Bright and early on Sunday, Sept. 11, the 16th race of the 2022 race season in Formula 1 took place in the quiet northern Italian town of Monza. Ferrari fans lined the entire track with red, black and yellow to throw support behind their home team. In order to properly dissect the action and importance of last weekend in the F1 season it must first be established why Monza, the Italian Grand Prix, is so important to Formula 1 fans and teams.
From a historical perspective, the Italian Grand Prix is the oldest race in Formula 1. Along with the British Grand Prix, it is the only race to be held every year since the sport’s inception in 1950, according to Red Bull Racing. It is the fifth oldest national Grand Prix in history and holds the record as the most-run Grand Prix in history.
From a motorsport perspective, Monza holds one of the most important distinctions that other tracks do not: it is the fastest track on the Formula 1 race calendar. This distinction is no small matter, as it has allowed Monza to earn the nickname “the temple of speed.” Now, there exist quite a few reasons for this being the case. They all relate to the design of the track, because Monza is designed with mostly straights and only a few turns which require heavy braking. On a single lap at the Italian Grand Prix drivers will be driving at full throttle for 83% of the lap. This means that lap times and overall race times are the shortest in Monza, while average speeds are at their highest.
The highest speed ever recorded was in the 2020 Monza circuit when Lewis Hamilton was recorded as reaching 264.363 kilometers per hour (164 miles per hour) in average speed. The shortest race—which went the regulation race distance—in Formula 1 history was in 2003 when Michael Schumacher won in 1:14:19.838. For reference, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), which is the governing body overseeing Formula 1 and all of its sub-divisions, does not allow for races to be longer than two hours and most races are anywhere from 80 to 100 minutes in length. Five minutes in the Formula 1 world is a lot of time, and Monza clocking in at around 75 minutes in length makes it quite the short race.
Car design also plays a major role in the increased speeds of the racecars over the Italian Grand Prix. Most Grand Prix races are loaded with lots of slow corners and hairpin turns because it provides drivers with more opportunities to catch up to and overtake cars in front of them. From a racer and fan perspective this makes the race more dynamic as there is more guaranteed drama and action from cars racing to utilize those points to overtake and fight each other. So to help the Formula 1 race cars slow down efficiently without destroying or overheating their brakes, they equip a spoiler (or tail) which provides lots of downforce to the car. This slows the cars down and relieves pressure from the brakes. However, in Monza, the cars have their usual spoilers removed in favor of specially made tails which have reduced down force. Because braking is not an important or prominent feature of the Italian Grand Prix, Formula 1 teams are willing to give up downforce as it will increase speed. All of this means in simple terms that when you are in Monza the cars go really really fast around the track!
On top of all of this technical information as to why Monza is considered one of the most unique tracks in the Formula 1 season is the simple fact that it is Ferrari’s home Grand Prix. Not every team on the Formula 1 grid has a home Grand Prix, but for Ferrari it is something special. Ferrari has one of the best pedigrees in motorsport and specifically when it comes to Formula 1, as they have the most constructors and drivers titles of any company on the grid.
Now that that is all squared away, the results from this week’s race can be delved into! With little drama and few surprises this weekend, it was a fairly uneventful race. Ferrari fans were in good spirits showing up to the race as Ferrari held pole position with Charles Leclerc behind the wheel. Leclerc was in the No. 1 spot on the start grid with Mercedes’ George Russell right behind him in the second spot. In third and fourth were the orange McLarens, with Lando Norris one spot ahead of Daniel Ricciardo. But most shocking were the cars in seventh, eighth and nineteenth on the starting grid. In seventh was the reigning world champion Max Verstappen in Red Bull and right behind was a Williams but it did not have its usual driver. Rather than Alex Albon in the Williams, he was replaced by Nyck de Vries as Albon was dealing with a poor case of appendicitis. The Dutch fourth row was still not as big of a shock as Lewis Hamilton starting the race from nineteenth place (second to last).
For Ferrari this race was highly important, as coming in first would put them in a better place to challenge Red Bull for the drivers’ world championship. Red Bull even announced in a press release before the race that this race was not important to them. They claimed that since Max Verstappen was so far ahead of everyone else in points this season that the main goal was finishing the race and not neccessarily winning it (foreshadowing). But all things seem to turn out right for Verstappen and the Red Bull team the race ended in an all-too-prediactable way. Verstappen climbed from seventh place to third in one lap and then finished the race in first place, taking home the trophy.
A saddened Ferrari team had to settle for a second-place finish at their home Grand Prix and come to terms with the fact that it is no longer possible for them to overtake Red Bull in the standings unless a true miracle happens. But, for Lewis Hamilton the race took a better turn as he was able to finish in fifth place, coming back from the very back of the starting grid.
Disaster, however, seems to follow Daniel Ricciardo everywhere he goes this season. In Spa it was announced that Ricciardo would be released from his contract with McLaren which would have been good for one more season with the team. But unfortunately, bad things do not seem to stop happening to the driver as he dropped a total of 12 positions in the race. He finished, by a technicality, in 17th place but was unable to finish the race.
The Formula 1 season is slowly coming to its end. There are only six races left in the season with the next on Oct. 2 in Singapore. Red Bull is preparing an early celebration as Max Verstappen crushes the competition with his right-hand man Sergio “Checo” Perez in the other Red Bull on the grid. Ferrari seems to be living in a fantasy land where they think they can still compete for first place in the drivers’ world championship. Mercedes is wondering what happened to them and how they ever landed in a position like this one after winning the drivers’ championships for seven years in a row. And as for Daniel Ricciardo, fans all around the world are asking the same question as him right now: will he ever be able to come back from this or is this the end? Maybe when the lights go out in Singapore will the answers everyone is looking for appear!
