Brought to you by TJ13 Courtroom Reporter & Crime Analyst: Adam Macdonald (@adamac39)
[For those who are new to the page – TJ13 attempts to remove certain aspects of the race to give a fairer reflection of the race result.]
Another week, another controversy at the pinnacle of Motorsport as this time the world questioned whether we had just witnessed a fix. Chicane-gate will only add to the narrative of the 2014 season, which has seen puncture-gate, escape road-gate, illegal engine settings-gate and a German team wanting a German driver to win–gate. The final part of this story seems fitting that it will be decided by double-points gate, as the only thing more strange would be gate-gate. All involved in Formula One will only hope there is not a repeat of crash-gate as we head to Singapore.
The one thing nobody can question this weekend was that Nico Rosberg was slower than Lewis Hamilton. If that does not play on his mind then the booing certainly will, as they head to a completely different style of circuit around the streets of Singapore. Can anybody see a Red Bull driver getting amongst the Mercedes drivers or perhaps even gate crashing (see what I did there) the Mercedes party?
The start of the action at Monza
So what really happened?
Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg: While many, including myself, have their suspicions about the race result as there is nothing proven, #LH44 keeps the win. An important win as he wrestles back the momentum.
Valtteri Bottas: Even if Bottas had made a good start off the line, he would have run into trouble in the form of Lewis Hamilton as he limped away from pole. Massa’s start was not flying, but he retains his first podium of 2014.
Fernando Alonso: A poor performance was masked by the retirement of the lead Ferrari driver. Some have said it was the worst possible place to do so, but in truth it would be worse to finish very lowly. The retirement gave the Spaniard and the team a get-out clause, when at best all they could have hoped for was a gross 9th , net 10th position, including Magnussen’s penalty.
Nico Hulkenberg: A damaged floor put pay to what could have been a double points finish for the Force India team as they continue to do battle with McLaren. Nico is awarded 9th place for his efforts.
Kevin Magnussen: Many have commented that he was unlucky to finish where he did after being given a penalty. I agree, but the stewards’ decision is final…
Max Chilton: Driver error was the result of Super Max retiring, therefore he remains retired.
Daniil Kvyat: Even with failing brakes at the end of the race, it is unlikely he would have finished ahead of Magnussen when his 5 second penalty was applied. He remains in position for what was an impressive recovery drive from a 21st position start after his 10 place grid penalty.
The Verdict
This leaves the revised results table looking like this:
| Revised Race Position | Driver | Result comparison | Points | Points Difference | Grid Position | |
| Start | RevisedPosition | |||||
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | = | 25 | = | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Nico Rosberg | = | 18 | = | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | Felipe Massa | = | 15 | = | 4 | 3 |
| 4 | Valtteri Bottas | = | 12 | = | 3 | 4 |
| 5 | Daniel Ricciardo | = | 10 | = | 9 | 5 |
| 6 | Sebastian Vettel | = | 8 | = | 8 | 6 |
| 7 | Sergio Perez | = | 6 | = | 10 | 7 |
| 8 | Jenson Button | = | 4 | = | 6 | 8 |
| 9 | Nico Hulkenberg | +3 | 2 | +2 | 13 | 9 |
| 10 | Fernando Alonso | REITRED | 1 | +1 | 7 | 10 |
| 11 | Kimi Raikkonen | -2 | 0 | -2 | 11 | 11 |
| 12 | Kevin Magnussen | -2 | 0 | -1 | 5 | 12 |
| 13 | Daniil Kvyat | -2 | 0 | = | 21 | 13 |
| 14 | Jean-Eric Vergne | -1 | 0 | = | 12 | 14 |
| 15 | Pastor Maldonado | -1 | 0 | = | 16 | 15 |
| 16 | Adrian Sutil | -1 | 0 | = | 14 | 16 |
| 17 | Romain Grosjean | -1 | 0 | = | 17 | 17 |
| 18 | Kamui Kobayashi | -1 | 0 | = | 18 | 18 |
| 19 | Jules Bianchi | -1 | 0 | = | 19 | 19 |
| 20 | Esteban Gutierrez | -1 | 0 | = | 15 | 20 |
| 21 | Marcus Ericsson | -1 | 0 | = | 22 | 21 |
| 22 | Max Chilton | = RETIRED | 0 | = | 20 | 22 |
Below, the revised World Drivers’ Championship:
| Driver | Revised WDC | WDC Points Difference | |
| Position | Points | ||
| Lewis Hamilton | 1 | 256 | +40 |
| Nico Rosberg | 2 | 254 | +16 |
| Daniel Ricciardo | 3 | 163 | -6 |
| Sebastian Vettel | 4 | 113 | +7 |
| Fernando Alonso | 5 | 106 | -13 |
| Valtteri Bottas | 6 | 104 | -18 |
| Felipe Massa | 7 | 79 | +24 |
| Jenson Button | 8 | 63 | -9 |
| Nico Hulkenberg | 9 | 48 | -22 |
| Kimi Raikkonen | 10 | 47 | +5 |
| Sergio Perez | 11 | 35 | -4 |
| Kevin Magnussen | 12 | 25 | -13 |
| Daniil Kvyat | 13 | 11 | +5 |
| Jean-Eric Vergne | 14 | 9 | -2 |
| Romain Grosjean | 15 | 4 | -4 |
| Jules Bianchi | 16 | 0 | -2 |
| Adrian Sutil | 17 | 0 | = |
| Esteban Gutierrez | 18 | 0 | = |
| Kamui Kobayashi | 19 | 0 | = |
| Max Chilton | 20 | 0 | = |
| Marcus Ericsson | 21 | 0 | = |
| Pastor Maldonado | 22 | 0 | = |
*Those with 0 points will not be ordered
What they would have said
Instead of being able to focus on the retirement of the prancing horse the tifosi would have been forced to face the reality that their favourite red car was struggling to clear the McLaren of Button. Monza 2014 will not go down as one to remember for the Ferrari squad, but there again not many races this year will.
It seems that if it could have gone wrong for Kvyat, it did go wrong this weekend. One bit of solace the young Russian can take from the weekend is the fact his fastest lap was the quickest of all the Renault runners. The 1:28.486 was almost a full tenth quicker than the sister Bull of Ricciardo ahead. Should Vettel leave in the next couple of years, Kvyat is lining himself up well to take the front running seat.
Quote of the Day
The quote for this week comes from Derek Jeter, the long-serving American baseball player said, “I love it when people doubt me. It makes me work harder to prove them wrong.”
New York Yankees legend
There are those that doubt Nico following his ‘buckling to the pressure’ of Lewis in Italy. Singapore will be of paramount importance for who carries the impetus for the rest of the start of the flyaway races – so don’t miss the action!
I am knew to this forum, so please don’t shoot me down, but if this is a revised WDC why is Nico in front when Lewis has more points ?
Well spotted. The perils of writing an article in the small hours. Lewis has indeed once again taken the lead
Welcome, and please feel free to contribute, the community here is the friendliest on the interweb 😉
Especially when you are right, like he is now. 😉
Great report.
And the last paragraph does a good job of taking the piss and highlighting my pet peeve about F1 media as a whole this season.
When reporting about the Merc VS Merc battle, some analysis of the two driving styles would be welcome. Where are they faster, where are they slower, how are they are setting their cars up different from one another?
What we get instead is gossip about the mental game and how the next race is critical for one driver or another to “gain momentum”.
Bahrain was “a critical blow”. China was critical. Spain was critical. Monaco, Canada, Austria, Silverstone, Hockenheim and Budapest were “critical”. Rosberg put HAM under pressure in Spa, HAM put ROS “on notice” in Monza. Singapore will be “key”. Suzuka and every other race to come will be the most important until the last one which will be the most important.
It’s just cookie cutter at this point. I could write a post race report for Singapore right now with 2 different versions depending upon who comes in first, paste in a little race report and pull a quote from the many things that Hamilton says in interviews over the weekend. Easy.
Suzuka will be critical in deciding the championship by the way.
@j
“Suzuka will be critical in deciding the championship by the way.”
Suzuka record last 4 years:
Lewis v Team Mates
2013: DNF – 8th
2012: 5th – 4th
2011: 5th – 1st
2010: 5th – 4th
Doesn’t seem like Lewis is exactly stellar at Suzuka. He’s been beaten at this “drivers circuit” for four years running by a team mate. And Jenson isn’t exactly considered mega, is he.
If what you say in the quote above is correct, then I’d be a bit concerned if I were a Hamilfosi.
@j- you are very correct re your media criticism. The psychodrama sells eyeballs though, so we’re stuck with it as long as this format and accreditation continue. Recently one journalist was threatened with losing access for asking “difficult” questions. Without access, you lose your ticket to the circus.
But there’s more than one way to skin a rat, or at any rate a rat faced troll from Suffolk who is slowly crushing the life out of F1. Social Media and the interwebz are beginning to do the job the trad media cannot. Interesting times for sure.
Pretty good analysis of the race in Italy. I’d have been harder on Kevin, but that’s coming from an ex-racer who saw moves like he pulled in to pretty catastrophic injuries (in much less safe cars). Anyway, nice work on the site and podcast… We’ll done.
Oh, one more thing, y’all should put a clickable link to the site in the podcast description… Remember, your primary audience consists of formula 1 fans, many of whom lack the patience and attention span to remember the name of the podcast, then spell it correctly in “the google” (without losing interest or getting distracted). Fans of the pinicle of motorsport, and series for which F1 provides a feeder series, The WEC, could likely manage this task with regularity, Formula 1 fans… Mmmmm… Not so much! Lol
Keep up the good work…
Super LOL! Pretty sure clickable link on the way. Will agitate for said things.
Very impressive from Kvyat.. he would have been beating Vettel if not for the grid penalty. His pace at the end would definitely have left him battling those in front for the points, on the F1F lap charts you can see that Vettel and those behind him fell off a cliff in terms of degradation.
But at the same time I’m still wondering how close these cars are to the weight limits, and how much this can affect the cars at places like Monza. Kvyat shined there in GP3, so perhaps being the lightest gives a tenth or two advantage.. only recently has Lewis for example been allowed to start bulking back up on the 6kg he lost for this year (and we thought Mercedes was the lightest car.. maybe their veto was to help Nico?)