Italian Grand Prix Review

Plus, that day the Ferraris had annihilated the rest of the field in much the same fashion as they had done during the rest of the season. And even for the tifosi, accustomed to the melodrama of never-ending internal turmoil at Maranello and of uphill struggles year after year, another clinical 1-2 romp was hardly the stuff for passionate, joie de vivre celebration. But with the red machines as dominant in 2004 as they were back in 2002, would yet another attempt at a Monza party turn out to be another damp squib?

Not this time. How about making one of the red cars start the race on the wrong tyres, and get the other to spin on the first lap, before getting both to make up over a pit stop's worth of time on the rest of the field and still finish 1-2? Now that's the way to celebrate and strut your superiority in style. No race this year more amply demonstrated Ferrari's supremacy than this one. For even die-hard fans can struggle to admire the awesomeness in a tedious lights-to-flag, off into the horizon, "see you later" win.

As was the case two years ago though, once Schumi had clinched the title Barrichello seemed to have a slightly more-than-usual chance of victory, without being too cynical about it. That is not to deny the quality of Rubens' work over the weekend. After all, it was Michael who made the error at the Parabolica in qualifying, and the Brazilian who not only took pole but blitzed the rest of the field by over half a second. Not to forget the fact that Barrichello also walked away with the fastest lap of the race.

More to the point, with a mere 24 laps to run, Rubinho was four seconds behind Jenson Button, with one extra stop to make, and he still won. What the Ferrari strategists had done, in response to Rubens' misjudgment to start on intermediates despite the rapidly-drying track, was in effect to put him on a warped three-stopper. Barrichello's advantage was the ability to run the whole race on a lighter average fuel load, but over the course of the Grand Prix he had to make up an extra stop's worth of time, and that he did.

Yet on this day, Barrichello's effort was probably still overshadowed by Schumacher's incredible drive. Overly cautious at the start on his slow-warming Bridgestones, nudged into a spin by Button at the Roggia chicane, Michael was nonetheless still on roughly the same strategy as the other front-runners bar his team-mate. Instead of being able to depend on strategy and fuel loads, Schumi had to make it all up by sheer car speed and driving prowess and aggression.

When Button pitted for the first time from the lead, he had 27 seconds over Michael and actually came out in front of the Ferrari. That meant that Schumi, like Rubens, made up a whole pit-stop's worth of time over the BAR, but unlike his team-mate he had no average fuel load advantage to assist him. Plus, of course, Michael had to fight his way through the field, which Barrichello had to do to a lesser extent, and which Button et al didn't have to do at all.

For example, in the most notable instance in which Michael found his upward progress hindered, the Ferrari was trapped for a few laps behind an assertive Mark Webber. Those two or three laps behind the Jaguar was arguably the difference between Michael being ahead of or behind Barrichello after the Brazilian's third pit visit. Because in hindsight, once the final stops had been completed, the Ferraris were always going to hold station, regardless of how forcefully Michael moved up on his team-mate.

Most notable in that category would of course be Button and BAR. Jenson did not put a foot wrong this race. He immediately fought back from a slightly tardy start, and made immediate progress through the front-runners as if he was on intermediates though he was on dries. He disposed of team-mate Takuma Sato, picked off Kimi Raikkonen, pressured Juan-Pablo Montoya into an error, and then passed Fernando Alonso after the first round of stops, comfortably staying ahead of the Renault thereafter.

The Englishman's problem was that on this day he simply didn't have the car speed to eventually resist the Ferraris even though he spent most of the race in the premier position with one hand on the winner's trophy. What's impressive, however, is Button and BAR's ability to remain professional and competitive despite Jenson's avowed intention to leave for Williams, and the simmering tension surrounding that. It makes for a stark contrast to the debacle at Renault...

Sato scored his second-best Formula One finish to date, and spent the whole race hovering around 5 to 10 seconds behind Button. This drive has supposedly cemented his place with the team for 2005, but one wonders, if the best that BAR can do next season is to be around 5 to 10 seconds behind where they are this year, in such a tight tussle for best-of-the-rest honours in Ferrari's wake, then they will sadly be slipping backwards. They'll have to enjoy being 2nd in the constructors' title while it lasts.

The way Renault are going, it certainly looks as though BAR are being handed 2nd behind Ferrari on a plate. For the second race in succession they failed to score points; for the fifth race in succession Jarno Trulli hasn't come within cooee of the top eight. The Italian's overt conflict with the team, which has seen him suddenly dumped from the team, is not only sad, it's plainly disturbing, with Jarno openly complaining that he has been receiving second-rate treatment since his departure was announced.

The point is, one could hardly imagine that Briatore would be out to intentionally jeopardise Trulli by actively favouring Alonso. Or perhaps is it just the ripple effects of Flav's charismatic style of management? Even if it's not his direct aim, such is his power of influence, and such is his (mutually reciprocated) disdain for Jarno at present, might it not be that he's had the effect of de-motivating the team from giving Jarno their best? At the same time, there's the niggling uncertainty about Trulli himself as well. Not for nothing was his reputation of being an undependable racer, incapable of driving to 100% of his ability lap after lap in a race situation.

Although Trulli had seemed to overcome that in the first half of this year, it wouldn't take much to plunge back into old habits. Especially when there's little for him to gain personally, in particular if, as paddock rumours would have it, he has the lucrative Toyota contract for next year already signed. Still, the Trulli/Renault saga is all over now, with Jacques Villeneuve tipped to return to F1 in Jarno's place in China (even if JV won't be at Renault in 2005). Maybe such a giant publicity coup (and constructor's title boost) was Flav's plan all along?

Here's another amazing thing: even with all this fuss, Alonso is still behind Trulli in the championship! Whereas he was almost mistake-free in 2003, this year he has shown a more reckless side, and his fairly lazy spin into retirement here when maybe a podium place was on offer - or at least a decent points haul - was another example. Fernando has been as temperamental and inconsistent in his driving as his R24 has been this year. One hopes he does not develop the habit of driving only as well as his car.

Some positives to take away from Monza for Williams as well. Montoya's pre-qualifying and qualifying speed was impressive, and for two-thirds of the race, before gearbox gremlins struck, JPM had tacked onto the back of Alonso and Button comfortably. It was a situation where, if there was a driver who had more to gain than the Colombian does at the moment, who had more reason to push and explore the limits, one could picture the Williams challenging the Renault and the BAR more vigorously.

That's not a criticism of JPM. He's doing a creditably workmanlike job in a position when everyone knows he's just marking time, unlike the sulky approach Renault and Trulli are taking. Rather, it's a positive for Williams because it shows they are still there or thereabouts, and are still capable of challenging for 'best of the rest' honours. They're not in such a peat bog crisis as some have suggested. They have a solid platform from which the team can regroup to attack 2005 with gusto.

After a timid first two races for Williams, Antonio Pizzonia found his feet at Spa and looked to keep things up at Monza, only to go to the other extreme and perhaps over-drive. He spent a bit too much time chicane-hopping, and his late-race lunge at David Coulthard was silly and could have ended in tears. On the other hand, he could do things like passing Webber for position at Lesmo two. It's everything we know about Jungle Boy: talented no doubt, but not reliable enough to deserve a permanent F1 seat.

There was some talk after Friday that McLaren had leaped to second-best team in F1, and whilst that may be case when the silver cars show flashes of speed, it's consistent results that are going to earn that kind of mantle. That is what McLaren don't have. It's no good for Raikkonen to win at Spa and then retire with yet another engine-related problem at Monza. One wonders why Kimi has had the lion's share of the reliability issues at McLaren this year, especially when it comes to the Mercedes Ilmor engine.

Of the rest, Giancarlo Fisichella picked up another point for 8th, yet another heavy-fuel strategy paying dividends. Felipe Massa had his fifteen minutes of fame in the first few laps on intermediates, but thereafter rather lost his head as he made mistakes and slid down the order. It's one thing to be aggressive; it's another thing to know how to cleanly set up a rival and pull off a clinical overtaking manoeuvre, and more often than not Felipe doesn't seem to know how to do that.

Jaguar will be ruing another lost opportunity, after Christian Klien and Webber ran 6th and 7th early on. Any chance the Austrian had for points went out the window with a drive-through penalty for pit speeding, while a slowish few laps after Mark's first stop, when he was passed by Schumacher, Pizzonia and Fisichella, effectively put him out of the points for the rest of the day. Noticeably the R5s ran with more wing than most, which explained why they started brightly in the dampish conditions but then fell back.

Of course the big news to surround Jaguar in the lead-up to Monza was the speculation that Ford was going to dump their WRC program, invest more heavily in F1, and re-brand the team simply as Ford. Whilst that would be a positive move for Formula One in general, it seems like a daring, too-good-to-be-true backflip from Detroit. After all, they have proven successful in rallying, whereas the underachieving Jaguar experiment must have shown how hard it is to succeed in Grand Prix racing.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Italian GP trophies
A cigarette to throw in the Bahrain wastebasket

After all, at Monza Zsolt Baumgartner reverted to more embarrassing pay-driver ways, seemingly spending more time down the escape road at the first chicane than actually going through it correctly. Having said that, his improvement as the season has progressed is undeniable. Gianmaria Bruni, though, had the misfortune of suffering the most dramatic pit fire at his second pit stop since Jos Verstappen's infamous blaze at Hockenheim ten years ago.

It's probably unfair to criticise the gallant Minardi pit crew without knowing exactly what happened, and indeed it may have been a fuel rig failure that sent petrol streaming out of the detached nozzle. But there did seem to be a split second when the refuellers took the hose out and petrol spilled everywhere, and the crew seemed content to let it happen without quite knowing how to react. They also seemed rather slow in helping poor Gimmi - unable to breathe for almost a minute - extricate himself from the car.

Toyota were also in the news, with Olivier Panis announcing his retirement from full-time racing to become a tester for the team, and their third driver as well, although current Friday practice rules (if they are to remain for 2005) would prohibit him from running the third car. While it seems to confirm that the team's pairing next year will be Ralf Schumacher and Trulli, regardless it seemed to be the right moment to call time on Olivier's F1 racing career. His form this year has suggested that his time is up.

With their abundance of contracted drivers, it remains to be seen what Toyota will do with Ricardo Zonta, although he was noticeably unnoticeable at Monza, and also Ryan Briscoe, who has perhaps performed better than expected in Friday testing. Aussie hopes rest on a possible seat at Jordan along with Toyota engines, although so much of Eddie Jordan's plans remain completely up in the air at the moment. Rumours of prospective buy-outs seem to change on a daily basis, depending on who you listen to.

Sadly, we never got to see how or where Giorgio spun off; indeed, although there was a lot going on during the race, there was nevertheless a lot of action we missed, courtesy of the horrendous job by the TV director. As many viewers have pointed out after the race, it takes tremendous skill to cut away from a shot just as something interesting is about to happen, and then return after it's happened without ever showing a replay of exactly how it happened...

We'd already given the French TV director 'Reject of the Race', so we thought we'd spare our Italian friend this time. Who, then, took out the award? Or in this case, what took out the prize? We considered giving it to Baumgartner for his various trips down the escape road, to Trulli for daydreaming his way through the race, or to Alonso for his lazy spin into retirement. But when Barrichello, Schumacher and Button mounted the podium, the decision was unanimous.

Have you ever seen a more ridiculous trophy? What the flailing heck was that? A canister? A giant cigarette in deference to the major sponsors of the podium getters? A piece of postmodern art gone hideously wrong? It made the infamous Bahrain wastebasket look positively like a masterpiece. More to the point, it's something I would rather put into the wastebasket instead of having it sit on my mantle piece. So, for something a little different, Reject of the Race to the Italian Grand Prix trophies.