The Italian Grand Prix 2014- Truly Superbo!
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The Italian Grand Prix is the 13th round in the F1 calendar which takes place at Monza National Autodrome. The track is best known for its extra long straights which makes it the fastest track in the calendar where cars reach a top speed of 365 kph. Juan Pablo Montoya recorded the highest ever speed in an F1 car in 2005 touching 372.6 kph . Another specialty of this track is the podium which is unique and is always flooded with Tifosis who will be dressed in red to support their home team Ferrari . For those of you who don’t know what Tifosi means , Tifosi is an italian word used to describe a group of fans who support and cheer for Italian manufacturers in Motorsport such as Ferrari , Maserati and Alfa Romeo . The most iconic sight of the Tifosi is the giant Ferrari flag in the grandstand accompanied by thousand of people who will be dressed in red .
QUALIFYING :
The track conditions were consistent on saturday afternoon in Monza and the top 10 shootout saw teams using all their data from practise sessions to tweak their cars to get the best grid position. The Mercedes as usual had the dominating factor and had no problem competing with the others however within the team both the drivers were fighting tooth and nail to get pole position . It was Lewis Hamilton came out in the top to clinch pole position , he got his banker lap right and dint improve on his second but still was .2s faster than his team mate Nico Rosberg who secured P2 . Bottas managed to take P3 beating his team mate Massa took P4 which helped Williams take the 2nd row on the grid. Kevin Magnussen of McLaren beat his team mate for the 3rd consecutive time to take P5 while Jenson Button managed to take P6.Fernando Alonso of Ferrari yet again out qualified his team mate to take P7 in his sluggish Ferrari . Vettel and Ricciardo took P8 and P9 for Redbull and Sergio Perez placed his Force India in P10 .
RACE:
It was a warm Sunday afternoon in Monza on 7th September 2014 and the 13th round of the F1 calendar was all set to begin. The track temperatures were similar to qualifying conditions and the 11 teams were ready to battle it out in 5.793km circuit for the next 53 laps. It was the first time since the 1980 Argentine Grand Prix that the top six cars on the grid had the same engine manufacturer ( this time being Mercedes ) . The first 12 cars in the grid started the race with medium compound tyres while the remaining was a mixture of hard and medium compounds .
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[ In the picture — Rosberg moves to P1 followed my Massa and Magnussen]
When the lights went out championship leader Nico Rosberg of Mercedes got away with a lightning start that helped him jump pole-sitter and championship rival Lewis Hamilton and into the lead . The driver who made the most out of the start was Kevin Magnussen of McLaren , his fast starting McLaren helped him take move from P5 on the grid to P2 in the first chicane. Hamilton had software issues that hampered his start and lose three places while Bottas was facing a nightmare as he dropped from P3 to P11 by the end of lap 1.
Lewis Hamilton despite taking pole after a series of unfortunate race weekends once again had his share of bad luck as he was facing problems with the RS mode ( race start mode ) which aids in race starts when the lights go out . Due to that he dropped to P4 by the end of lap1. His problems escalated when his ERS ( energy recovery system ) stopped functioning in the opening stages which means his car will be losing 130hp per lap for 13 seconds. Despite being handicapped the Brit managed to get a nice exit out of 2nd chicane — Della Roggia and overtook Magnussen on lap 4 to take P3 . However the ERS system started functioning and Hamilton was on full power by lap 7 ; only 3/10 off Rosberg’s pace and was closely tailgating Massa . With DRS advantage Hamilton overtook Massa with a jaw dropping manoeuvre in the first chicane and started his pursuit for Rosberg. Hamilton and Rosberg exchanged fastest lap times in their first stint but in their second stint Hamilton was significantly quicker and was closer to Rosberg than ever. Despite of being advised by his race engineer to take care of his tyres Hamilton put in his so-called Hammer time clocking .5s quicker in the middle sector alone compared to Rosberg , he was just .6s away from Nico and just when he was about to make a
move Rosberg out-braked himself for the second time in this race which saw Hamilton fly past him into the lead .
(shown above in the picture is Rosberg’s mistake which cost him the lead)
Hamilton started extending his lead and comfortably won the race with a 3.2s lead . This marked his 28th career win and moved up the list to 8th place in the all time win list .Later Hamilton revealed that he felt confident about his tyres and saw an opportunity to attack only when he had fresh tyres and that it payed off . Rosberg despite managing a good start only finished P2 behind his team mate and lost 7 points in his championship lead. He out braked himself twice in the first chicane — Retifilio, on the first occasion he lost 1.3s to Massa (P2) and Hamilton (P3) but still was ahead of them as he had a huge lead then but on the second occasion he lost the race lead to Hamilton . Rosberg later revealed that he was forced to make an error because of the pressure his team mate applied on him in the second stint . In the podium Rosberg was booed for the second time despite having a clean race in his pocket . Felipe Massa of Williams finished P3 which marked his first podium of the season , it helped Williams move ahead of Ferrari in the Constructors table . Massa was P2 after managing a good start but lost position to Hamilton as the Mercedes was much quicker as anticipated . He was comfortably sandwiched between the front runners and the rest of the pack and maintained P3 from lap 11 to take the chequered flag . The crowd cheered Massaby singing a song for him , the Brazilian later admitted that he was really moved by the crowd’s support. His team mate Valtteri Bottas cliched P4 despite dropping to 11th in the start , he kept moving up the grid slow and steady and was the man who had the most number of overtakes on that afternoon. He fought tooth and nail with Sergio Perez and Kevin Magnussen in the second stint which attributed to the excitement. Later the Polish driver said that it was fun to overtake so many cars once his tyres were up to temperature and congratulated his team mate on his fist podium of the season . Daniel Ricciardo once again beat his champion team mate to take P5 . He put in a brilliant drive in his second stint and swiftly moved up the order and his overtakes in the 2nd chicane was a spectacle to watch, the Australian would give a look on the outside and when the front running car tried to block he quickly moved over to the inside and late braked to compete the move . This man seems to grow stronger on track race after race , I wonder what Vettel has to say about this . Sebastian Vettel finished P6 behind his team mate . In the start he almost overtook Hamilton in turn 1 but couldn’t complete the move as his line was too wide , he lost a lot of grip in his tyres while fighting with Magnussen , Perez and Button. These four remained induced in a intense battle and maintained the order till the flags went out. However Magnussen earned a 5s penalty and was placed 10th in the official classification . Sergio Perez did an amazing job to keep his ex-teammate Button behind him and finished in P7 , this helped Force India to close the gap to McLaren in the constructor’s table with just 1 point separating them . Jenson Button of McLaren continued his point scoring spree and took P8 . The Brit couldn’t manage to overtake Perez and had to finish the race behind him. Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari finished P9 only to disappoint the Tifosis . The Italian team couldn’t quite fulfil their supporter’s dream of seeing a Ferrari driver on the podium , and Alonso’s retirement just worsened the situation. Daniil Kvyat of Toro Rosso drove a brilliant race driving from the back of the field , he started 20th and finished 11th ahead of his team mate Vergne who could manage only P13. Nico Hulkenberg of Force India finished P12 , he started the race with hard compound tyres and used medium compound for the second stint . It was yet another poor performance from Lotus with Maldonado finishing P14 and Grosjean finishing P16. Adrian Sutil of Sauber took P15 outperforming his team mate Gutierrez who had to settle for P20. Kobayashi of Caterham finished P17 and his team mate Ericson finished P19. Jukes Bianchi of Marussia finished p19 , his team mate Max Chilton who crashed on lap 6 . Chilton took the wrong line , hit the kerb and flew into the gravel to hit the wall.
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Despite of having non-Ferrari drivers in the podium the Tifosis ( Italian Ferrari fans ) cheered them for their feat and converted the starting grid (Retifilio Tribune) into a sea of RED . The next race at Singapore’s Marina Bay Street Circuit between 19–21 September will bring more action into this season which has been nothing short of super excitement .
FINAL RESULT :
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POSITIONDRIVER TIMETEAM1Lewis Hamilton1:19:10.236Mercedes2Nico Rosberg+3.2 secsMercedes3Felipe Massa+25 secsWilliams4Valtteri Bottas+40.8 secsWilliams5Daniel Ricciardo+50.3 secsRedbull6Sebastian Vettel+60 secsRedbull7Sergio Perez+62.5 secsForce India8Jenson Button+63.1 secsMcLaren9Kimi Raikonen+63.5 secsFerrari10Kevin Magnussen+66.2 secsMcLaren11Daniil Kvyat+71.2 secsToro Rosso12Nico Hulkenberg+71.6 secsForce India13Jean Eric Vergne+73.1 secsToro Rosso14Pastor Maldonado+1 lapLotus15Adrian Sutil+1 lapSauber16Romain Grosjean+1 lapLotus17Kamui Kobayashi+1 lapCaterham18Jules Bianchi+1 lapMarussia19Marcus Ericson+2 lapsCaterham20Esteban Gutierrez+2 lapsSauberRETFernando AlonsoDNFFerrariRETMax ChiltonDNFMarussia
Written By- Pragadish Ravi
