Formula 1 Moves On To Monza Under Mercedes Made Cloud

The pinnacle of motorsport reconvenes in Italy this weekend for the Grand Prix at Monza but are all eyes on Mercedes instead of the track?

The Formula 1 racing season is the most glamorous motorsport circus on the planet. Nineteen races on difficult tracks in exotic places with cars that are on the temperamental edge of technological development, there is simply nothing like it anywhere else. The drivers are household names across numerous countries, the manufacturers are all well known brands and the money involved from sponsorship deals and TV rights make it one of the richest games there is, and this weekend, its off to Italy.

La Pista Magica, the magic track, is home to Italy’s Grand Prix and is better known to those of us not familiar with the local language, as Monza. One of the fastest, most exciting venues on the calendar, Monza is noted for it’s sweeping curves, power hungry straights and some of the tightest corners the drivers have to face each season. Many an Italian Grand Prix has been settled on the first corner combination chicane as fast moving cars all stack up to take the tight turn, Will it be the same this Sunday? They like to bet on sports in Italy so perhaps we should take a look.

Italian Grand Prix At Monza This Weekend

• Hamilton and Rosberg battle for championship
• Ferarri to get home fan support from Tifosi
• Mobile betting popular with race fans in Italy

Last year the race was dominated by German Sebastian Vettel in his Red Bull Renault romping home nearly five and a half seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso of Spain in the Ferrari and nearly six and a half ahead of his Australian team mate Mark Webber. This year we’re likely to see the continuing soap opera between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes that has gone from sporting rivalry to all out warfare in the space of 12 races. The team is doing what it can to calm matters but with Monza beckoning and a championship at stake do they have any real chance?

The Belgian Grand Prix at the end of August indicated that they probably don’t. With Rosberg leading the championship race from Hamilton by 11 points as they started the race side by side, one and two on the grid, everyone felt this was going to be a close race, but on only the second lap it got far too close. Rosberg’s front wing punctured Hamilton’s left-rear tire after he collided with the Englishman who later had to retire from race having dropped down the field significantly due to the incident.

Collision Was Calculated

Now things happen in racing. The odd accidental collision is practically unavoidable when you’ve a lot of very fast cars all attempting to get to the same place as fast as possible, but sadly there are some overly competitive sorts in each and every sport that take things a bit too far and, frankly, decide to cheat. Famously Demon Hill was hit by Michael Schumacher in the 1994 Australian Grand Prix making sure the Englishman didn’t finish the race and take the title from him, and now we apparently have another German doing precisely the same.

Rosberg was booed on the podium after the race and has since had to admit it was an avoidable crash he didn’t seek to avoid knowing it would win him advantage over his team mate. Which is about as close to admitting you’re a cheat as sportsmen get in these days of wall-to-wall media coverage and whilst he has apologized to Hamilton I doubt the latter was much impressed with post-race hand-wringing from someone who is stealing championship chances off him.

For their part the team, Mercedes, are perhaps gambling news coverage of this silly unsporting incident is enough to calm the pair, because certainly their “if you do this again you’ll be in trouble” approach taken thus far is unlikely to do anything to restrain two over-paid young men who are racing for a title in the most adrenaline filled sport on the planet. The FIA are taking no action against the championship leader, of course, but then the FIA have a vested interest in sweeping matters like this under the carpet.

“This is an absolutely unacceptable race for us.” bemoaned Mercedes motorsport director Toto Wolff, “There is one rule and that is that you don’t crash into each other, and it has happened not at the end of the race but on lap two!” Which is team boss code for “you’re behaving like children, stop it” and his views were echoed by legend Nikki Lauda, who is non-executive chairman, but he remained more restrained in his comments merely saying it was bad for Hamilton and they’d have a meeting about it. Whether a meeting with Lauda can tame Rosberg’s hunger for the championship is extremely doubtful.

Mercedes Monza Madness

Whilst the Mercedes team feud means that going into turn one on Sunday will be like a scene of out Mad Max, the fans that will flock to Monza are, of course, far more likely to be cheering on Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen who drive for the locally based Ferrari team. The screaming hoards of the Tifosi (extremely vocal supporters of Ferrari) might just see them pick up places if Hamilton and Rosberg manage to bin each other inside the first couple of laps, and stranger things have happened in Formula 1.

Whatever happens on that first lap the circuit itself will produce a wonderful display of driver and car in harmony as they stream through the dappled patches of track where the trees send shadows across qualifying sessions and the “Cathedral Of Speed” once again lives up to the name. It has hosted the Grand Prix since it was built in 1922 and is loved by the drivers for the sheer exhilarating combination of speed and technical accuracy. The corners have killed people at Monza, something that perhaps Hamilton and Rosberg should remember.

Hamilton has tweeted “My aim this weekend is to claw back the gap in the Drivers’ Championship.” he states, going on to say of the rest of the season “I won’t give up until the flag drops in Abu Dhabi” which is some seven races away now, and in that many races just about anything could happen, and probably will. One thing is for certain, qualifying this weekend will be a spectacular competition as all the drivers and teams are aware that in the last 14 Grand Prix at Monza, pole position on the grid has gone on to win the race 11 times.

Practice at Monza kicks off on Friday morning with qualifying lunchtime on Saturday and the race following along on Sunday. The weather is set to be as unpredictable as the drivers, the cars are all ready for the full speed pelt that is the Italian Grand Prix and the rest of us are left to visit online gambling sites in Italy to wager on which of the Mercedes will crash into the other Mercedes by the end of lap five.