It’s Monza and the Italian fans are up for a repeat of last year, when Charles Leclerc won thee team’s home Grand Prix, beating the McLaren’s who somewhat tripped over themselves. One of the features of the iconic circuit is with its lack of corners the slipstream effect is one of the strongest of the season.
Ferrari over the years have sought to use this aerodynamic effect in qualifying, sending their cars out line astern with instructions to the driver at the front to give their team mate what’s called ‘the tow.’ Yet there have been some famous red faced moments when attempting such a difficult to judge manoeuvre, as happened with Sebastian Vettel back in 2019.
For the first run in Q3 Vettel was sent out ahead of his junior team mate Charles Leclerc and duly managed to judge the distance sufficiently to help his team mate along the front and back straights. Yet when it was time to return the favour, Ferrari left it too late sending their cars out again, meaning Vettel never got his second push lap in with the planned assistance from his team mate who claimed pole position.
Ferrari and Leclerc muck up Vettel’s tow
“I thought we had spoken about it,” Vettel said after the session. “I definitely listened to what we intended to do. I think it was clear what will happen in the last bit of qualifying, I think we were foreseeing exactly what happened, but we weren’t doing what we were supposed to do and that’s why it was a mess. And I didn’t get a run in the end.”
Yet there was an element of suspicion in the German’s post session comments where he alluded to “messing around” and “Charles was slowing down and in the end I didn’t get across the line, nor did I have a good tow. So not a good outcome.” Leclerc went on to win his maiden victory in Monza.
There have been successful executions of the tow in Monza by both Ferrari and other teams although the practice is brought with danger as the teams debate what distance is optimum for the driver to be ahead. Coming into Monza, new boy at Ferrari Lewis Hamilton was asked about the tow and whether he would be helping his team mate.
Hamilton happy to help Leclerc
Hamilton was carrying a five place grid drop and so whatever the result in qualifying it would not be he who would be sitting on pole. Ahead of qualifying Lewis confirmed at a fans event inMilan he wold be “happy” to be “sacrificed” for his team mate if it was Ferrari’s decision.
“I know that Ferrari used to do it many years ago,” he said. “I remember when I started, I noticed Kimi [Raikkonen] and Felipe [Massa] used to do that often. It can be beneficial, but in my past, it felt like there was more risk, and often one person had to be sacrificed for it, so I’m not sure whether they will do that. But if it meant getting Charles there, then I would be happy to play that role.”
The tow in Monza is is worth somewhere in the region of 0.3 seconds to a car in the slipstream and come the end of an exciting qualifying session, Leclerc was fourth just over 0.2 seconds behind pole sitter Max Verstappen. The tifosi began to question on social media why the team had not ordered Hamilton to give Leclerc the tow.
Rosberg analysis Hamilton crisis
Fans upset Lewis didn’t assist Leclerc
One posed the question: “Why wasn’t Hamilton ordered to help Leclerc, to give him a tow?” Whilst another thought the team had bowed to its newest drivers wishes. “Ferrari sucking up to Hamilton is a disgrace! Giving no tow to Leclerc despite knowing he has a five place grid penalty…”
After the session Lewis was asked whether he should have helped his team mate to claim a pole for Ferrari at their home Grand Prix by giving him the tow and he appeared to renege on his offer made earlier in the week. ”It’s not something I ever did in any of my other teams.’ Ultimately, potentially, you end up sacrificing one of the drivers. And I’ve already got a five place penalty, so points wise I needed to be as high as I could.’’
The Ferrari team boss was asked about the lack of tow for Leclerc and why Lewis didn’t help out. “It was, but the correct decision was to prepare the out lap properly. We saw in other Grand Prix how important it was,” he said. When asked if Leclerc had requested the tow, Vasseur added: “No, he understood why it wasn’t possible.”
Hamilton set to start from P10 in Monza
Leclerc qualified fourth with Hamilton right behind him but the five place grid drop he received from the stewards in Zandvoort mean the former world champion will begin in tenth place. Hamilton was unhappy about his penalty, which he claimed he only discovered when he’d returned home to Monaco after the Dutch Grand Prix.
He was guilty of failing to slow sufficiently under yellow flags on a reconnaissance lap before the grid for the race was even formed. There’s been a significant amount of criticism foe the fact the stewards failed to deal with the matter there and then, issuing a penalty to Hamilton during the Grand Prix.
Carlos Sainz too was unhappy with the ruling of the stewards who deemed his coming together with Isack Hadjar the Spaniard’s fast, giving him a ten second time penalty together with a reprimand and points o his F1 license.
Williams have requested aa right of review from the stewards in Monza, as team boss James Vowles explained: “We can confirm we have submitted a right of review to the FIA relating to Carlos’ penalty in Zandvoort. It is important for us to understand how to go racing in future, and we are hopeful of a positive outcome.”
Verstappen over rules engineers for Monza qualifying
It’s Monza weekend and the last race for the Formula One European season is upon us. Ferrari work all year to ensure they have a competitive car for their home race in Italy, but it seems other teams too have stepped it up for the Italian Grand Prix.
Just 0.4 seconds covered the top ten in final qualifying and for Kimi Antonelli to be less than 50 milliseconds from his team mate it was a much better day than he has seen for quite some time. Yet it was Max Verstappen and Red Bull who were the stars of qualifying, whilst the margins were thin it was he who built steady progression into the sessions claiming the fastest lap of all time in an F1 car.
Red Bull brought a new floor for the weekend in Monza, which certainly hasn’t hurt the pace of the RB21, although Max believes crediting this upgrade with the turnaround is too simple an explanation. Verstappen began the weekend half a second off the pace then in second practice he narrowed the gap to just under two tenths. Come final practice he was now just 0.15s away from the top of the time sheets and a stunning final lap in qualifying saw him pip Norris to pole by just 77 milliseconds….. READ MORE
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