MOTORSPORT: Monza already a write-off for Ricciardo?

Just a week after a race-long tussle at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, Mercedes/Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari/Sebastian Vettel go at it again this weekend – on Ferrari’s home ground this time.

While Mercedes has a considerable lead in Formula 1’s constructors’ world champion, with 392 points to Ferrari’s 348, Vettel leads the drivers’ championship by just seven points, 220 to Hamilton’s 213.

Hamilton has won five races to Vettel’s four though, and another victory at Italy’s Monza ahead of Vettel would draw them level on points with seven more races after Sunday.

Although Vettel has been on the podium at Monza the past two years (having joined Ferrari from Red Bull in 2015), the Italian team has not won at home since 2010.

Hamilton won at Monza in 2015 and Nico Rosberg for Mercedes again last year, before departing at the end of the season with the world title.

Red Bull has virtually sacrificed the Italian race already, looking ahead to Singapore (where Daniel Ricciardo has been runner-up the past two years) a fortnight later.

Max Verstappen almost certainly will incur a grid penalty after the Renault power unit in his Red Bull RB13 shut down early at Spa, while carsales.com.au’s global ambassador Ricciardo has been anticipating an engine change in his RB13 that will incur a starting order penalty too.

They could even be on the back row together on Sunday, depending on what penalties other teams and drivers incur.

Red Bull figures that its cars will be less competitive against Mercedes and Ferrari than usual on Monza’s long straights, where power is far more important than aerodynamics. Thus the team is prepared to take its “medicine” now in anticipation of better pickings in Singapore.

Ross Brawn, the man now in charge of F1’s sporting (as opposed to business) side, has said this week that he wants to see an end to the system of grid penalties, although (because decisions will involve the Federation Automobile de l’Automobile (FIA)) he acknowledges it may take time, even until 2021, for change.

The stupidity of the system was seen again last weekend when Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne’s McLaren-Honda was given a 65-place grid penalty. He had qualified 15th but could not go back more than five places in a 20-car field.

Brawn either wants a different form of penalty or the removal of grid penalties altogether.

“For a fan to stomach that his hero is on the back of the grid because he had to change the engine, that’s not great sport,” Brawn said.

“It’s a massively unpopular aspect of F1 at the moment.

“One of the things that has been suggested is a loss of constructors’ points. There could be other, more discreet penalties,” Brawn stated.

While Vettel pursued Hamilton all race long at Spa, he was never able to overtake – even though both knew the Ferrari was faster. Brawn also wants to get rid of the DRS (drag reduction system) on F1 cars to improve the racing, although that will take time too.

“What we really want is the cars to be able to slipstream one another properly and overtake,” he said.

“For me, the solution is to design the cars so that that they can race each other in close proximity. A current F1 car is totally optimised around running by itself.”

While rule changes often take a long time in F1, the FIA has tightened the rules on oil consumption from this weekend. This is in the wake of allegations that some engine manufacturers have been using oil burn technology to boost combustion and thus power outputs.

The new limit will be 0.9 litres per 100 kilometres, down from the previous 1.2 litres.

However, Mercedes pre-empted the move by introducing its fourth power unit for Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas at Spa.

The FIA has confirmed that Mercedes will be allowed to run those two engines at 1.2 litres per 100km for the rest of the season, although they will face grid penalties if they are changed.

Chequered flag for McLaren-Honda union?
Monza could produce news on a parting of McLaren and Honda after a three-year ‘marriage’ that has failed miserably.

McLaren wants out. Indeed is insistent on it. Honda doesn’t want a separation. The Japanese company already contributes a lot of money, as well as its (admittedly woefully uncompetitive) power units to the second most successful team in F1 that now hasn’t won for almost five years.

It’s been reported that ditching Honda in favour of Renault power next season is McLaren’s only hope of retaining brilliant Spanish dual world champion, Fernando Alonso.

A deal for the Sauber team to use Honda power next season quickly fell through, while talks with Red Bull junior team Toro Rosso did not produce an arrangement – at least first time around.

However, Honda and Toro Rosso reopened discussions and Jonathan Noble, one of the top F1 correspondents, has said this week that the simplest way for McLaren to achieve its aim of splitting with the Japanese company is to convince Honda to tie up with Toro Rosso.

“That would free up Toro Rosso’s Renault engine supply for McLaren,” Noble said.

“Toro Rosso would get a financial boost from Honda, which would be able to stay in F1.”

Otherwise Honda would be without a team, and therefore out of the F1, which would be left with just three power unit suppliers – something neither the FIA nor Liberty Media (the American group that bought commercial control of F1 a year ago) wants.

Noble said the Honda-Toro Rosso talks were “now at an advanced stage” and the small Italian team, previously Minardi, is believed to have set this weekend as a deadline for a decision.

The deal could even involve a buy-out of the team.

What an irony after Honda sold its previous team to Ross Brawn, who promptly took it to world title success with Mercedes power.

Renault – already struggling with reliability of the units it supplies to its factory team, Red Bull and Toro Rosso this season – doesn’t want to take on a fourth team (ie: McLaren) and couldn’t while Honda is in the sport (manufacturers are limited to supplying three teams).

Renault Sport F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul has admitted that the unreliability of his company’s units is “not acceptable”.

“We’re extremely bothered [by it],” Abiteboul said.

Max Verstappen and his former racer father Jos tried to suggest after last Sunday’s misfortune at Spa that they would want out of Red Bull if the Renault problems continued – although the teenage Verstappen is firmly contracted there for another two years, with no seats open at Ferrari or Mercedes for now.

“I know it [the reliability problem] isn’t coming from Red Bull, but in the end it’s the entire package you are depending on,” Verstappen junior said.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has turned up the heat on Renault over its “pretty dire” unreliability, saying “that is their business to sort out”.

“We are a paying customer – and it is below par the service that we are seeing now,” Horner said.

“It is not where we should be. We pay a hell of a lot of money for the engine, and they need to sort it out – it is hurting them as much as it is hurting us… It’s not the level that an engine supplier that wishes to be competitive in F1 should be at.

“We always live in hope. Ferrari managed to get their act together and they were in a worse situation than Renault in 2014, and by investing in the right areas, bringing the right people in, they put themselves into a competitive position.

“So it demonstrates that it is possible with the right people, the right desire and the right funding,” Horner stated.

Watch out this weekend too for…
Aussie Anthony Martin is going for a Tattslotto-size prize at Watkins Glen in the US. If he is able to clinch the Pro Mazda open-wheeler series, he will win a US$790,000 (almost A$1 million) scholarship to advance to Indy Lights next year.

There’s next to nothing for the runner-up.

Martin, 22, from Kalgoorlie (WA), trails Brazilian Victor Franzoni by two points ahead of the last two Pro Mazda races at The Glen in upstate New York. The pair have five wins each so far and have finished 1-2 in nine races.

“It’s crunch time,” Martin said.

“Last year’s title fight [in US F2000, which he won] has helped me this year.

“You have to work harder than ever with your team to get the most out of your car and yourself. It is super-important because every point [including one for fastest lap and another for most laps led] is crucial and can determine whether you win the championship.”

And Perth-based Alister McRae, younger brother of Scotland’s 1995 world rally champion Colin McRae, makes his debut in the World Rallycross Championship at its French round at Loheac in Brittany.

A veteran of 75 WRC starts himself, and an Asia-Pacific Rally Championship winner, McRae has replaced Brit Guy Wilks in a Volkswagen Polo.

Sweden’s Johan Kristoffersson leads his teammate Petter Solberg by 35 points in the World RX. They are driving VWs too.

Versatile Swedish ace Mattias Ekstrom’s rallycross team is fielding four cars this weekend for the first time, with its latest Audi S1 entry for DTM (German touring car championship) driver, Nico Mueller.