too, which all ties in with his aero working group. The idea is to conduct windtunnel tests based on one car following another. This will help determine the new aero regs for 2021.

      1. Can we not for next year just have a single element front wing…..surely that would help for following a car close in a race???
        Also having read that the only driver after qualifying starting in his right position was Lewis…all the rest of the grid affected by drivers with penalties……something is seriously wrong

  57. Despite the winner being rather clear after a lap, and the 2nd place almost certain on lap 3, I still enjoyed the race enough for a 7/10 – mainly thanks to the sort of fight between Ocon, Stroll, with occasional action from Raikkonen, Massa, even Perez, and the great overtakes Ricciardo showed, as well as a curiosity in how far Verstappen could get after he might have been to impatient with the always-harsh-in-defense Massa; I was happy Stroll was able to keep Massa behind, but good for Massa to at least try to get him (though would have been better to try when it might have made a go at Ocon possible).

  58. I gave the race a rating of 6.5.

    The race was alright but I think the main excitement over the weekend was on Saturday in qualifying, I only saw the highlights so did not have to put up with the lengthy delay in Q1 when track conditions were at their worst.

    The wet qualifying was entertaining and threw up a few surprises notably Stroll and Ocon but it was still Hamilton who was quickest.

    Come race day after a holding onto the lead at the start Hamilton had a comfortable race and was never troubled, and could afford not to push his hardest.

    They may have qualified out of position but Bottas and Vettel made quick work of making their way into the other podium positions and after that, it never looked like the top three would change.

    Thankfully there was some action further down the field especially with cars out of position either due to the conditions in qualifying or engine penalties, with Ricciardo putting in a fine recovery drive and making best use of a different tyre strategy to the leaders..

    As forecast Monza was a Mercedes circuit and but they had a bigger advantage than many, including myself, thought they would after the pace Ferrari showed at Spa.

    Hamilton has now taken the lead in the Championship for the first time this season after back to back wins, but if the predictions are also correct about Singapore favouring Ferrari, then Vettel should retake the title lead at the next race and Mercedes may even also find themselves behind Red Bull at Singapore increasing the points lead Vettel could build over Hamilton.

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