Monza Italian GP 2002

Monza is a circuit with one of the richest histories in F1 which celebrates its 80th existence of the track this year. It is also the fastest and most demanding track concerning the engines, since the radical change at Hockenheim this year. Speeds reaching up to 365 km/h and rear wings set up so that the advertising can sometimes hardly be seen anymore, lead us to a very low downforce set up, the brake balance and engine performance being crucial to perform well enough on this track. After a four day test last week to prepare set up and choose the right compound of tires, the teams should have been well prepared.

Race view

For the first time this year, a red flag appeared on the circuit. The reason for that was a contact between Raikkonen and Sato during qualifying, which caused a session stop for about 5 minutes, 3 minutes before the end of the session, to allow the marshals to clean the cars and broken parts off of the track. FIA officials later on stated that Kimi Raikkonen was the cause to the collision, for which he had to move one place back on the grid, leaving his 5th place to Eddie Irvine.

Juan Pablo drove the pole position, with an average time faster than any lap before in Formula 1. Breaking the record of Keke Rosberg, Montoya did a lap of Monza in 1'20"264 with an average speed of 259.828 Km/h. Dr. Mario Thiessen declared afterwards that the BMW engines had reached more than 19.000 rpm to achieve this pole position. As sunday would reveal, the BMW engines might have been the strongest at that time, but they are certainly not the most reliable, with Ralf Schumacher blowing his engine in lap 3 and Montoya having to leave the race with a damaged front right suspension due to the curbs.

The Sauber team has decided to support the international campaign against aids during the last three grand prix's of the year. The barge boards of the cars are therefore repainted white, with "stop AIDS" on it, together with the campaign's logo.

Members of the DHL Jordan Honda team wore black ribbons on their race shirts on Sunday in memory of Martin Whittingham, the team's physiologist. It was with great sadness that the team heard the news that Martin, aged 40, was killed in a car accident near his home last weekend. Martin looked after the physiotherapy and medical programmes of Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato during test sessions and races and he assisted with the well being of the whole team while on the road. His impressive and highly-qualified career spans appointments with the Royal Army Medical Corps and the 1994 Winter Olympics.

Front wings

The front wings have changed traditionally, together with its end plates. What was Ferrari's state of the art novelty in 2000, it is now standard in F1 to change or remake the front wing to the circuit's needs.

The introducer itself has reverted to one of its standard front wing end plates type, with a rectangular form if viewed from the side, filled the cut on the upper side of the plate as seen in Spa two weeks ago. The bump, located under the small end plate wing has been reintroduced. Apart from these little changes, that must have had a purpose to increase downforce at low speeds, and decrease drag at higher speeds (in order to gain speed in chicanes and longs straits), Schumacher and Barrichello drove the weekend with a slightly different front wing. Schumacher had a more pointy one, with seemingly more wing surface at the center of the car, while Barrichello's front wing was very roundly formed and it somehow looked a lot like the front wings that Renault has been using all the season. On that picture of Barrichello's front wing (the second from left) you can also notice an air conductor on the underside of the wing. It sort of guides the air towards the outside of the car.

Of course the other teams haven't done nothing during the test sessions in the two weeks between Spa and Monza. McLaren for instance had made a completely new front wing, another low downforce spec, after they also brought a brand new low downforce front wing to Spa. The new wing has more or less McLaren traditional end plates, but there is another significant difference between this one and the Spa specification. Although the wings from Spa and Monza have only 2 wingparts, the Spa wing was bent down in the center of the wing, just like at Ferrari and most of the other teams. Monza is the first time this year that McLaren deviates from that design, and used a wing that was even slightly higher from the ground at the center of the car than at both ends of the wing. The main reason for this is probably to increase the air flow under the car, thus making the diffuser more efficient. This new combination causes a little less downforce generated by the front wing, but increases the downforce on the rear wheels, thereby increasing traction and likely to have more understeer than in Spa. This makes perfectly sense, as front downforce by wing is of much less importance in slow chicanes than the fast sweeping corners at Spa-Francorchamps.

Most of the teams have also adopted special bent front wing end plates introduced by Ferrari. As you can see on the pictures, so did Williams and Jordan. The end plates make sure that the most valuable air (the air generating the downforce on the front wing) flows between the wheels. This way, the front wing might operate more efficiently, as less important air is blown against the wheels and thus decreasing its effect.

Rear wings

Rear wings change a lot at low downforce circuits like Monza. Some teams change the end plates, and every team changes its rear wings elements, because of the special requirements regarding the setup of the car. Exactly like some teams did last year, BAR cut some carbon away from the end plates, thus making it smaller, lighter, interfering less with the rotating air around the rear wheel, and less stiff. This change is possible, as a relatively small force works on it thanks to the very flat position of the downforce generating elements. Ferrari on the other hand remarkably added a Gurney - like flap at the end of the rear wing and plates.

Small changes

• BMW.Williams showed up at Monza, again with the small incisions in their flaps on the front wing plates. They had made an exception on this in Spa, where the flap was complete.
• BAR made a very strange looking front wing end plate, which is higher than all others, and looked very pointy. As they were painted black, there was no valuable picture to be found.
• Olivier Panis' BAR was on saturday equipped with a large gurney flap on the end of the front wing. Apparently he needed some more downforce than the wing normally provided, but nevertheless, it wasn't there on sunday anymore.
• Both Renaults were seen driving very very low downforce rear wings, together with McLaren and Minardi. This only affirms the suspicions of an unsatisfactory performance of the Mercedes Benz engine. Ferrari and Williams on the other hand drove a lot more rear wing surface, confirming the high powers of both Ferrari and BMW engines.