FOR outright enthusiasm, speed and excitement, Monza is the best.
The Tifosi, or Italian Ferrari fans, all dressed in red and each with a red and yellow flag, are the highlight of the day and are fanatical about their motorsport.
We can enjoy it with them this weekend as the grand prix circus arrives at the historical Monza track, which has been there for almost 92 years.
Known as the ‘Palace of Speed’, Monza is 5.8km long and is still a very high speed track, despite the banking section being excluded for some time now.
We can expect about 120 000 spectators there on Sunday, cheering their men and machines to victory.
Ferrari will, of course, make a huge effort at their home track. Maranello is only kilometres away from the famous circuit and the cars will be in a special aerodynamic low drag state for the best possible performance at this high speed track.
Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen are really getting into their stride now but their engines are a little down on power compared to Mercedes so they have a tall order to be able to compete on an even basis with the Silver Arrows team.
In fact, Ferrari has protested to the organisers about the annual engine freeze, whereby only engine mapping and software changes are allowed to the engine during the year and no mechanical parts are allowed to be changed, this is in the interest of cost saving.
It means that engine cans only be updated at the end of the year. As I have explained before Mercedes have a revolutionary turbo charger design which has given them a power advantage over their rivals – maybe this will change next year.
Before I get onto the state of play among the teams I wish to divulge that the other interesting news is that the exciting youngster, Max Verstappen, a 16-year-old Dutchman, born in Belgium on September 30, 1997, has just signed a three year deal with Red Bull to drive Formula 1 in place of Jean-Eric Vergne at Scuderia Torro Rosso.
He has already spoken to Daniil Kyvat, his future teammate to ‘gain his respect’.
He started go-karting at the age of four years and, at 15, was the world karting champion.
He is presently second in the European Formula 3 Championship and is challenging for the lead, showing great promise with some electrifying performances.
Max judges his driving style as being smooth or aggressive, depending on requirements and compares himself to Fernando Alonso, who has been something of a mentor to him.
It seems to be in the genes: his father is a former Formula 1 driver, his mother was a top racing driver and so was his uncle.
Now back to the Italian ‘Palace of Speed’ – possible challengers to Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton are Alonso, current (four time) world champion, Sebastian Vettel, and his hugely talented teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
Renault have managed to extract a few more horses out of their current engine and chassis wizard Adrian Newey has the Red Bull car working to the utmost, both mechanically and aerodynamically; they could be dark horses on Sunday.
Next in line must be the Williams Mercedes pairing of Valtteri Bottas, who is presently negotiating a new extended deal with Williams, and Felipe Massa.
Their cars are really good now and are showing good top end performances. With these two very good drivers in top form it should be very fast at Monza.
We can at least expect a podium out of one of them, if not better with a bit of luck.
We should be in for a terrific race on Sunday at 2pm, qualifying on Saturday at 2pm.
Enjoy Monza and look out for the red mist.
