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For the third weekend in a row, Formula One is back in action. This time the field takes on the Monza circuit for the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.

Amidst one of the closest championship battles in in memory, Formula One’s field of 20 cars is taking on the legendary Temple of Speed this weekend. The Autodromo Nazionale di Monza is host to the 2021 Grand Prix and will test the teams’ abilities to field a car that prioritizes straight line speed.

The tight battle for the lead in the drivers' standings has now carried past the midway point of the season. Lewis Hamilton held a small advantage going into the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort a week ago, but that advantage has now flipped back to Max Verstappen after his exciting home win.

In the constructor’s championship, Mercedes has gained a 12-point lead after a double podium finish at Zandvoort. Like the drivers’ standings, this is another hotly contested battle that could easily be reversed if Red Bull has a strong result at Monza.

Much of the excitement away from the track has centred around the confirmation of George Russell joining the Mercedes team next season alongside Lewis Hamilton. Russell has impressed many in the F1 world with his performance in the lower-tier Williams car. He will be replacing Valtteri Bottas at Mercedes, who was confirmed to be moving to Alfa Romeo next season.

And speaking of Alfa Romeo, Kimi Räikkönen’s final season in Formula One has been cut short due to a positive Covid-19 test and associated protocol, and he’ll be replaced this weekend by Robert Kubica, who also stood in for the 2007 drivers’ champion last weekend as well.

Lando Norris’ amazing season has somewhat slowed over the past two weeks. The “technically a race” at Spa two weeks ago saw him finish outside of the points, and then a 10th place finish at the Dutch Grand Prix have dropped him from 3rd to 4th in the championship. His 114 points this season account for two-thirds of the McLaren team points, so the unfortunate results recently have allowed Ferrari to open a gap of 11.5 points in the constructors’ championship after having been tied recently. Excitement from the crowd will be high at Monza for the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to maintain or expand this gap to McLaren.

So, the fight between Verstappen and Hamilton continues for another week, as does the battle between their respective teams. This looks to be another exciting week in the middle of an outstanding year of F1 action. Give us your thoughts below in the comments on who you think will emerge victorious at Monza.
About author
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

Comments

I imagine we could see another very strong performance from Mclaren at Sochi. Good for the sport to have them competing at the front. Zack and Andreas have done a great job turning that team around.
 
Great race with a podium probably no one predicted. (or you will be a millionaire right now).

And Max increased the gap with 2 points on the #2.

Time for an ice cold one again.
 
Big up McLaren! Finally the best team wins after a long time :D
Yelled at the TV in support.

Driver of today could go to Ricardo or Botass, but there's no doubt who's Team of the Today :thumbsup:

As for the very predictable crash, probably will be race incident.
 
Good race. So glad for Danny Ric. He really needed that. And awesome for Mclaren too. Max and Lewis both need to settle down and give racing room to eachother or it's going to end badly. It nearly did today. That was pretty brutal on the halo. I'm not a Lewis or Max fan at all. I do love to see really hard wheel to wheel racing but these 2 have taken it too far now. Neither want to give up the required room by the rules, let alone an inch. Neither of the would have gone into turn 1 like that with anyone else in the field. I get they are racing for a championship but seriously it's beyond a joke now. They both need to pull there heads in. They are both damn good drivers and they are letting emotion take over now.
 
Let's put the news in Horner's classic Silverstone style: killing attempt denied by halo.
Scary to see. :confused:
I still don't like the look of the Halo but it is a very important safety feature for sure.

BTW: If you listen to Helmut Marko how calm he is talking about the incident even Red Bull seems to know who's to blame mostly this time. ;)
 
D
Congrats to Mclaren, Daniel & Norris,, Max what a pratt there was no room there he new what he was doing..
 
I just want to add the strange way Ralf Schumacher was commenting this at Sky Sport :O_o:

For the first incident in lap 1 he was blaming Lewis only.
For the second incident he called Max's move a trick to stay in front of the championship. The only way.
So he basicially said Max was crashing on purpose and called Lewis too stupid to see it coming.
:confused:
 
Premium
What an amazing race. As a McLaren fan, I'm obviously over the moon. Danny Ric controlled the pace brilliantly, Lando pulled off some amazing overtakes where he could, and wisely held back where he couldn't. Very clever driver with tonnes of natural talent, I think he's going to be the one to watch.

Max clearly shut the door on Hamilton in Turn 4, Hamilton shut the door on Max in Turn 1. Both being childish, but Max has been doing it since day 1 and Hamilton has only really started doing it this season. They both need to stop doing it, but Max has needed to stop doing it for the last christ knows how many years.

Bottas reacting to that crash was hilarious. He did a great job to go from last to 3rd.
 
So nice to see Ricciardo at the front again!

as for the incident: I seem to remember in silverstone the Max fans consensus was that Lewis on the inside “was never going to make that corner”. Hamilton was judged at fault.

Roles reversed in a much slower corner (i.e. more time to react) and Max stuck his nose in there, incident be damned…now people are saying it’s a racing incident? Come on!
I think it's important to note that we are talking two inherently different situations with the first one being an incidident in a corner that is allmost flatout while the situation today was at the slowest part of the track. And indeed, Lewis would have never made that corner even if Max wouldn't have been there at Copse. Today it was a bit different. Both cars were side by side when they touched and Max would in fact have made the corner quite well. Today it was 50/50 while Silverstone was pretty clear. I am neither a Max or Lewis fan btw - for me they are just two drama queens banging their heads.

Another thing that I would like to point out is that Max is just pulling the exact same moves as Lewis. People easily forget how Lewis forced Max wide at Portimao. That's racing and people actually learn that in Karting. And for the people who think that the crash today was a revenge from Lewis because of the L1 incident don't see the full picture. It's the other way around: the crash today was a revenge for Silverstone. Max created a trap and Lewis fell for it. It's like Schumacher vs. Hill. The interesing thing is that with the pace of the Mercedes today (according to Toto Wolff) they would have easily made a 1-2 finish. But Lewis and especialy Mercedes as a team are making alot of errors this season as they are more and more under preassure. Just thinking about that they lost 4 seconds during a pitstop due to a rule change that they pushed for is pretty funny.
 
Two key moments to Landos strong weekend. Staying on the throttle even after dipping a wheel in the grass. First against Lewis in the sprint race on start and second against Leclerc after the vsc restart. Both of those scenarios could have ended very poorly but he managed to pull it off. I got a million dollar idea for F1 tv. Now that we got team talk with the FIA could you imagine sitting in on steward meetings? My god drive to survive would have a field day with that drama.
 
Premium
Max clearly shut the door on Hamilton in Turn 4, Hamilton shut the door on Max in Turn 1. Both being childish, but Max has been doing it since day 1 and Hamilton has only really started doing it this season. They both need to stop doing it, but Max has needed to stop doing it for the last christ knows how many years.
I totally agree. I think the only way to teach Max is to keep doing it and let's hope he changes his driving style eventually. Honestly I don't like the battle between the two because of it. It's not fair racing. But Hamilton can't continue being pushed off track all the time.

Glad for Daniel! He deserved it today! Maybe we should just get rid of both Mercedes and Red Bull, that would make for much more interesting races ;)
 
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Thanks to the halo we still can (dis)agree about the battles between Lewis and Max.

Looks scary and Lewis has been saved by the much debated halo


View attachment 502444
That's one way to look at it. Learning to not use your opponent as a crash barrier might be a better start. And that goes out to a big part of the grid actually. Situations like Stroll rejoing the track and forcing his teammate wide afterwards, Ocon simply ignoring Vettel, Sainz not giving an inch while clearly being behind the Alfa or Mazepin spinning his teammate are just a few examples. This has nothing to do with close racing but the mentality of the drivers to be more and more ruthless in recent years. And you see this alot when you watch the races in the feeder series where drivers are driving completely careless because cars and tracks got that much safer over the last couple of years. In the 60s, 70s or even 80s they would have never done stuff like that because they all knew that their feet and legs were the first thing hitting a barrier, they knew that they sat in tin can filled with fuel and they knew that any kind of contact could have serious consequences.
 
Interesting to see what the stewards decide (probably NFA).
Would be funny if they were both awarded a 5-place grid penalty for Russia, but frankly difficult to argue with that outcome.
 

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