After racing at the longest track, this week Formula 1 is at the fastest track in the calendar. Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Italy, also known as “The Temple of Speed” is located at the city of Monza, north of Milan, Italy which was built in the year 1922. The site has three tracks 1. Grand Prix track with 5.793 KM, 2. Junior track with 2.405 KM and 3. high-speed oval track with 4.250 KM, which has been unused for many decades.
Monza is a power circuit as it has long straights and tight chicanes. Good braking and tractions are very essential to race in Monza. As you can see, the cars are set up with one of the smallest wing angles in order to have the lowest level of drag on straights. Securing a pole position doesn’t mean a race win at Monza. Consistent speed, tyre management and strategy are equally important.
Practice 2 & Practice 3
Based on Practice 2 & 3 analysis, Ferrari is the strongest in single lap pace and in terms of long runs Mercedes (Bottas) is the team to beat. Though Reb Bull’s Verstappen is starting from the back of the grid, he could be in the top 5 by the end of the race. Renault is showing good signs of progress at Monza and Riccardo was impressive in all the three sectors during practice 3.
For the analysis, laps clocked under 86.0565 seconds and laps clocked under 85.531 seconds were considered for Practice 2 and 3 respectively.
Practice 2 - Timing Charts
Practice 2 - Tyre Charts
Practice 2 - Sector Charts
Practice 3 - Timing Charts
Practice 3 - Tyre Charts
Practice 3 - Sector Charts
Main Race Heatmap
Formula 1 witnessed its best crowd and best podium after 9 years in Italy.
It was an exciting race and Charles Leclerc did an incredible drive to fend off the Mercedes team attacks. This win at Monza has proved all the qualities of Charles to become a Ferrari world champion.
To find out on race evolution, here is the heat map of 53 laps by all the 20 drivers .
Reference
The circuit map is taken from Wikipedia
