Reflections on the Monza weekend

Monza. Where to start? At the beginning probably - a lovely evening at the Monza Sporting Club commemorating Gonzalo Rodriguez, the former F3000 race winner who died in one of Roger Penske's ChampCars at Laguna Seca 10 years ago.

The event is held annually with money raised from an auction going to Gonzalo's memorial foundation. It is administered by his sister Nani and provides sporting opportunity for underprivileged children in their native Uruguay.

It was moving to hear Nani tell of Gonzalo speaking to his mother the night before his accident and revealing to her how much he was loving his life, how his racing was all he dreamed of and how he felt on top of the world. She misses him, of course, as do any number of people who remember a warm, passionate, down-to-earth, feeling human being, but it helped to know his state of mind when he left.

Nothing beats participating, I guess, but you can partially understand Gonzalo's sentiments, even when you are only involved on the fringes, spectating or reporting. I can think of plenty of occasions when motor racing has given me a warm feeling, when I know I've seen something special and feel privileged, such as coming back from Donington in '93.

Things continued in similar vein when Jackie Stewart hosted a gathering at Williams on Friday morning to relive Monza '69, a spectacular race at which he won a frantic last lap scramble to the line after a typical old Monza slipstreamer.

To celebrate Stewart's 70th birthday earlier this year, sons Mark and Paul had made a piece of music and put together a montage of photos showing significant moments in their father's life - both family and sporting. It wasn't just any piece of music. Paul was taught to play the guitar by none other than George Harrison and the 'back-up' guitarist on 'Fly Free' just happened to be one Eric Clapton. Jackie shared it with us and revealed that he likes it so much that it will be released next month with all proceeds going to a charity he will nominate at the time.

The photos were special too, one showing JYS and Jochen Rindt lying on a car. "That," Stewart said, "was the day Jochen died, here at Monza in 1970. These things you can't buy..."

More poignant reflections such as these were in sharp contrast to the general maelstrom in the rest of the paddock, where it was business as usual, the Renault saga dominating everything. Predictably, 'Crashgate' ensured more free space at a Rangers/Celtic Ibrox derby than Fernando Alonso's Thursday press session. As he arrived, Fernando glanced in to assess the size of his reception committee, a resigned expression quickly taking over.

Question: Fernando, how are you reacting?

"Well... I will not comment too much because the team is not... it's not much reaction. For me it's not the time to think or pay attention to that because it's difficult for me to understand all this situation, all this investigation, so this is another day and it's about preparing for the Monza GP."

Question: Is it fair to say you are surprised by the events of the last few days?

"Yes of course. I'm very surprised. I cannot imagine these things or this situation so, as I said, surprise... and it's time to think about Monza."

Question: Have you spoken to senior members of the team to ascertain what happened?

"As I said, I will not spend all the press conference commenting on it because there is nothing much to say. I was surprised. After the hearing everything will be clarified and that will be the time to comment. Now makes no sense."

Fernando Alonso © LAT

Question: "But if we ask a handful of questions and address the issue we can then move on. Questions such as, did you know?"

"No."

Question: "The thing that is coming out from this is that you didn't know..."

At which point, with Fernando backed onto the ropes, the referee, in the form of Renault communications chief Patrizia Spinelli, stepped in.

"Look guys, he cannot say. I don't want to play policeman but you are putting him in a difficult situation because he has received notice not to speak and this doesn't come from the team, it comes from above."

But who is above the team? Evidently, someone was.

Before we finally moved on, Fernando made it plain that he didn't think the issue would have any impact on him next year, when it is anticipated he will be driving a red car. "No," he said, "No chance."

Whether the Singapore shunt was Renault's idea or, more difficult to swallow, Nelsinho's, it's stretching things a bit to believe that a driver as feisty, competitive and clued in as Alonso would not want to know why, starting 15th, he was doing a 12-lap first stint. Maybe a knowing look was all that was required if questions had been raised. Who knows? There is no real point speculating before next Monday.

Some though, are a little surprised at how deeply in the mire Flavio Briatore could be. As friend and business partner of Mr Ecclestone, he's long been thought to be untouchable.

"I think that might have been the case," one team owner put it, "but I'm not sure it is anymore. I can't think that Mr E will have been terribly impressed to have Flavio phoning people up telling them that he and FOTA could do a better job..."

Which makes you think. Remember Luca di Montezemolo 'dancing on Max Mosley's grave' back in July? I have no basis for saying this, but what if it emerged that Fernando had been an accessory? That could turn out to be a little unfortunate for the Scuderia and its newly announced deal with Santander, could it not? Just a thought...

As things stand, it appears that poor Pat Symonds, Renault's engineering director, is the only one incontrovertibly in hot water. Leaks from the FIA investigation revealed Pat having to admit that telemetry showing Nelson's throttle traces did look to be a little 'unusual,' on top of which he has declined to answer potentially incriminating questions.

Pat Symonds © LAT

Commendably though, Symonds seems disinclined to drop anyone else in. At one point while being questioned, he was told by an FIA investigator: "Can I say that if, Mr Symonds, you'd been put in the position where you were made to ask Mr Piquet Jr to crash, it's much better. It would be much better for you in the long term to tell these stewards, to hear that today." To which Pat replied only that he fully understood.

Then there is the question of how serious it all is. Let me say here and now that I actually like to think that I have a well developed sense of fair play and don't condone cheating, it's just that I don't regard it as 'match fixing' either. What usually happens with that, is that someone deliberately underperforms, for example by letting in soft goals, in order to foster an unexpected result and generate financial gain through betting. What Renault did was to maximise its own performance which, after all, is the whole idea, partially through creative use of the imperfect Safety Car regulations in place at the time.

Why would they do it, at the end of a poor year with seemingly little at stake? It has been suggested they may have been trying to influence the Renault board into continuing its F1 programme and, who knows, prevent the loss of jobs we witnessed at Honda/Brawn not six months later amid a financial crisis. If that's so, it doesn't justify what happened but perhaps you can view it in a slightly more favourable light.

Then there is the view that it is very serious because you could say that it cost Felipe Massa the world championship. Well, maybe, but then again a championship is won and lost over 17 or 18 races and Renault was not to know that Ferrari would conduct a Laurel & Hardy pitstop in Singapore.

Mark Webber can normally be relied on to provide a decent slice of perspective although, of course, he is managed by Flavio Briatore!

"I think plenty of things like that have happened in this sport in the past and it's not the worst thing in the world, no" he said. "I'm not saying there's race-fixing all the time, just that there are things that have happened that are probably not too dissimilar in end result. It was so much easier to do things with the Safety Car rules that were there last year.

"But I mean, we've had things worse than that go on - look at Senna and Prost, but that was just racing. And Michael and Irvine. That was effectively pretty similar in terms of results being changed. They've done a lot to try and make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen in the future and I don't think for a long time we've seen anything like that, but it's not the end of the world."

Then there's the potential safety implications of what happened. I can see the sensitivity issues of a deliberate accident in the light of what happened to poor Henry Surtees, of course I can, but by the same token I don't think you should wring your hands too much. I'm sure that if I had a son who'd collected a loose wheel from Piquet's car I'd think very differently, but I don't think you can be too preoccupied with health and safety if 'racing driver' is your listed vocation.

The damaged Renault R28 of Nelsinho Piquet © LAT

"It's not a safety issue," added Webber, "although he did make a good job of it! I think we've seen more than enough accidents that have happened unintentionally where everything was okay, so intentionally or unintentionally I think the risk is the same. There's not really a risk that you're going to damage yourself. It's not that difficult to do. And I said that to the Red Bull guys, 'If someone came to me and said you've got to shunt the car or we're going to kill your family or something, of course you'd do it."

Asked if he could understand the sour grapes that would cause anyone to do what Piquet is alleged to have done, Webber just grinned. "It's best I say nothing. Let me tell you, it's best I say nothing at all..."

He was more illuminating on the stalling of Red Bull's championship challenge and yet another mixing up of the performance equation in Italy.

"I reckon it's new aero packages again. It's not just about Red Bull and Brawn anymore. Think about my race at Spa. With the Drive Through penalty I copped 15-20 seconds and bang, I'm out of the points. But at Nurburgring I had a Drive Through and still won. It's changed. More teams have come to the party. I expected us to be in the hunt here but to expect an advantage was optimistic."

As far as the dramatic recent swings in fortune went, he shrugged.

"Tyres and their sensitivity I guess, mate..." Long pause. "An Indian Grand Prix coming up..." There was a smile on his face.

As it turned out Webber was wrong about being in the hunt and it was a depressing weekend for Christian Horner's troops, especially with questions hanging over their future engine supply.

Anything could happen with Renault in the next couple of months and it had been taken as read that Red Bull would have a Mercedes in the back next year. But now it's not so cut and dried.

McLaren and Mercedes were both tight-lipped about the three-pointed star's reported future buy into Brawn, as was Ross himself. The way I hear it, there is certainly no smoke without fire.

Mercedes and McLaren have had a long and fruitful 15-year partnership but you can question one or two things; Spygate, liegate, the sale of shares to Bahrain leaving Merc still as majority shareholders but without control, McLaren electing to build its own road car. Add in the fact that at the start of the year McLaren was propping up the grid while a Brawn-Mercedes was winning, and you have the seeds of what appears to be happening.

How does it affect Red Bull? Well, Mercedes is apparently desperately keen on an association with Sebastian Vettel because, despite the fact that they're winning the championship, in Germany it's Vettel getting all the ink. But, until the end of 2011, McLaren and Mercedes have joint veto on each other's plans. So, if McLaren is not best pleased about the defection to Brawn...

Norbert Haug and Jenson Button © LAT

These things tend to get worked through. Let's say that Mercedes was to extend McLaren's engine supply deal well beyond 2011 and lob in a few more Euros, well, who knows, Vettel could well still get his Mercedes.

Monza was a fantastic result for Brawn, the team's fourth 1-2 of the year, and while Ross is far too professional to think a job is done before it is, he went home a happy man on Sunday night.

"I thought Spa would be another Silverstone for Red Bull, so there was a relief that it wasn't," he admitted. "Coming here our car had an advantage. It's very good under braking, with good traction and works reasonably well with low downforce as long as we can generate the tyre temperatures.

"Looking ahead: Singapore and high downforce -- we've tended to go quite well at those kind of tracks; Suzuka I think will be more in Red Bull's direction; Interlagos could go either way and then Abu Dhabi, at least from the maps we've seen, should be a street circuit which perhaps is slightly in our favour. So I think there's a nice balance for the rest of the season but this was one where we really wanted to take advantage, and did."

Then there was Lewis. You didn't even need to see the shunt to know what had happened. The timing screen revealed all - a purple sector one time on the very last lap, then a big 'STOP' in sector two...

It told you all you need to know about the world champion - he never gives up.

"Yes," Martin Whitmarsh smiled, "he had some KERS left."

It may have been the last lap, there may have been nothing at stake, but Lewis is Lewis. He was giving it all he could through the Lesmos to try and get that little bit closer to Jenson. Close enough to have a run at his second place with the KERS button down into Parabolica for the last time. Because he's a racer. You can criticise if you want to but we love drivers like that.