(Motorsport-Total.com) – They say history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. In Formula 1, this perhaps applies nowhere more than in Monza, the “Temple of Speed,” where the past literally hangs between the trees.
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70 years ago, Juan Manuel Fangio’s path to his fourth world championship title in Monza was briefly in jeopardy when the steering arm of his Ferrari broke. Such defects were not uncommon at the time, nor were tire damages.
It was only the second Grand Prix held on the combination of street circuit and concrete oval. When the team leader had problems, it was common then for him to take over one of the other cars. However, Fangio’s tough teammate Luigi Musso refused when he came to the pits.
Ultimately, Peter Collins stepped in, who himself only had outsider chances for the title, and swapped cars with Fangio. Fangio eventually finished second behind Stirling Moss in the Maserati. Moss, in turn, ran out of fuel five laps before the end and only made it back to the pits after his teammate Luigi Piotti pushed the 250F from behind with his own car.
This suddenly put Musso in the lead. But three laps before the end, his steering arm also broke as he came from the oval onto the main straight. Musso stopped directly opposite the pit complex – what an irony of fate.
After the then points system had run through its various calculation rules, Fangio won the world championship with 30 to 27 points against Moss.
It was a time when the calculation could be complicated, but the points still had an individual value. By that time, Fangio had long concluded that Ferrari was quite a chaotic bunch and had already decided to drive for Maserati the following season.
Monza as a harmony killer?
Monza, where aerodynamic slipstreaming, aside from reliability issues and strategic errors, largely decides the race outcome, has always been a place where reason occasionally stays off the track. Perhaps it’s because so much time is spent at full throttle here.
A few recent examples illustrate this quite well. Monza in 2019 was the place where Charles Leclerc definitively outran Sebastian Vettel. In the last qualifying segment, Leclerc took advantage of the situation and “accidentally” no longer adhered to the agreement to give Vettel a slipstream.
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Leclerc then took pole and won the race. Vettel started only from fifth, spun, and while trying to get back on track, took Lance Stroll with him. For this, he received a ten-second penalty and three penalty points.
“All forgiven and forgotten,” said then Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto to Leclerc after the checkered flag. It was a rather questionable signal: the end justifies the means, at least when a Ferrari wins the home race where the pressure from inside and outside is particularly high.
In 2023, Carlos Sainz started from pole in the Ferrari and had to defend against Max Verstappen’s Red Bull at the start. This put so much strain on his tires that they deteriorated significantly in the last laps. Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez overtook him for second place. Then came Leclerc.
Sainz could have reasonably expected Ferrari to freeze the positions. But nothing came from the pit wall. So he and Leclerc engaged in an exciting but completely unnecessarily risky battle for third place. Several times it looked like they could take each other out of the race.
Ferrari is not alone
However, Ferrari is not the only team that has suffered from a lack of discipline in Monza. In 2024, Lando Norris was still fighting for the world championship against Verstappen late in the season and took pole in Monza. But his teammate Oscar Piastri overtook him already in the first lap. Leclerc took advantage of the situation and also passed Norris. In the end, Norris finished third.
A year later, McLaren again stumbled over its own strategy. After a slow pit stop, Norris was behind Piastri while both were behind Verstappen. The team from Woking then ordered a team order.
Piastri was leading the world championship ahead of Norris at that time, so the request to give up his position understandably caused anger. Even more so because Verstappen suddenly seriously re-entered the title fight.
This year it was Ferrari’s turn to make a whole series of their own mistakes in qualifying and the race. Ironically, the team apparently tried so hard to treat Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton equally that it repeatedly failed to organize a reasonable slipstream between the two.
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The result: Hamilton almost dropped out in Q2. After Piastri’s penalty, Leclerc and Hamilton at least moved up to starting positions three and four.
But already in the first chicane, Ferrari’s race got completely out of sync. Hamilton dived on the inside into the right-hand bend and was then pushed into the gravel trap by his teammate as Leclerc held his line.
Hamilton then had to work his way forward again from tenth place. Leclerc, on the other hand, crashed into the track boundary at the end of the second lap in the Parabolica. There was a red flag and plenty of frustration among Ferrari fans.
Accordingly, everyone was eagerly awaiting explanations for this unnecessary self-destruction. Leclerc, who was visibly shaken after his crash, explained it roughly with a “We went too far.” When Hamilton was asked about it, he apparently did not quite know whether to laugh or react annoyed. In the end, he chose something in between.
“I was ahead in turn 2,” he said. “At the apex, I was ahead. There was no ‘we’.” After that, he basically threw Ferrari under the bus. “I don’t drive dirty. I have always driven clean and fair and always left space.”
“I came into the team and tried to show the necessary respect for the other car and not put the team in danger. I stand by that. But I can only speak for my side. For the other side [Leclerc] and the decisions there, you have to talk to Fred [Vasseur; team principal].”
“Ultimately, it comes from above. Decisions are passed down from above. It starts with Fred,” Hamilton continued. “You can only say a certain amount, only demand a certain amount from above. Yesterday [Saturday] I said we need to look at how we communicate. If we continue on the same path, we will get the same result.”
A rollercoaster at Ferrari
In Barcelona, Ferrari had organized its processes so that Hamilton could get a win. Before and after, however, the team repeatedly seemed like an organization that struggles to react spontaneously to new situations.
Difficult decisions seem only possible after some kind of committee meeting. This was also evident in Zandvoort when Hamilton, on fresher tires, felt that Leclerc was holding him up at a crucial point.
Ferrari found itself in a diplomatically delicate situation and ultimately decided against an active team order. A possible podium place was lost as a result.
Hamilton is obviously of the opinion that Ferrari should take into account that he is the closest pursuer of the two Mercedes drivers in the world championship. However, this is difficult to enforce considering the status Leclerc has had within the team for years.
At the same time, there were moments this season when Hamilton did not necessarily seem like the most attentive driver. In qualifying in Budapest, for example, he was surprised by Piastri’s presence behind him after he had accidentally blocked his fast lap. Hamilton had only moments earlier overtaken the McLaren on its warm-up lap.
Next year, Hamilton will celebrate the 20th anniversary of his Formula 1 debut in 2007. He has already driven countless times in Monza and should therefore be very familiar with the course of the first chicane.
This also includes the fact that the driver on the inside at the second apex is carried to the right when accelerating out. You can’t just dive inside in turn 1 and then expect the driver on the left side to politely say: “Please, after you.”
Consideration between teammates has often been put to the test in Monza. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before tensions within Ferrari became openly visible. This is even more true under the current regulations.
The slipstream is more important than ever, and every lost second is all the harder to make up. Not only is energy scarce here. Goodwill is also in short supply.
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