Oh you mean like this? http://youtu.be/pWwNU79-tZA

I agree that was definitely impeding or blocking and against the rules.

Thanks for your valuable insight.

I was actually starting to wonder if I'd imagined it so I went back through the BBC footage on iPlayer and it shows up about 45m into the BBCs coverage of quali', during a montage of shots of the circuit just prior to Q1.

Screen grab HERE.

Seems rather intriguing to me, like it's some kind of monument/memorial.

Guess I'm not the only one with no idea what it's all about.
Pretty sure it's not part of a furniture advert though.

It wouldn't be a deliberate attempt to slow another car down if another driver simply chose to get between Alonso and Massa though.

It'd just be another driver seeking to gain the same advantage Alonso was looking for and that's just tough cookies if it interferes with the plans of the "geniuses" at Ferrari.

It's called "Lo scrittoio" by Giancarlo Neri.

Go forth and search in good health!

Wahay!

That's brilliant. Thanks.

Still a bit unclear about whether or not it has any real significance in F1.
Seems like it's just a random piece of, erm, "art" that lives at Monza.

Guess I need to read through a variety of the links, unless somebody has even more info?

*EDIT*

Meant to say, I didn't realise it was so big at first.
It was only when I went back and looked at the pictures again that I realised it was casting shadows bigger than the nearby trees.

You'll find even more with the translated name "The Writer" including different places it has been exhibited.

Some lovely pix here

I think everybody being sensible about it knows that pulling past a car in qually and the loitering in front of them is going to be heavily penalised so I'm not got discuss how this could anything other than blocking any further.

Looks like the angel of the north type rubbish.

I'd hardly call it "loitering" if Massa was going so fast that Alonso couldn't keep up.

Ferrari have no divine right to circulate the track in formation and if another driver elects to try and get a tow off Massa and that causes problems for Alonso, that'd just be tough cookies.

What are we saying now?
That we think it should be banned for any driver to get a tow off another driver in quali' unless they're team-mates (in red cars)?

Cos, I mean, if that was the case then you'd have to penalise every car that erm, drove around a circuit behind another car.
Which would be all of them.

Except, maybe, Alonso, who'd be tucked-up nice and safely behind Massa.

Yeah, and as much as I don't want Vettel to win the title, I'd much rather he did if it means Webber getting to sign off with a couple more wins.

I don't think anyone would begrudge Webber a win in Sao Paulo, for instance.

I just hope Vettel will have the good grace not to challenge Webber if the latter is leading a GP, but he doesn't exactly have a good record of respecting that...

Is webber saying Red Bull are doing things to stop him winning or is Seb just to strong for him and mark wants him to lie down for a couple of GPs.

Marks been belligerent over a few things basically told the press he was leaving before he told Red Bull then leaked the news about Ricardo.

So if he's looking for help to any fairwell wins then I think he can forget it.

Seems pretty obvious, and sensible, that Webber won't be taking points off Vettel at this stage of the championship.

Once Vettel's got this championship sewn up, I can see him coming over all helpful and offering to let Webber win a race.

Funny thing is, Vettel seems rather arrogant and clumsy and Webber is kinda stubborn and hard-headed so I can see a rather bizarre situation occuring where Vettel leads into the last lap of a race, slows down in the last corner to let Webber through and Webber will slow down behind him and refuse to accept a "gifted" victory.

Thats seems a silly comment from Webber. RBR have not stopped him from winning a race. They have never asked him to pull over and let Vettel through. Vettel is very driven, even if hes won the championship with 3 or 4 races still to go, you can bet he will still want to win the last few races. He just wants to win, have pole position and the fastest lap at every race. For Webber to win first he must be leading the race, or Vettel leading and him second. How many times have RBR had a 1-2 finish? Not that often, once this and only once last season.

Last year did Webber not say, I will not help Vettel win the championship? (I am not sure about that). However if he did, why would Vettel help him? Plus there is quite a bit of bad blood between the two, I cant see either one helping the other.

If anything Webbers poor starts have whats put paid to him winning more races. He always seems to lose a couple of places at the start (if he is lucky), and 3+ places for a normal start. At Monza he made a very good start by his standards, and still lost a place. This sort of comes back to my previous posts, if the car is that good, why cant Webber manage more points in a season? If it is all the car, why isnt he always second in the drivers championship? One reason is that, Vettel is a very good driver - better than what most people give him credit for. Last season also proved that. RBR didnt have the best car (for most of the season) last season, and he still won the championship.

Good point about the hollow victory. Would Webber want a gifted win?

Curious how all the equipment problems mostly occur on Webber's side of the garage, especially KERS. Are they all genuine or is there a slight difference in the way the two crews work?

To be fair, if you look at a graph of how the points racked up last year, Alonso was easily on target to beat Vettel in the championship until Spa, at which point the RBR seemed to improve dramatically and Vettel then went on to chalk up a huge heap of points and win the title.

There's nothing in the stat's from last year to suggest that Vettel has any particular gift for elevating the performance of a sub-par car, especially compared to the way Alonso performed last year.

Course, having said that, just when we all thought it'd be safe to say Alonso deserved the championship more, Vettel unquestionably DID drive an absolute stormer of a race in Brazil last year.

TBH, I don't really buy all this "He's only winning cos of the car" thing, about any driver/car combo'.
The best driver in the world can probably make a mediocre car look a bit better but he's not going to be able to drag it to a WDC and, conversely, an average driver isn't going to win the championship in the best car because his team-mate (and other driver/car combinations) is going to outperform him.
Seems like the level of talent, in both drivers and cars, is so close that both need to be almost perfect in order to come out on top.

I think most of the criticism is simply the result of fans' frustration cos a driver in Vettel's position is able to just disappear off into the distance most of the time.
We start to resent any driver who seems to have it too easy.
Unless they're specifically Vettel fans, of course.

I suspect things have calmed down a bit at RBR now.
Webber's probably accepted that Vettel is competing for the title now and, especially if he wins the WDC, Vettel might be happy enough to let Webber win a couple of races but Vettel really is a rather "clumsy" driver (insofar as he's not good at doing subtle things) so he probably wouldn't see anything wrong with racing up to the last corner and then slowing right down to let Webber through and Webber isn't going to like that at all.

If they do try and "gift" Webber a win I think it'll be the team that does it during pit-stops or summat.

To suggest that RBR are sabotaging one of their drivers is ludicrous. RBR want to win the constructors championship, the drivers is a secondary objective. To win the constructors both cars need to score points on a regular bases. Its not in RBRs interest to sabotage one car. If they wanted to try things, they would more than likely use Torro Rosso, their junior team, and not the main team. If there was some underhand going on, in Webbers side of the garage, you can bet he would have said so. Hes not one to shy away from such statements.

Would you say the same about Mercedes? Rosberg is the only driver (in Mercedes) that has failed to finish races due to mechanical failure. Are they all genuine or is there a slight difference in the way the two crews work?

Not necessarily underhand. But something simple like a slightly different way the mechanic fits the KERS battery, for example, down perhaps to thicker fingers and a different interpretation of how hard a "grunt" is when doing up a fastening.

TBH, I wouldn't be surprised if there IS a reason Webber has suffered a relatively huge amount of KERS issues and, unfortunately, it's probably to be found underneath his crash helmet.

As I'm sure we all know, KERS affects the way the car brakes and you need to adopt a specific driving style to ensure that the batteries stay properly charged and if they don't get properly charged each lap the batteries eventually die.

If Webber prefers to set the car up so the brakes help it rotate into corners then it's more likely he's going to have to trail the throttle before braking to charge the batteries or, conversely, if he's in "maximum attack mode", like he was in Monza, he probably won't bother with the braking phase that allows the batteries to charge and, as a result, the KERS unit packs up, as we saw toward the end of the race.

Obviously it's easy to say that an F1 driver should be capable of modifying his driving style to suit the equipment but, as we've seen from his starts, there are some things that Webber just hasn't been able to wrap his head around properly and that seems possible regarding the use of KERS too, especially when he's attacking.

I would agree for the last few races, the RB was the best car on the grid. However for most of the season, they were not. They had a good car, on par with some of the others, but it wasnt dominant. It was dominate from Singapore onwards though.


I would agree with this. Alonso does seem to be in a class of his own when it comes getting the most out of a car. Its one of the reason most F1 fans would say he is the best driver on the grid at the moment.


Brazil was a great drive by him. For me however Abu Dhabi was better. He started last on the grid, made his way up to half way up the grid, pitted and start from last position again. Finished the race in third place. He did have some help from a safety car though, but for me, his best drive of the season.

Abu Dhabi and Brazil, showed he does have talent and can also make his way through the pack and overtake, when required.


I cant argue with any of that.

In my time watching F1, Schumacher, was the best driver (I seen race), to get the most out of the car. He should not have won his first drivers title with Ferrari in that car. In my opinion he was the last driver to win a drivers championship without the best car on the grid.


You would hope that Vettel and Webber (and possibly Horner) would discuss what would happen if RB had a 1 - 2, and Webber was second. I cant see Vettel and Webber discussing it, unless it was someone (like Horner) who got them both round a table to discuss the possibility. Would Vettel agree, is another matter. I like Vettel, (I support Kimi and Vettel is my second driver), but I cant see him agreeing to it, in the car he has a ruthless streak (like all the greats, I am not saying Vettel is a great...yet) so would want the win for himself. I hope I am wrong. and Vettel would swap places with Webber if the opportunity arose.

no need.. a quick google shoudl ahve found you this -> http://www.turismo.milano.it/wps/portal/!ut/p/c0/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3hzS0O_QGcLEwMLFzcjA08LAz8TH2cnAwMDI_3g1Dz9gmxHRQCFp8TT/?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/en/situr/home/milanodintorni/parchigiardini/loc4376

Thanks but I've already been edumacated.

It was only on the telly for a couple of seconds and I didn't realise how big it was so I was wondering if it was a memorial to summat related to F1 such as a bronze casting of the desk Fangio signed his contract on, Enzo Ferrari's desk or summat like that.

Didn't help that, as I said, heaps of furniture manufacturers seem to have a "monza" range so googling for stuff related to "desk/chair/table/monza" returns heaps of links to bloody office chairs and coffee tables.

Helluva thing though, innit?

Question of the moment will Kimi become a Ferrari driver tomorrow.


I vote yes.

I hope not. Him and Alonso in the same team would be a recipe for disaster. Hulkenberg would be a much better choice to partner Alonso.

Its not going to be as smooth as it currently is. Alonso seems to carry a lot of baggage with him. This isnt really a problem, when the team are working around him. As last season proved, he was very complimentary to the team, even though he didnt win the championship. With Kimi arriving, Alonso wont be number 1. So he will have to over-take his team mate, and not get him to move over as is the current situation. Can you imagine, what Kimi would say, if they said they were going to remove the seal on your gearbox, just so alonso can move further up the grid (as in the US last year)? Massa had no choice, but Kimi certainly wouldnt allow that.

Its also apparent from Alonsos 'genius' comment, and his recent comments in the media (which Montezemolo had to to talk to him about), that something was not right between him and team. Maybe he knew a while back that the team were in talks with Kimi. Praising of Massa (even though the slipstreaming didnt work). To be honest I have not heard Alonso heap that amount of praise on Massa before. Maybe it was his last ditched attempt at trying to persuade Ferrari on keeping Massa.

One thing is for sure, if Kimi does go to Ferrari, Vettels chances of winning the title next year, just got a little bit easier. His main rival for the last two seasons has been Alonso. With Kimi in the team, Alonso and Kimi will take points of each other - which will only help Vettel. Unless another team can step up, and challenge RBR, they are going to find it relatively easy next year as well.

If Kimi goes to Ferrari it says a lot about his lack of confidence in Renault, given all bullshit being part of Ferrari usually entails.

And we shouldn't forget that Alonso and Kimi both had Massa as their rear gunner when they drove for Ferrari too, so having them together on the same team might be good for Ferrari, to help them win a constructors championship, but it probably won't be ideal for either driver.

Course, that's assuming Kimi doesn't return the favour and send Alonso on a paid vacation and they keep Massa as his team-mate.

I think, maybe, Kimi has a rose-tinted view of Ferrari too. He won his championship straight off the back of the Schuey era, while the "dream team" was still in place there. He only scraped the win (by a single point IIRC) and Ferrari have been struggling to find form ever since.

Renault has steadily improved over the last couple of years whereas Ferrari seems to be rather "hit & miss" over their form so I reckon the move would be a gamble.

Course, I said the same about Hamilton moving to Merc' last year as well.