Highlights from a trip to Monza

It's been just over a week since I returned from my trip to the Italian Grand Prix, and I can safely say that, of the three visits I've made to Formula 1 races in recent years, it was, for a number of reasons, much more enjoyable than my trips to Silverstone in 2012 or the Hungaroring last year.

Perhaps that doesn't come as a major surprise that both of the above events were characterised by extreme weather - torrential rain (except for, when it would have been most welcome, during the race itself) and baking heat respectively - although there are a number of other factors which would make me recommend a pilgrimage to Monza to any F1 fan.

Chief among these is that, unlike at Silverstone and the Hungaroring, where fans are pushed to the outside of the circuit away from the action, the layout of Monza is such as that you feel far closer to what's going on. The only area in which you can't roam freely around is the paddock, but you can walk the entire interior of the track all the way from Parabolica (where I was seated for Saturday and Sunday) up to the Lesmos.

Indeed, the pathway leading down from the Lesmo entrance - handily served by its own railway station on the Milan-Lecco line - allows you to walk under the old banking. That certainly helps to convey a sense of history about the venue that somewhere like Silverstone cannot; wherever you walk within the circuit grounds, there's a very special atmosphere that surpasses even that of Le Mans during the legendary 24 Hours.

Perhaps the best aspect of this freedom however is the number of big names you happen across during your travels. All weekend, there was a throng of fans massed at the entrance to the paddock waiting for someone of note to emerge, and I managed to take a cheeky snap of four-time champion and tifosi favourite Alain Prost as he was signing autographs.

He wasn't the only big name I encountered during my travels, though. Across the weekend, I was able to catch a glimpse of (in no particular order): Nico Hulkenberg, Felipe Nasr, Stoffel Vandoorne, Dani Juncadella, Eric Boullier, Graeme Lowdon, Rob Smedley and - best of all - Martin Brundle, who I happened to bump into during the pitlane walk on Thursday afternoon. The Sky Sports commentator and F1/Le Mans star of yesteryear was kind enough to sign his autograph and pose for a picture with me (in which, sadly, I look like an utter goon, but there we are).

The pitlane walk, and not just because of my chance meeting with Brundle, was a particular highlight of the weekend, helping to remind me that this sport I obsess over and plan to dedicate my career to is in fact a real thing, providing thousands of real people with their livelihoods, and not just some fantasy-land that exists only on my TV screen as it can often seem!

Another of the weekend's memorable moments was when I tried my luck in the 'Gamezone', which allowed those to have purchased some official F1 merchandise (for the record, I purchased a Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull hat, as modeled in the below image) a go on a simulator. I was pitched against seven opponents and scored the second fastest lap time, enabling me to have another go. My second attempt was less successful, setting only the third best time.

But, the person with the third fastest time was given an attempt at the Batak challenge, used by professional athletes to hone their reflexes (to get an idea of what this entails, click here to watch Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button have a go). To my astonishment, I set the high score for that day with 75, meaning I was invited back to a final showdown against Riccardo, an Italian, and Neil, an Irishman, who had also set the highest scores on their respective days.

I managed to up my score to 79 on my second attempt, but sadly it wasn't enough as Neil mustered 80 and Riccardo 82, the latter scooping the prize of a pair of grandstand seats for next year's race - at least he had the least far to travel of the three of us!

Moving on to the on-track action, one aspect of the weekend I was particularly anticipating was hearing the much-maligned new engine note of the new generation of F1 cars with my own ears. I was not among those who slated the new sound at the start of the year - in fact, I enjoyed being able to hear things like lock-ups and screeching tyres, which were previously drowned out by the high-pitch scream of the old V8s.

My opinion hasn't changed having now heard the cars trackside; I don't even think they need to be made louder, as has often been suggested. If you listened carefully, you could even tell which car ran which engine as it passed, all three manufacturers' power-units exhibiting subtly different tones that were a joy to differentiate for an anorak like me.

What F1 fans ought to remember is that the noise produced by engines made in any particular era was ultimately just a byproduct of the pursuit of performance. There were no artificial methods for making the engines sound better; that's just how they sounded anyway - the association with heroic feats on-track is what made the old noise so emotive. As this new era of F1 progresses, so fans will eventually learn to love its soundtrack.

The race itself hardly ranked among the most thrilling of the year, and it was a big shame that Rosberg's error (don't be fooled by the conspiracy theorists - if Mercedes really wanted Hamilton to win, there are many more fool-proof and less obvious methods of fixing a result that a team could deploy) denied us the latest installment in the brewing rivalry between the title protagonists.

Still, there was no shortage of wheel-banging further down the order to keep me gripped for the whole 53 laps of action. The race, as is often the case at Monza, felt like it was over very quickly - in 79 minutes in fact, as opposed to 102 at Hungary last year. Perhaps it's time that the FIA established a minimum length for Grands Prix as well as a maximum one.

A lack of success for Ferrari didn't appear to dampen the atmosphere too much in my grandstand, which unexpectedly featured a mammoth Danish contingent who whooped with joy when their hero Kevin Magnussen snatched fifth on the grid in the dying moments of qualifying. When they realised that the McLaren driver had made his way up to second at the start of the race, the grandstand virtually erupted!

The travelling Danes would have felt very aggrieved at Magnussen's penalty for forcing Valtteri Bottas off the road at the first chicane, and rightly so. The incident mirrored that of Hamilton and Rosberg at Spa, with Bottas cast in the role of the latter. That the Finn decided to straight-line the chicane instead of risk a collision with the car he was trying to pass - as Rosberg did two weeks beforehand - should not have earned Magnussen a penalty.

Nevertheless, that was the only real sour note of the weekend, which culminated in getting to walk the track from the start/finish straight up to the Roggia chicane after the legendary track invasion had died down. Again, actually being able to walk the very tarmac on which the F1 drivers had been battling half an hour beforehand was an incredible sensory experience.

Anything not nailed down got pinched by the tifosi, including all the bollards at the first chicane that Rosberg had to negotiate when he relinquished the lead of the race to Hamilton, many of the Rolex and Santander advertising hoardings, and - most hilariously of all - the enormous polystyrene marker at the start of the DRS zone, which was being manhandled by a Ferrari fan at Porta Garibaldi station!

It was a fitting end to a hugely enjoyable weekend at Monza, a track to which I certainly hope to return in the near future. If you're contemplating going abroad to watch a Grand Prix next year, it's one I would urge you to consider visiting.

F1 Stat Attack Part II: Most Points

Having previously looked at the all-time win list, it's time to examine the points-scoring record in the second of this three-part 'stat attack' series.

The all-time top ten points scorers, as of the Canadian Grand Prix, are as follows:

1. Michael Schumacher - 1566 points (1991-2012)
2. Fernando Alonso - 1460 points (2003-)
3. Sebastian Vettel - 1186 points (2007-)
4. Jenson Button - 1024 points (2000-)
5. Lewis Hamilton - 990 points (2007-)
6. Mark Webber - 917.5 points (2002-)
7. Kimi Raikkonen - 874 points (2001-)
8. Alain Prost - 798.5 points (1980-1993)
9. Felipe Massa - 753 points (2002-)
10. Rubens Barrichello - 658 points (1993-2011)

The extent to which this list is dominated by current F1 drivers should come as no surprise when you bear in mind that a win is now worth 25 points, rather than 8, 9 or 10 points as it was in the past. This change, made in time for the 2010 season, has allowed Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton to amass more points than Alain Prost managed in his entire career in just six years.

Additionally, Fernando Alonso is firmly on course to take the record for the highest career points total by the end of this season - the Ferrari driver is just 106 points - four wins and a seventh place finish - away from surpassing Michael Schumacher's tally of 1566, despite having taken just over a third as many victories as the German in his career.

In the short-term, the battle to set the new standard will thus likely be between Alonso and Vettel. Considering the former's advantage stands at just 274 points, easily attainable in two seasons driving for a top team, the odds strongly favour Vettel making his way to the top of the table not too long after, or perhaps even before, Alonso's retirement.

It's likely Hamilton will also be able to score the 576 points needed to surpass Schumacher, but his near-200 point deficit to Vettel will be difficult to address unless the Brit is able to replicate a Red Bull-style scenario for himself. As for the others in the top ten, 1566 points will probably remain out of reach even with the aid of the current system.

The overwhelming bias towards current drivers in the above list is why I have taken it upon myself to construct a 'normalised' points-scorers list, which reflects how the table would look if the 9-6-4-3-2-1 system, used from 1961 to 1990, had not been amended:

1. Michael Schumacher - 1244 points (1991-2012)
2. Alain Prost - 791.5 points (1980-1993)
3. Fernando Alonso - 681 points (2003-)
4. Ayrton Senna - 599 points (1984-1993)
5. Kimi Raikkonen - 511 points (2001-)
6. Rubens Barrichello - 493 points (1993-2010)
7. Nelson Piquet - 484.5 points (1979-1991)
8. Nigel Mansell - 467 points (1981-1994)
9. David Coulthard - 455 points (1994-2008)
10. Sebastian Vettel - 434 points (2007-)

This list much more closely resembles the all-time win list, albeit also featuring drivers more notable for being among the most experienced ever, such as Rubens Barrichello and David Coulthard, at the expense of more celebrated drivers from previous eras. Just outside the top ten are Button (414) and Hamilton (408), with Massa (314) and Webber (292.5) in the lower reaches of the top twenty.

Under this system, Schumacher's record seems far more secure than it is in reality - in order for Alonso to make up the 563 point shortfall, he would have to match his normalised 2012 tally of 83 points a further seven times before the end of his career.

Vettel meanwhile would have to replicate his winning total of 88 points nine more times to overtake his compatriot, which seems a somewhat more realistic prospect given that the Red Bull driver is six years Alonso's junior.

When you consider that points are only awarded down to sixth place, rather than tenth, under the above system, it should come as no surprise that the points tallies of the remaining current drivers would suffer badly.

Under the actual system, Nico Rosberg, with 456.5 points to his name, is up to 15th place in the all-time points scorers list ahead of such illustrious names as Mika Hakkinen and Niki Lauda. Normalise that figure, and the Mercedes driver drops all the way down to 104 points and just 63rd place in the list behind the likes of Jarno Trulli and Nick Heidfeld.

Likewise, Romain Grosjean and Sergio Perez would be outside of the top 100 with just 24 and 18 points respectively, while Adrian Sutil (12), Pastor Maldonado (11), Nico Hulkenberg (9) and Paul Di Resta (8) would be well among the sport's also-rans. Jean-Eric Vergne would have only just scored his maiden point at Canada with sixth place, whilst Daniel Ricciardo would be yet to score having never finished higher than seventh.

So, while 'normalisation' makes the top of the scorers list seem more palatable, it undoubtedly does rather a disservice to those drivers yet to taste major success. After all, the change from awarding points from sixth to tenth place reflects the increasing number of finishers in modern-day F1.

During the 1992 season, just 49% of the starters on average made it to the finish line; ten years later (the final year of awarding points down to just sixth place), improvements in mechanical reliability had increased that figure to 59%. Last year, in the era of near-perfect reliability, the finishing percentage rate was a rather hefty 81%.

That means that it is now extremely difficult for midfield drivers to finish in the top six compared to ten or twenty years ago. This season, the top six drivers have been made up almost entirely of the Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus drivers, with the other teams having been shut out of the top six in all but a small handful of cases.

Near-perfect reliability has also made it much harder for new teams to score points, even with only having to finish in tenth position as opposed to sixth in order to do so. A team like Caterham would probably have had little trouble scoring numerous points twenty years ago, much as Jordan did in their maiden season in 1991, but have yet failed to do so in almost three and a half years of trying.

On that basis, you could make the case for extending the points system down to twelfth or even fifteenth place based on the current average number of finishers - not since the 2010 Australian Grand Prix have there been fewer than fifteen classified finishers in a race.

That of course would do nothing to address the overwhelming bias towards current drivers at the sharp end of the all-time list, but as the paltry 'normalised' scores of the likes of Perez and Di Resta prove, it would be impossible to ever produce a list that would truly reflect the merits of each driver on it. In that respect, alas, we can but continue to speculate...

F1 Stat Attack Part I: Most Wins

Over the past few weeks, I have been doing some trawling of the Formula One record books. In particular, I have looked at most wins, most starts, and most points, all of which I will be covering in a three-part series.

The all-time win list as it stands, as of the Monaco Grand Prix last weekend, makes for very interesting reading:

1. Michael Schumacher – 91 wins (1994-2006)

2. Alain Prost – 51 wins (1981-1993)

3. Ayrton Senna – 41 wins (1985-1993)

4. Fernando Alonso – 32 wins (2003-present)

5. Nigel Mansell – 31 wins (1985-1994)

6. Sebastian Vettel – 28 wins (2008-present)

7. Jackie Stewart – 27 wins (1965-1973)

8. Jim Clark – 25 wins (1962-1968)

9. Niki Lauda – 25 wins (1974-1985)

10. Juan Manuel Fangio – 23 wins (1950-1957)

Also knocking of the door of the top ten are Lewis Hamilton (21 wins), Kimi Raikkonen (20 wins) and Jenson Button (15 wins), with Felipe Massa (11 wins) and Mark Webber (9 wins) a little further down the order.

The most striking thing about the list is the sheer lead Schumacher holds over his closest opposition. It seems unlikely however that the German’s mighty total of 91 wins will ever be surpassed, given the unique advantages, other than his incredible talent, he possessed in his pomp.

These days, more or less perfect reliability for every team bar Caterham and Marussia is the norm, but the Schumacher-Todt-Brawn era Ferrari team were the first to achieve this in the early 2000s with the help of a virtually limitless budget and endless testing at Fiorano. Between 2002 and 2004, Schumacher retired just twice (Brazil 2003 and Monaco 2004), neither of which were caused by any mechanical issues.

It took the likes of McLaren, Williams and Renault a few seasons longer to get to this state, providing Schumacher with many more opportunities than his rivals to rack up the wins.  In addition, between 1994 and 2006, there were only two seasons when Schumacher lacked a ’top’ car (1996 and 2005); that's no coincidence when you consider his role in developing the machinery at his disposal.

Compare that to Damon Hill (22 wins), who had four seasons in a very competitive Williams before being shuffled away to Arrows in 1997, Mika Hakkinen (20 wins), who only enjoyed three seasons in a fully competitive McLaren (1998-2000), and Jacques Villeneuve (11 wins), who had just two seasons with Williams in which to squeeze an entire career’s worth of wins.

Moving on to the next generation of drivers against whom Schumacher fought, before this year, Raikkonen has had two seasons in a McLaren (2003 and 2005) and a further two with Ferrari (2007-08) to do most of his winning. Alonso meanwhile has so far had his two title-winning years with Renault, one with McLaren and two with Ferrari (2010 and 2012) in addition to 2013.

Alonso now sits fourth in the winners’ list with 32 wins, the highest of any active driver. Assuming the Spaniard remains with a competitive Ferrari team until his contract expires at the end of 2016, it’s not unrealistic to think he can surpass Senna’s total of 41 wins fairly easily, or perhaps trouble Prost’s tally of 51. There nonetheless simply aren’t enough years however, even with 19 or 20 races on the calendar, for Alonso to catch Schumacher.

Vettel is the second highest active driver on the list in sixth position, reaching such heady heights at just 25 years of age. By way of comparison, Schumacher was 28 when he broke into the top six in 1997, whilst Prost, Senna and Alonso were all 29.

Assuming Vettel remains in competitive machinery for the bulk of his career, it’s not hard to imagine him surpassing Senna and Prost. But, securing a 92^nd victory will be a far taller order – if we assume, for the sake of argument, Vettel remains in F1 for another dozen years, he has to win an average of 5.3 races per year in order to overhaul his compatriot.

Lewis Hamilton probably has another decade to run in his career (assuming he doesn’t defect to NASCAR to spend more time with girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger), and thus will need an average of two wins per year to beat Senna’s record, which seems entirely feasible, or three to overtake Prost, which is still doable if he is able to remain in a top car for the majority of that period.

As for Raikkonen, it seems the Finn is unlikely to remain in F1 for more than a couple more years, meaning passing Stewart for seventh in the list may be about as far as he goes. Button meanwhile needs another eight wins to level with Fangio and breach the top ten; if the Briton can achieve that in the remainder of his career, he can retire a very happy man indeed.

It comes as little surprise that the top six in the all-time winners list are dominated by drivers of the ‘Bernie’ era, i.e. since 16 or more races a year have been de rigeur. Though such a state of affairs will be short-lived, it is fitting that the remainder of the top ten are made up by, arguably, the greatest drivers of their respective eras.

Fangio took over as top dog at the start of 1955 from Alberto Ascari, and El Maestro’s record of 24 victories (in an era when there were as few as six to eight races per season) remained untouched until Clark notched up a 25^th in his last ever F1 start before his death in 1968.

Five years later, and another Scot took over at the top of the leaderboard in the form of Stewart. Lauda came close, drawing level with Clark, but it wouldn’t be until 1987 that Stewart’s record would be toppled as Prost took his 28^th win.

As the Frenchman retired from the sport at the end of 1993, it seemed probable that Senna would take the 11 extra victories necessary to surpass his great rival, but the tragic events of Imola ‘94 put paid to any such hopes. Had Senna survived, something about which I’ve written in the past, he may have reached 60 wins, and perhaps Schumacher’s record would only stand around the 80 mark instead of the present 91.

Schumacher’s success was the perfect storm of a number of factors, not least of which was the immense investment made by the manufacturers and the tobacco firms in the early 2000s. It’s hard to see such a state of affairs ever being replicated, meaning in turn that it will extremely difficult for any team achieving the kind of sustained dominance required to propel a driver beyond 91 wins. Even Red Bull appears to be faltering somewhat in this tyre-dominated 2013 season.

Seven titles may well be equalled, as may be 68 pole positions – after all, Vettel only needs a further 31 to break that record. But, of all Schumacher’s many records (unless, of course, the F1 calendar is dramatically expanded in the future), 91 career victories appears to be the most untouchable.