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The first news to come from Saturday’s Italian Grand Prix is that the new FIA directives regarding power units have had no impact on Mercedes. This is what emerges from the analysis of the printed data of the Monza ranking, which speaks of absolute performance.
On the eve of the trip to Monza there was a lot of curiosity about the expected drop in performance that should have penalized Mercedes, which for the first time since the first race in 2014 had to face a Saturday without party-mode, but the difference is not seen.
In fact, the superiority with which Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas dominated the standings seemed even more marked than usual. Seven days ago, at the Spa circuit, Max Verstappen had missed the front row by less than a tenth, while today in Monza a heroic Carlos Sainz (third) surpassed Bottas by more than seven tenths, who in turn was 69 thousandths. poleman Hamilton.
Lewis also made his lap with the highest average in the history of Formula 1 (264,362 km / h) with a ‘monstrous’ time of 1’18 ”887.
The hopes of Helmut Marko, who had seen in the new FIA leadership an opportunity to be able to aspire to the front row, are ruined. If Mercedes left some power on the road, the competition suffered just as much, if not more, as Honda. Obviously, confirmation will be needed on other types of tracks, but Monza (a historical test bed for motorists) has already delivered an important verdict. But Marko still leaves hopes in which few are left to believe.
“Monza is not necessarily the most important track – commented the Red Bull consultant after qualifying, evaluating the post party mode – the jump in power between Q1, Q2, Q3 was not as surprising as it was when there was party mode. If it had still been there, it probably would have been even further behind, but let’s see. We know we have a path to face tomorrow’s race without problems, we’ll see. “
The last chance, for those hoping Mercedes can exit Monza a bit downgraded by the new technical directive, is a hypothetical race difficulty on the reliability front. Theories to which Hamilton responds with a smile:
“We said last week when they introduced this rule to slow us down that it wouldn’t make a difference, because we have a big, big car and we are better in other areas. And I must say that so far this is the weekend in which we have the best sensations since the beginning of the season, I think I have put the car in excellent condition for the race ”.
“No party, no problem,” commented the Mercedes team on their social networks, an ironic but significant response to all those who had announced a difficult moment for the world champion team.
The race is tomorrow, and it is there that the points for the championship classification will be assigned, but the premises supported by the results of the qualifications do not really seem to presage (for the old grays’ rivals) anything different than what we have seen so far. . Spa.
