2021 Formula One Italian Grand Prix

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For the third weekend in a row, Formula One is back in action. This time the field takes on the Monza circuit for the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.

Amidst one of the closest championship battles in in memory, Formula One’s field of 20 cars is taking on the legendary Temple of Speed this weekend. The Autodromo Nazionale di Monza is host to the 2021 Grand Prix and will test the teams’ abilities to field a car that prioritizes straight line speed.

The tight battle for the lead in the drivers' standings has now carried past the midway point of the season. Lewis Hamilton held a small advantage going into the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort a week ago, but that advantage has now flipped back to Max Verstappen after his exciting home win.

In the constructor’s championship, Mercedes has gained a 12-point lead after a double podium finish at Zandvoort. Like the drivers’ standings, this is another hotly contested battle that could easily be reversed if Red Bull has a strong result at Monza.

Much of the excitement away from the track has centred around the confirmation of George Russell joining the Mercedes team next season alongside Lewis Hamilton. Russell has impressed many in the F1 world with his performance in the lower-tier Williams car. He will be replacing Valtteri Bottas at Mercedes, who was confirmed to be moving to Alfa Romeo next season.

And speaking of Alfa Romeo, Kimi Räikkönen’s final season in Formula One has been cut short due to a positive Covid-19 test and associated protocol, and he’ll be replaced this weekend by Robert Kubica, who also stood in for the 2007 drivers’ champion last weekend as well.

Lando Norris’ amazing season has somewhat slowed over the past two weeks. The “technically a race” at Spa two weeks ago saw him finish outside of the points, and then a 10th place finish at the Dutch Grand Prix have dropped him from 3rd to 4th in the championship. His 114 points this season account for two-thirds of the McLaren team points, so the unfortunate results recently have allowed Ferrari to open a gap of 11.5 points in the constructors’ championship after having been tied recently. Excitement from the crowd will be high at Monza for the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to maintain or expand this gap to McLaren.

So, the fight between Verstappen and Hamilton continues for another week, as does the battle between their respective teams. This looks to be another exciting week in the middle of an outstanding year of F1 action. Give us your thoughts below in the comments on who you think will emerge victorious at Monza.
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Mike Smith
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

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Comments

Richard Wilks
dajdosta said:
One incident is enough for Halo to be justified. And there were many incidents where Halo helped. Sure it's not 100% safe but nothing is and is better than not having it.
Full canopy is probably safer but saying that it's better without halo makes as much sense as saying it's better to go skiing naked than in light jacket if one doesn't have proper ski suit.
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Please provide the quote where i said we were better without the halo. Because i never said such a thing.

I just don't get the mass hysteria now everytime something happens, and the pathological need for some to show they are more righteous than anybody else everytime something touches the thing. I dont see anybody making such statements and posts everytime the Hans device saves lives, despite some high profile drivers being against it back then. Hamilton was against the Halo, i suppose he is a psycopath too?...

The halo has been in the car for 4 seasons now, just get over it.
 
Damage Inc
Richard Wilks said:
...Or maybe people are now trying to justify the Halo at every oportunity. Probably you and others never saw this one, and Brundle came out of the car imediatly and just fine, after being properly smacked in the head with a rear wheel, not just pated softly like Hamilton. I maintain what i said, the Halo is a half assed solution. Go full canopy or dont bother, because i want to see what people say when something goes through the halo and really strucks a driver.

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bugger me!! The way Brundle's head was flapping around looked awful. One caveat, the head/neck is designed to move laterally....it's not designed to move vertically. An impact from above doesn't need to have the same force to do catastophic damage to the neck/spine. Either way any head impact is not good and as you say the Halo would have not done much to save Massa from a flying bit of metal back in the day.

(talking of flying metal.....this was mega scary!!)
at least car racers have "some" protection!)
 
zwiss
PickABetterUsername01 said:
Hamilton was on the throttle while Verstappen car was still on top of him, so yea everyone could tell he was fine.
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Tom Pryce was still on the throttle and drove down the straight to crash into Laffite when he was already dead...
(Kyalami 1977).
But I agree: Max could see Lewis was alright (just like Lewis new Max was ok while he was celebrating at Silverstone).
 
Terry Rock
Richard Wilks said:
Do you really think that they are thinking about anything else than their points and their championship at this stage?...

If they crash and score no points from here until the end of the season, Max is champion, unless Bottas or someone else can overhaul the difference. Good luck with that. They know it's between them two. and any double non score only favors the driver ahead, which in this case is Max. So yes, Hamilton at that moment had more to lose, so maybe he should also start "learning" how to fight for a championship. It's never late they say.
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Is that how you really want Max to win a championship? As to the "learning" nonsense...I think he did that a long time ago.
It is why he dominated every category he's ever raced in and was handed a GP car by Ron Dennis at such a young age.
You people love to disregard fact when it doesn't suit your purpose.
Your logic about points, halo, etc... escapes me.
Sorry, I'm done with this topic.
 
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D
Richard Wilks said:
Please provide the quote where i said we were better without the halo. Because i never said such a thing.

I just don't get the mass hysteria now everytime something happens, and the pathological need for some to show they are more righteous than anybody else everytime something touches the thing. I dont see anybody making such statements and posts everytime the Hans device saves lives, despite some high profile drivers being against it back then. Hamilton was against the Halo, i suppose he is a psycopath too?...

The halo has been in the car for 4 seasons now, just get over it.
Click to expand...
I remember the criticism and shock that halo provoked among many. I still see negativism and silly arguments against it from you and other non-believers so just wanted to point the obvious benefits.
You are right, it has been around for years and you should get over it because you were the first one here critisizing halo at this very incident where it proved useful. How much sense does that make?

Halo will stay for a long time.
 
Richard Wilks
dajdosta said:
I remember the criticism and shock that halo provoked among many. I still see negativism and silly arguments against it from you and other non-believers so just wanted to point the obvious benefits.
You are right, it has been around for years and you should get over it because you were the first one here critisizing halo at this very incident where it proved useful. How much sense does that make?

Halo will stay for a long time.
Click to expand...
....I criticized YOU! Not the Halo! I said the halo is STILL not enough, even backed by the very same image YOU Posted. I Criticized YOUR high horse attitude and calling other people psycopaths, and you conveniently glossed over even big time drivers like Hamilton not wanting it (unlike me). You don't even know my position at the time (which is the same as it is now), so no pal, YOU get over it, YOu get off your high horse.
 
D
Richard Wilks said:
....I criticized YOU! Not the Halo! I said the halo is STILL not enough, even backed by the very same image YOU Posted. I Criticized YOUR high horse attitude and calling other people psycopaths, and you conveniently glossed over even big time drivers like Hamilton not wanting it (unlike me). You don't even know my position at the time (which is the same as it is now), so no pal, YOU get over it, YOu get off your high horse.
Click to expand...
You're the first one who criticized halo in this thread.
Richard Wilks said:
That shows me that no matter the amount of praise and weird adulation, the Halo is a deeply flawed half assed measure still. I will say what i said before, F1 cars should have gone full canopy already. The technology is there, and the cars are now heavier and much bigger than for example the early 90s 3.5L Group C cars. So they only have to widen the cockpit a bit more, and place a full canopy that either hinges both forwards and sideways, or has two tiny doors on the sides.
Click to expand...
And you responded that to the very image of a halo saving drivers life.
How irresponsible and insensitive one has to be to make such statement.

Whether you or drivers don't want Halo is irrelevant because you don't get a say in this.
Luckily F1 drivers are not safety engineers. They can express their opinion just like fighter pilot can say he doesn't like the colour and shape of wings on a plane - it doesn't mean anything really.
 
Richard Wilks
dajdosta said:
You're the first one who criticized halo in this thread.

And you responded that to the very image of a halo saving drivers life.
How irresponsible and insensitive one has to be to make such statement.

Whether you or drivers don't want Halo is irrelevant because you don't get a say in this.
Luckily F1 drivers are not safety engineers. They can express their opinion just like fighter pilot can say he doesn't like the colour and shape of wings on a plane - it doesn't mean anything really.
Click to expand...
You are the one irresponsible by calling people psycopaths. You probably want an accident like Massa one to happen again, if you think there is no room to improve the Halo. Indycar at least had the guts to go further. You just want to feel good about something, and you dont mind seeing people get hurt and even maybe die to prove the point. You are the real psycopath here.

Thankfully you dont have a say in anything.
 
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Richard Wilks
Terry Rock said:
Is that how you really want Max to win a championship? As to the "learnind" nonsense...I think he did that a long time ago.
It is why he dominated every category he's ever raced in and was handed a GP car by Ron Dennis at a young age.
You people love to disregard fact when it doesn't suit your purpose.
Your logic about points, halo, etc... escapes me.
Sorry, I'm done with this topic.
Click to expand...
I am completely indeferent to how any of them wins the championship, i dont "support" either one of them. I really dont care also how Hamilton got his whole career in a silver plater, but maybe thats why Max fights hard, it wasnt nearly as easy in his case.
 
S
Richard Wilks said:
Do you really think that they are thinking about anything else than their points and their championship at this stage?...
Click to expand...
I do. I'm confident that both want to win the Driver's Championship the most, but I also think they would like their respective teams to win the Constructor's Championship as well.
 
PickABetterUsername01
zwiss said:
Tom Pryce was still on the throttle and drove down the straight to crash into Laffite when he was already dead...
(Kyalami 1977).
But I agree: Max could see Lewis was alright (just like Lewis new Max was ok while he was celebrating at Silverstone).
Click to expand...
It's not like he was on the throttle like a rock, he was trying to reverse, while Verstappen was leaving his car...

All this discussion about the halo, sure, maybe most incidents people claim it was super helpful wasn't that much, BUT! It definitely saved Grosjean, if not for the halo he would have been a dead body without it's head, would have been truly gruesome. Now we could argue that those barriers are the real problem at that situation but anyway, the halo was 100% what saved him that moment.
 
Ronaldoz87
The FIA will make a story - like this one between HAM / VER - and create it how they like it. If VER was on the inside, he would have a penalty for pushing HAM off track. 100%. Most likely red flag, so HAM could repair the car too.
 
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After_Midnight
Ronaldoz87 said:
The FIA will make a story - like this one between HAM / VER - and create it how they like it. If VER was on the inside, he would have a penalty for pushing HAM off track. 100%. Most likely red flag, so HAM could repair the car too.
Click to expand...
Yeah for that reason they decided for the incident lap 1 turn 4 no further actions are needed. :whistling:
 
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L
I think that Max should have been penalized with a 10s penalty. I know many will say, but he got a DNF what will that do.
And first of all the rules are not there to change the worst possible outcome on an incident are there to compensate for someone that had an advantage for whatever reason in any type of incident.

Let me explain:
British GP, a driver got an advantage over the incident. Hamilton could continue racing and recieved for that a +10s penalty. Why? Because there was a clear advantage between continue racing or being retired of the race.
My problem with the ones that say if DNF 10s penalty is a joke is the following: Let´s imagine Hamilton got a little bit of a problem in the car, not huge but one that make the car not run as fast as normal and with the 10s penalty makes it very difficult to grab big points and they decide to retire the car after a few laps to preserb the engine and many other parts of the car for the next race with full potential on scoring big points.
In this case Hamilton would have reciebed 10s penalty + a DNF (retirement) decided by his own team. No further action by the FIA for the next race. (this did happen in other GPs in the past).

DNF is the worst possible outcome and in Italy there where no advantage taken by any of both of the drivers that got involved in the incident. So why got a penalty for the next race?

Because FIA is considering that applying a +10s penalty is ridiculous over a DNF (the result of the race) then would have expected to have consideration on a harder penalty after the result of British GP taking into consideration that Hamilton won the race, retired the championship contender of the race. The result of the race should have nothing to do with applying another penalty to the driver, only the one that should be imposed in the race.

I know many wont agree but the example I used makes a case where the penalty on Max for me is not just out of context but also unfair.
 

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