Gran Premio d'Italia !

[Max_DC]

Well I'm a bit dissapointed that Michael Schumacher retires, although it was obvious... One strong character leaving again...

 

[Lotrzyna]

Kubica was one of the most lucky drivers last years - it was his 3rd race and he got 3dr place but futher more he took a part in press conference with MS informinhg people about end of his career ...!

 

[<_Spike_>]

Fisi... Huh? Did he race today? Well, at least he scored some points.

Kimi... You ain't no MS... so give up trying...
.

Fisi - It's called a one stop strategy and failures up front matey

Kimi - No one is MS but Schuey, and no one is trying to be. The only thing Kimi is trying to be is a race driver, and he is one, and the fastest man in the sport like it or lump it.

 

[m7ammed]

Kubica isn't lucky he fought hard for his podium and he truly deserves it I think he could of gotten past Alonso if Alonso continued as the BMW was quicker on the main straight ..... well done BMW shame about Nick drive through penalty at least he got a point , BMW have done well for their first season , and their aim was to get podiums only next season I think they have exceeded everybody's expectations , congratulation to all BMW fans .

 

[Pink_the_Floyd]

Nice one by Kubica 👍

Good to see a Toyota in the points aswell

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

Well, that's one of the most confusing and bizarre decisions I've ever seen reached in F1. It's certainly hard to see how anyone could accuse the Italian race stewards of bias in favour of the Italian race team.

I have no allegiance towards any drivers or manufacturers, I just appreciate great racing. However, what evidence do you have that the race steward(s) where Italian, and had the authority to regulate Alonso without any evidence and without any say from the FIA's international governing rules committee?

According to Max Moseley, as he was being interviewed by Martin Brundle on the grid, they got telemetry data that showed Massa's car was destableised (or however you spell it) at the parabolica by the disturbed air from the back of Alonso's car. It's written in the rules that someone on an outlap must let a guy on his fastlap past or be penalised.

This is the first time I heard a detailed explanation for Alonso&#8217;s regulation, but that would certainly explain it.

Of course, all of this pre-race drama turned out to be moot, as Alonso still would have only started in 5th position, and while he performed well, he was not able to keep pace with the lap times of both Schumacher and Raikkonen, and would have still finished no better than 3rd. Most importantly, a bad engine is a bad engine, and even if he had taken pole position he still would have ended his day with a DNF.

I feel bad for Masa though, as he got caught behind Alonso&#8217;s engine &#8216;extraction&#8217;, which resulted in a damaged front right tire that forced him to pit and drop from 4th position to 9th, losing 5 driver and constructor points.

For race fans though, the results from Monza have opened the door for one of the more dramatic endings to a F1 season in a very long time! The driver and constructor championship race is separated by only 2 and 3 points respectively. In addition, the race for the last position on the podium is between three drivers separated by only 5 points!

I will certainly be enjoying watching the final three races of the season regardless of the final outcome.

 

[Famine]

I have no allegiance towards any drivers or manufacturers, I just appreciate great racing. However, what evidence do you have that the race steward(s) where Italian, and had the authority to regulate Alonso without any evidence and without any say from the FIA's international governing rules committee?

I don't need to present any evidence of any variety - I have made no allegation. I said:

It's certainly hard to see how anyone could accuse the Italian race stewards of bias in favour of the Italian race team.

Though I will point out that the steward committee consists of the FIA chief steward (Tony Scott-Andrews), a local circuit steward (an Italian who I cannot find the name of) and a third steward from another nation (who I believe is named "Enzo" something, though is Uruguayan).

This is the same at any track - F1 stewards are the FIA chief steward, a local circuit steward and a third, disinterested steward.

So, can I prove the Italian-ness of the stewards? For one of them, yes. But why do I need to?

 

[daan]

This is the first time I heard a detailed explanation for Alonso&#8217;s regulation, but that would certainly explain it.

Here is the conversation about Alonso's penalty in full.

http://www.davidanderson.org.uk/files/mosley.wmv

Taken from ITV's F1 coverage.

 

[livemusic]

I wish I could go to Interlagos watch MS' last race in F1.

 

[Kylehnat]

That's the first I've heard of this "rule". I suspect it's in place to keep a driver on his outlap from weaving around and lally-gagging while blocking someone on a hotlap, but this was obviously not the case. I interpret it as a sort of "blue flag" , if you will. If a backmarker is lapping faster than a lead-lap car, he has no obligation to slow down and let the lead-lap car go. The blue flag only comes into play when the backmarker is about to be passed. Absolutely a joke of a ruling. I'm not sure where they came up with the 3-lap penalty, though. To screw Alonso, they would have only needed to toss out his best lap, since he only had one after his tire disassembled itself.

Last bit of this rant: I am SOOOOO sick and tired of drivers complaining of being blocked during qualifying. Everyone has bitched and whined about it. GET OVER IT, YOU TWITS!!! That's part of the strategy of qualifying. There are other cars on the track; deal with it. In no other form of motorsport do drivers bitch quite like F1 drivers do.

The race: quite the yawn-fest indeed. Nice drive from Alonso until his engine barfed up a lung. Quite surprising to see the Renault engine go...

Most importantly, a bad engine is a bad engine, and even if he had taken pole position he still would have ended his day with a DNF.

I wonder if they turned up the revs a bit towards the end? Another 200 rpm would have been enough to jeapordize the engine's reliability. Who knows...

Good race for BMW, and for Kubica in particular. More fresh faces on the podiums is well...refreshing .

Michael: Ta ta. Now you can fully enjoy the mountains of money lying around your many mansions.

The winner's press conference is there so that the winner can talk about his race. Not about what he is going to do in the future.

Oh come on; have a heart. I'm just surprised that Kimi didn't walk in wearing a Ferrari hat. That would have spoiled the surprise in a very humorous, understated, Kimi-esque fashion.

Three weeks until China. Let's see if the FIA lets Alonso change his engine without penalty. I'm sure there's some buried regulation that prevents it just this once.

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

Here is the conversation about Alonso's penalty in full.

http://www.davidanderson.org.uk/files/mosley.wmv

Taken from ITV's F1 coverage.

Thanks! Yes, that would explain the situation.

I wonder if they turned up the revs a bit towards the end? Another 200 rpm would have been enough to jeopardize the engine's reliability. Who knows...

"If" he did... it didn't improve his lap times, certainly not in comparison to the leaders. You can play "what if" scenarios all day long, but the fact remains that Alonso only managed the 5th best lap time behind Raikkonen, Schumacher, Massa, and even Kubica. If he was overworking the engine to improve performance it wasn't working. More to the point, he would still be in the same situation had he started in 5th position. He still had faster cars/drivers in front of him regardless.

 

[Kylehnat]

The car looked racier today than it had all weekend. I'm just saying that, after all of the curiosities off-track, Renault decided to gamble on the engine, so that Alonso might have an easier time dusting off the likes of Button and Heidfeld, to get as many points as possible. I'm not saying I'm right; just a guess, because that was an uncharacteristic failure. Also, lap times in the race are only relevant if the driver has clear air. The Kubica/Massa/Button/Alonso train was slowing all four of them down.

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

The car looked racier today than it had all weekend. I'm just saying that, after all of the curiosities off-track, Renault decided to gamble on the engine, so that Alonso might have an easier time dusting off the likes of Button and Heidfeld, to get as many points as possible. I'm not saying I'm right; just a guess, because that was an uncharacteristic failure. Also, lap times in the race are only relevant if the driver has clear air. The Kubica/Massa/Button/Alonso train was slowing all four of them down.

I must have been watching a different race, as the one I watched, Alonso had several "clean air" laps, and certainly had opporuntities to post fast lap times if he and his car had it in them. Masa for instance posted the 3rd fastest time on lap 41 and he had just as much, if not more traffic in front of him than Alonso did.

Only thing that matters is that Alsonso was slower then the top three finishers, his engine blew, and took out Masa from the points... time to move on.

 

[KSaiyu]

Terrible what happened to Alonso, and a shame for the sport.

 

[fangorn_forest]

The winner's press conference is there so that the winner can talk about his race. Not about what he is going to do in the future.

Boo-freaking-hoo. Schumacher is, quite simply, the greatest driver of all time, period, including all other forms of motorsport. If you can't deal with one press conference being about him and his retirement(which is clearly the biggest thing to happen to the sport in years), if for nothing more than sheer respect for what the man has done, then I just don't think you're a true fan of Formula 1 racing.

About the race, I actually thoroughly enjoyed the race, even if it wasn't a paradigm of close racing. I can't remember the last time I had this much emotional investment in watching an F1 race. I'm sure it was the fact that I pretty much knew he was going to announce his retirement and this was going to be one of my last chances to see him race and compete for a championship. But either way, I was on the edge of my seat cheering for him the entire race. And I'll admit it, even though I have absolutely nothing against Alonso, I jumped up and cheered when I saw his engine had blown. Yay Schumi!

Also, fantastic job Kubica and BMW!

I'm quite sure now that MS will win the championship, and I can't wait to see the moment when he goes out on top, making the perfect cap to the greatest F1 racing career of all time!

 

[STLbarcelona5]

Boo-freaking-hoo. Schumacher is, quite simply, the greatest driver of all time, period, including all other forms of motorsport. If you can't deal with one press conference being about him and his retirement(which is clearly the biggest thing to happen to the sport in years), if for nothing more than sheer respect for what the man has done, then I just don't think you're a true fan of Formula 1 racing.

I like the way that Peter Windsor put it. "The greatest driver in the modern era." I don't want to take anything away from Schumi, I know he's a brilliant driver. But to rule out someone like Fangio simply because Michael has so many records that favour those who have a longer career, I don't agree with that being the end all of what makes a great driver.

 

[<_Spike_>]

Agreed, greatest of the modern era undoubtedly, but not of all time.

 

[Blake]

Three weeks until China. Let's see if the FIA lets Alonso change his engine without penalty. I'm sure there's some buried regulation that prevents it just this once.

Uh, he didn&#8217;t finish the race. Of course there&#8217;s no penalty.

I like the way that Peter Windsor put it. "The greatest driver in the modern era." I don't want to take anything away from Schumi, I know he's a brilliant driver. But to rule out someone like Fangio simply because Michael has so many records that favour those who have a longer career, I don't agree with that being the end all of what makes a great driver.

One thing about modern drivers is that I think they have better competition. There is a bigger pool of racing drivers, and it is more likely that in F1 you&#8217;ll be racing against the best of the best, not just 20 quick guys that could get a seat.

 

[daan]

Boo-freaking-hoo. Schumacher is, quite simply, the greatest driver of all time, period, including all other forms of motorsport. If you can't deal with one press conference being about him and his retirement(which is clearly the biggest thing to happen to the sport in years), if for nothing more than sheer respect for what the man has done, then I just don't think you're a true fan of Formula 1 racing.

Nope, it's because I am a true fan of F1 racing that I didn't like how they did that. You are right in that this is the biggest thing to happen in years, so why announce it when they did? It should have been announced at a press conference on the Friday, or by a press conference at Maranello this week sometime. It should not be announced in the winner's press conference. What if he hadn't won? or even finished in the top 3? You cannot count on announcing something in the winner's press conference 'cos you cannot count on being there.

Kubica had a great race to get his first podium. The poor guy was involved in the worst podium celebration ever. Michael and Jean Todt were too busy with their mutual love-in to bother about anyone else. Kimi and Robert started to spray their champagne, until they realised the 2 love birds weren't interested in joining in, so it went out like a damp squib. He was completely over-shadowed by Michael's announcement.

 

[Blake]

Kubica had a great race to get his first podium. The poor guy was involved in the worst podium celebration ever.

Italy 2006 Podium > Indianapolis 2005 Podium. At least he didn&#8217;t have to suffer through what Tiago did.

(Oh, and I didn&#8217;t think it was a bad post-race situation at all.)

 

[<_Spike_>]

Nope, it's because I am a true fan of F1 racing that I didn't like how they did that. You are right in that this is the biggest thing to happen in years, so why announce it when they did? It should have been announced at a press conference on the Friday, or by a press conference at Maranello this week sometime. It should not be announced in the winner's press conference. What if he hadn't won? or even finished in the top 3? You cannot count on announcing something in the winner's press conference 'cos you cannot count on being there.

Kubica had a great race to get his first podium. The poor guy was involved in the worst podium celebration ever. Michael and Jean Todt were too busy with their mutual love-in to bother about anyone else. Kimi and Robert started to spray their champagne, until they realised the 2 love birds weren't interested in joining in, so it went out like a damp squib. He was completely over-shadowed by Michael's announcement.

Well someone hates Schuie.

It doesn't matter what race, or what happened, it was always going to be over shadowered by Schumachers retirement. As for announcing it on Friday, that's just simply stupid, why distract the team and everyone else for the entire weekend with that news when it can be announced after when it should be, after the race, and announcing it Friday would have over shadowed anything in the race anyway. This was always going to be Micheal's weekend and all about him, a chance to slice apart the points gap and, just, Kimi's "big" move.

Micheal congratulated Kubica before they walked onto the podium and Kimi when they were on the podium, so did Jean Todt. I'd like to see how you'd have been in Micheals shoes today, whether you'd be so confident that you could keep your emotions of bringing the curtain down on a massive career behind closed doors. It's easy to say "Of course I'd have done things differently" when you're not in that situation.

Granted to say you're not a true fan of F1 because of this attitude might be a bit dodgey so I wouldn't agree with fangorn (nor would I disagree, I don't know you so I wouldn't know). I'm not a particular fan of Schumi, but the lack of respect he deserves from *some* people is quite frankly, disgusting, considering what he's done in the sport. He deserves a fundamental respect if nothing else.

 

[mipuumal]

I don't understand why the people who say that this race was a "yawn-fest" even watch F1. It seems that the only reason they watch a race is to see their favourite driver win or to have a monsoon appear and ruin the race.

This was a good race, especially the Kubica - Massa battle was a joy to watch, too bad Kubica seemed as if he was sedated in the post-race press conference.

 

[daan]

I don't hate him. I'm not that keen on him but I don't hate him. I have cheered him on occasion. I don't like the way he/Ferrari seem to try to bend rules to their advantage. I don't like how he has "accidents" with people when championships are at stake. I do think he's a fantastic driver and he has done wonders at Ferrari. His ability to win races in a few laps before a pitstop, and his ability to drive flat out for an entire race, and his ability to win races in an inferior car, and his ability in the rain, is fantastic. I just think they could have made this announcement in a better fashion than they did.

 

[Blake]

I don't understand why the people who say that this race was a "yawn-fest" even watch F1. It seems that the only reason they watch a race is to see their favourite driver win or to have a monsoon appear and ruin the race.

This was a good race, especially the Kubica - Massa battle was a joy to watch, too bad Kubica seemed as if he was sedated in the post-race press conference.

Indeed, I am always annoyed when people say that races like this are boring. Granted, there are some races which are not that entertaining, but I think that a race like this shouldn&#8217;t be called boring.

Almost every race people bitch and moan about how boring the race was, and it really annoys me, and I wonder why they bother posting week-in and week-out if they feel that way about the majorirty of races.

 

[KSaiyu]

I suppose it's a good race in the context of current F1 championships, but it still would be quite a boring one in comparison to most other forms of motorsport.

I'm still annoyed that the gap has been reduced to 2 points because of controversial circumstances - yes I know it was an engine blowout, but we'll never know if it would have held had Alonso started from his rightful position, and this is from a Ferrari fan.

 

[Sureboss]

I'm still struggling to see how Alonso held up Massa in qualifying, unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, Alonso was on full pelt trying to get enough time to do another lap.

Unfair on Alonso I feel.

Or did I miss something?

Well done BMW, nice to see a new team being competitive for podium spots.

 

[Piotr]

Ha! The new Polish BMW-Sauber driver is 3rd! Not bad for new driver that just moved from Formula 3!

 

[Famine]

I don't understand why the people who say that this race was a "yawn-fest" even watch F1. It seems that the only reason they watch a race is to see their favourite driver win or to have a monsoon appear and ruin the race.

Indeed, I am always annoyed when people say that races like this are boring. Granted, there are some races which are not that entertaining, but I think that a race like this shouldn’t be called boring.

Almost every race people bitch and moan about how boring the race was, and it really annoys me, and I wonder why they bother posting week-in and week-out if they feel that way about the majorirty of races.

I wonder if you can tell me of, outside of lap 1, five passes for position on the track.

That's why I thought it was a particularly dull race. Not because there were no crashes, or because no-one died, or because Hurricane Assmaster didn't sweep in and suck all of the crowd into the air but because the majority of position changes took place while the cars were stationary.

I can go down the local garage and watch mechanics work (okay then, have a cup of coffee). It's far more interesting too.

For the impartial spectator there was one interesting moment - Alonso and Kubica dragging each other in the pits (and Sauber's pit speed limiter appears to be marginally out, as Alonso was quicker than him on the limiter). For the Schumacher fan there were two - Alonso's engine blowing up and Schumacher winning.


Now it could be that there were a billion passes for position out on the black stuff, and our television coverage of it was pony, but either way all I saw was a pit-stop-off - and as daan points out, Schumacher's ability to put in a sudden and devastating in-lap is what wins him so many of these races.

 

[m7ammed]

I didn't read all the posts , until the end but I have on comment about MSC announcing his retirement in the winners press conference (although I was sad as a BMW fan to see our driver not getting the attention as I think he was the driver of the day) because MSC wanted to talk directly to the fans I think all F1 Fans and most probably his Fans were watching that conference , and because he respects them he did it , I know that if he did it in marnello or some other time an place not so many fans could actually watch it , I hope you get my point

 

[Flerbizky]

I didn't read all the posts , until the end but I have on comment about MSC announcing his retirement in the winners press conference (although I was sad as a BMW fan to see our driver not getting the attention as I think he was the driver of the day) because MSC wanted to talk directly to the fans I think all F1 Fans and most probably his Fans were watching that conference , and because he respects them he did it , I know that if he did it in marnello or some other time an place not so many fans could actually watch it , I hope you get my point

Agreed - Good call !... 👍