Rate the race: 2016 Italian Grand Prix

2016 Italian Grand Prix

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What did you think of today’s race? Share your verdict on the Italian Grand Prix.

Since 2008, F1 Fanatic has held polls on every F1 race to find out which fans thought of each round of the season.

Join in the latest poll and give your verdict on the race: 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest. Please vote based on how entertaining and exciting you thought the race was, not on how your preferred driver or team performed.

What were the best and worst moments of the race? What was the main thing you’ll remember about it? Rate the race out of ten and leave a comment below:

Rate the 2016 Italian Grand Prix out of ten

  • 10 (1%)
  • 9 (1%)
  • 8 (3%)
  • 7 (12%)
  • 6 (24%)
  • 5 (23%)
  • 4 (16%)
  • 3 (11%)
  • 2 (4%)
  • 1 (5%)

Total Voters: 503

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1 = ‘Terrible’, 10 = ‘Perfect’

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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149 comments on “Rate the race: 2016 Italian Grand Prix”

  1. 5. One or two great overtakes but otherwise dull

    1. 8! I loved it! And now we have a two point diff between one and two in the championship.
      And props to Rosberg for a perfect race, and for winning those very impolite booing hooligan tifosis over.

      1. Same, fantastic for the championship, lots of great racing. Podium was nuts.

      2. Ok ! but it is rate The Race, not the state of the championship so far.

    2. Gave it a seven but with a sense that something was missing.

  2. Great example why Monza’s contract renewal was a bad thing for the sport. 3/10.

    Year after year Monza and Monaco produces the worst races of the season. History this, heritage that… Time to move on.

    1. Monza is the ultimate track of speed. I think it ranks the dominant engines and cars in the field. It’s brilliant.

      1. @crunch So you enjoy the cars running in the same order through the race?

        1. Yes actually. I didn’t mind it.

          I know what to expect when I sit down to watch Monza. I didn’t have high hopes. I’m placated by just seeing the podium and the Tifosi. That’s it.

          Monza has an identity, and that identity is integral to Formula1. We need races like this.

          1. -100

          2. I agree. Monza or Monaco doesn’t produce the best racing but they do both on one hell of a show. The podiums at Monza are better than most races all season.

        2. I love it. It’s fast, the passes have to be worked for, the crowd is passionate and it’s one of the most iconic races of the season.

          It’s hard to get as excited about Baku or COTA. Even though, they may well produce more exciting racing.

    2. Remind me how bad the Monaco GP was this year?

      1. Rain helps everywhere. Italian GP 2008 was also brilliant, but they don’t make tracks great.

    3. +1

      Yet, Shanghai and Bahrain, tracks that are always criticised as rubbish consistently produce superb races. Monza is just boring

    4. @huhhii I couldn’t agree more. The two most overrated tracks on the calendar. How anyone can think of Monza as brilliant because they run high top speeds, they would probably enjoy Indycar more…

      1. Silverstone and Spa are also rubbish most years for many. I like them all, people who understand F1 would not complain about todays race it was ok, not every race can be epic.

        1. Spa is actually decent every year and it’s the best track. Always produces 7 or 8 out of 10 races. Nothing special but always has some decent action

      2. Monza is really a very unique track compared to all the others. Not only is it the fastest track in F1 but it is also really a throw-back to a by-gone age- the simplicity of the layout is something that just doesn’t exist in the go-kart-type modern tracks.

      3. Robert (@skylab007)
        4th September 2016, 23:45

        The problem is not Monza. The problem is the current set of F1 aero & tyre regs. Most other formulae produce exciting slipstream racing at Monza. Having said that I enjoyed today’s race – not exactly edge of the seat stuff but tense, tight & tactical nonetheless even if the result was never really in doubt. And, yes, I do enjoy Indycar racing…

    5. @huhhii I agree that heritage sometimes gets overrated in F1 but if there is one dominant team and significant gaps between most other teams as well, then no circuit will produce an exciting race. For sure, rain, safety cars, crashes and other unexpected things can spice up the action anywhere.

      Also, DRS once again spoilt what could have been fun today. Get rid of it and you’ll at least see some good battles.

    6. To be fair, Monza normally produces more action and overtaking than this year.

  3. 3/10. Two of those three points go to Ricciardo for a stunning overtake.

    1. Agreed. I’d put another point for Haas being more than honorable.

    2. Okay, but then you have to give some points to Verstappen too, because they both made a daring overtake at the end of the race and both gained a place.
      And that overtake of Ricciardo was almost as mad that you would think it was “Verstappen”. By the way: both were lucky that the opponent choose to be the wiser one (and the looser).

  4. Typical Monza.

  5. a leaf blew across the track with 8 laps to go, it was a thrilling moment

    1. Really?!? I missed it…dammit!

    2. @guitargraham

      Can you provide a pointer to a clip? I could go back and watch so I’d know at least SOMETHING interesting happened in the race. LOL

  6. Voted 2. Pretty terrible.

  7. These F1 starts have become as predictable as a lottery game, I gave this race 5/10 for the pass on Alonso.

    1. Hamilton’s, Verstappen’s and Gutiérrez’s starts were terrible.

    2. I do have to say that whilst these stats have mixed things up a bit half the point was so that the fans knew what was causing bad starts…

      That’s not worked. I had more idea when I knew that it was a software glitch. Now I know that for some reason Mercedes aren’t as easy to launch as Ferrari but I don’t know why and it’s a random fail between the two drivers every race which means we never ever see the two of them racing. Anyway dull race.

    3. @abdelilah To be fair, I don’t think Alonso was trying particularly hard to defend.

    4. “These F1 starts have become as predictable”

      Wut. There was quite a lot of position changes. Up and down the field. Predictable, it was not.

      1. @mike
        These F1 starts have become as predictable.. as a lottery game

  8. 6. I enjoy Monza for its speed and history but I have to admit it doesn’t always have the best races.

    Still it was an interesting race on strategy. The start was unexpected and there were some good overtakes with and without DRS.

  9. Why Ferrari didn’t split their strategy when they had track position (comfortably!) over Hamilton, I don’t know.

    1. I agree. Forcing Hamilton to try and pass Raikkonen would at least taken him off his optimum strategy and might have given Vettel a chance.
      But to be honest Mercedes probably would still have managed the 1-2, they really are in a class of one on high speed circuits. Maybe Singapore is a chance for Ferrari and Red Bull again.

  10. I loved it, had battles all down the field, although disappointing how Ferrari couldn’t challenge Mercedes, it was enjoyable

    1. @strontium

      Ferrari really failed with strategy. They could have extended their SS stint by four laps or such and had a long medium stint at the end and I guarantee they would have Vettel in second

      1. Or they could have had an exploded tire and gotten no points at all.
        3 and 4 was the best Ferrari could get.
        The Merc’s weren’t running as hard as they could, only as hard as they needed.

      2. Do not agree regarding the strategy this time. I don’t think there was room for improvement. But I agree that they fail quite often for a top team. In the last 2 races (Spa and Monza) they sent their drivers for another run in the dying minutes of Q2, although it didn’t seem really necessary (VET was P4 and RAI was P6, 1 second ahead of P10), but we’ve seen their drivers failing to make it to Q3 some other times because they did not set another time… although it seemed quite obvious they’re not in a safe position.

      3. The strategy wasn’t great, no. This year strategies haven’t been their strong point. However I still think they’d have finished 3rd and 4th, the Mercedes are simply too good.

        1. If they used kimi as a pawn to destroy Hamiltons race Vettel would have had a chance at 2nd. That’s what Brawn would have ordrred for Michael….

          1. I thought they would do this, pit Vettel and leave Kimi on track until Hamilton managed to get past. It looked like the only chance of a second place. Were they afraid that Kimi would lose to Bottas ? I don’t see how nailing third and fourth was a good strategy.

    2. they are not fighting the Merc this season
      their real enemy is Red Bull
      so it is logical and reasonable to play safe and get 3rd and 4th
      if i am running Ferrari i would do the same
      of course that’s not what the fans want to see

  11. Wow, that was chockingly boring

    1. The Blade Runner (@)
      5th September 2016, 10:49

      Yep. Put into even greater perspective by a thrilling British MotoGP race which was on at the same time!

  12. What a dull race, very little of interest going on, an excitement free ninety minutes.

    1. The most interesting part of the ’16 IGP was Lewis sulking after the race … “Poor you”

    2. It was actually 77.5 minutes.

      1. Which was the only upside today… Nicely short

      2. It seemed much longer

  13. there was a race?

    well, Indycar is on at the Glen, there’s that…

  14. 7-8. Quite good racing for Monza.

  15. One of those races won at the start… pretty common trend this year.

  16. That was an amazingly dull race, with only 2 or 3 overtakes of notice and no one performing particularly well. Rosberg won on Hamilton’s poor start alone as he didn’t perform any better or worse then usual and, when traffic wasn’t an issue, was still 2 to 3 tenths a lap slower then Hamilton. Of course, by that point it meant nothing.

    1. @wildfire15 I think you should check on that 2 to 3 tenths slower again.

    2. I’m sorry, what? Were we watching the same race?

    3. Evenly match, but probably Hamilton had 1-2 tenths maximum which means that, whoever is behind has a man… seriously… nightmare of a chance to overtake the other… It’s been like that most of the time, whoever is behind will have a harder time…

      1. Pretty much, the Mercedes is terrible in turbulent air. Rosberg did what was expected in clear air, but those few times the pair were in pretty much the same situation without traffic Hamilton was the quicker. By that point it meant little as he lost so much time behind Bottas early on.

  17. Monza is never racy, with that in mind this was very good.

  18. If Fernando Alonso didn’t take the fastest lap on L52 there would have been nothing to remember from this race. Just one of those below average races that make us appreciate races like Spa more.

    1. What about Ricciardo’s pass? Just like Hamilton in 2007!

      1. What is it about Fins getting taken up the inside at Monza?

        :D

  19. 3.

    Dull, dull on track. Racing was the complete opposite of the fans in the grandstands and trackside bankings!

  20. 4/10. Just boring but what you expect if the field is so uncompetitive at the front. Monza spreads the fields the most since 2014 because it puts the most emphasis on the engine plus one-stop race and the boring race is a clear result. But the tifosi are awesome and I can’t imagine F1 without this racetrack. Like one above said, this is temple of speed.

  21. Nobody here mentioning Alonso laughing? Was easily worth an extra-point for the race.

    1. @crammond

      I suspect Alonso’s relationship with the team has hit the rocks now. I think we can expect Jenson back in 2018

      1. Problem is that being so slow on straights really,really frustrates him and also me as viewer. Since he is Spaniard he shows much more emotions when unhappy as for example English man like Jenson. All in all if 2017 car is a dud(can’t fight at list for podiums) i can really see him retiring maybe before season ends and JB back in the car. But i have hopes Honda finally realized that it needs bigger turbo and Mclaren realized that size zero is a dud in engine dominated F1.

    2. 1. Alonso laughing radio message
      2. Alonso pitting for new tyres near the end of the race to get FLAP
      3. Riccardo brilliant pass

      nothing else, this race to me is quite boring and i scored it 4

  22. petebaldwin (@)
    4th September 2016, 14:29

    Another DRS fest decided by who has the best engine. Ah well. Singapore should be good.

    1. petebaldwin (@)
      4th September 2016, 14:33

      Gave it a 3. 1 for Ricciardo’s pass, one for Alonso’s laugh and one for a Ferrari on the podium at Monza.

      1. and even the best pass of the race was supplied by DRS

  23. Dreadful and dreary. Heritage aside, no idea why Monza is so popular. Races are invariably boring. Overtaking sure but only two moves at most were anything other than inevitable. 4/10

  24. Dire. Could predict the top 6 from the end of the first lap. F1 has all but lost the entertainment factor, sadly. There’s been a few good races this season, but today was a pretty typical race nowadays.

    Like Alonso, unless 2017 brings some fun back into the sport I’m probably going to leave it behind. It sounds dramatic but I’ve really got better things to do.

    Oh… and Eddie Jordan doing the podium… :(

  25. Rather disappointing, really.
    DRS supplied almost every overtake that I saw, but I may have dozed off for a few laps!
    One stand-out moment was Hamilton taking a different line into Parabloica to give him maximum straight line acceleration on the way out, but I can’t remember who he passed . . .

    1. Bottas… and yeah I dozed off too..

    2. @NickWyatt Last year I was sitting right at the start/finish straight in the Monza grandstands. I saw a lot of overtakes but they were dull and predictable. If I saw that a car had got alongside another car with the help of DRS, there was no need to keep watching the maneuver on the big TV screen because such attempts would always be successful. I think the same thing happened this year.

      As for ‘dozing off’, the start of the European races is on 15:00 Latvian time, which coincides with my afternoon nap time… The Italian GP was certainly not good enough to keep me awake so I used a big cup of tea for that! Ricciardo’s move on Bottas and the way Verstappen got past Perez helped as well but it was too little, too late.

  26. Very boring

  27. 5/10 is a generous score. It includes an additional point for Ricciardo’s brave move on Bottas.
    Monza is power circuit and Mercedes Benz has a powerful engine. So, it was expected to have a front row finish for the factory team. But to do that on medium tyres….now that shows how much performance gap there is. I am still confused why Ferrari did what they did with their strategy.

  28. 6/10

    Tried to focus on the race but found myself distracted as there wasn’t much…as expected with the gap Mercs had over Ferrari and Ferrari had over others!

  29. The most tense moment of that Grand Prix was when Eddie Jordan stepped up to conduct the podium interviews.

    1. nope, in the pre podium room HAM ingnored ROS till he (ROS!!) offered him a hand.
      Very bad sportmanship
      HAM has some serious character defects.

      1. @seth-space I agree. It’s weird. When Lewis is on pole it’s always Nico extending his hand and when the results are opposite, it’s still Nico extending his hand. I also noticed Lewis standing in the corner for a while. I understand he is disappointed but at least show some sportsmanship!

        Wearing cool glasses and jewellery would only make you popular to some extent, you’ve to show sportsmanship to truly earn the next level of respect!

  30. 6 for me. Would have been an 8 if Vettel got Rosberg at the start but a decent race. Ricciardo was fun to watch and the podium was as always pretty cool. Hopefully Singapore is a battle between the top 3 teams.

  31. Could have been better had it had more on-track battles for position.

  32. Not good. Hamilton’s start and therefore the result were the only positive things about the race as it provides a more interesting championship. 2/10.

  33. Halfway through the race and I’m off to watch Australia vs Sri Lanka in the cricket.

    1. Wow I would rather watch a boring F1 race than fake baseball

  34. 2. One for Alonso, one for Ricciardo’s overtake.

    Should maybe have given it a 3 for Button’s overtake or McLaren getting fastest lap, but didn’t think it deserved that much. Probably the worst race of the year for me… I can deal with little in the way of action if there’s a bit of suspense, excitement and uncertainty, but there wasn’t even that.

  35. 5/10, among the worst this year.

  36. I thought the race was OK. I don’t mind particularly if there isn’t much overtaking up the front end, or even if there is no direct wheel to wheel into a braking zone. I think what irks me most about current f1 races is the lack of tension, some of which is generated by the tyres. (I do acknowledge that we have had some very good races this year however)

    For example when two similar cars are separated by 10 seconds on track wearing the same tyres of a similar age, the chances are that by the end of the stint the gap will be similar. We will never get stints like Schumacher’s infamous Hungary 98 because it isn’t possible to run flat out for a full stint. And so even though we can think that a driver behind is arguably faster, or out of position etc pace is limited by the tyre overheating and degradation. And so you kind or resign yourself to the fact they aren’t going to bring down the gap and so there is no suspense.

    On tyres that could go flat out, watching Hamilton be able to run flat out every lap to try and make up for the start (there would be some argument that he should be able to chip away consistently if this was the case based on yesterday) , whether he makes it or not, would at least add suspense, whereas knowing that on the same strategy its unlikely takes that away.

    I know this isn’t the only contributor, and certainly isn’t a new opinion but for me this is one of the most annoying aspects of the current regulations.

    1. @jowen7448, Well explained analysis of how high deg tyres are ruining F1, unfortunately it will be labelled a “Rose-tinted Luddite” delusion and ignored by the current generation of F1 viewers.

  37. For me 1/10. boring race. Boring DRS overtakes. Only the start we promising but Ferrari failed to deliver a good fight against the Mercedes of Hamilton.

    1. This race reminded me how boring F1 is when there isn’t some controversy, thank heavens for Max Verstappen!

      Absolutely no racing happened today, Hamilton screws up his start? Let’s just wait until everyone pits.

      1. @paeschli, too bad you missed Ric hunting down Bot and making a demon pass to finish 1st non Merc/Ferrari team car. But yes, not that exciting, I gave 5.

        1. @hohum

          Yeah, that pass made me bump the score from 0 to 1/10. But I can’t get excited for a pass for 5th after 3 years of Mercedes domination.

          I’ve never been one of those “I’m done with F1” people, but now that I have started to work and got less free time, I’m starting to wonder if it makes sense to waste 3 hours a weekend to see the exact same thing happen week after week.

          Anyway, Singapore is next, let’s hope that my love for F1 will come back after a Ferrari or Red Bull win.

          1. But I can’t get excited for a pass for 5th after 3 years of Mercedes domination – yet you do whenever MV is doing the passing.

  38. There was some interesting strategy options playing out through the race and some decent passes but otherwise it was a dull DRS-fest yet again.

    I’m not sure that a season has been this dull in a long time.

    1. Inclined to agree, but while trying not to nod off, I was wondering if there was a technical solution to what DRS is trying to do. The issue would seem to be that because the cars can’t follow close enough whilst cornering then the gap for overtakes is too great, so we have DRS to balance it out. Do you think it might be possible to have a DIS – a downforce increase system – for use whilst cornering behind another car?

  39. Well, they drove 305 kilometers in 53 laps, that’s about it.
    Superb pass by Ricciardo, though.

  40. WillOfTheSupremo
    4th September 2016, 15:24

    3/10. You know it’s boring when EJ’s blatantly obvious attempts to make the crowd cheer are entertaining.

    Greek commentary managing to surpass Croft AND Ted in sheer ignorance still amazes me. Never again.

  41. Monza is Monza is classic, high speeds, tifosi. But strategy (good and bad) came into play, and seeing one of the predictably dominant cars blow the start was great. Ricciardo’s overtake and Alonso’s best lap were refreshing. DRS, as usual added some overtaking, but way too easily… 6.

  42. 1/10

    Bring 2017 already.

  43. Awesome overtakes… Well two atleast. Hamilton on Botas, … Showing DRS is not needed at all.

    And Riciardo on Botas, showing RBR driver can do a clean overtake…

    At start I thought awesome, Hamilton will make it interesting for us, but it became clear fast, that he threw away any chance of contested race win.

  44. Matt (@hamiltonfan1705)
    4th September 2016, 15:49

    Awful race.

    Dunno what it is, all the support races were more exciting… I mean look at the Saturday GP2 race.

    I think to improve F1, they should incorporate GP2 like technical regulations, obviously each car has to be produced by the team. But if all the cars were GP2 like, it would be cheaper, the field would be closer, the cars would be harder physically to drive, the complexity would be down.

    In fact there is a saying that a gp2 car is more like an f1 car than a current f1 car

    1. Youre incorporation would be the last nail into the coffin of the F1. The development should be unstopped and testing too. If this would happen we would have Mercedes, Ferrari, Mclaren, Redbull and maybe even Renault fighting for wictories every race. Instead we have Mercedes dominating the field 3 consecutive years in a row. And i cant imagine an F1 field made of same cars – it would be silly to watch. The engines and transmissions need to become much more fragile, racing more pure without DRS and sport needs to become more sponsor atractive (which u get with interesting and technically advanced sport). We had that in late 90s and early 00s and they gambled and lost it all with the greed for money from the leading people in the sport…

  45. Yawn-inducing drivel. 3/10.

  46. Dreadful DRS. And I hate to say it because I’m pro these engines, but Monza does suffer from lack of engine noise when the race is so bad.

    If only they didn’t have more dowforce next year on the cars but *just* widened the tyres. Anyway, I’ve been harping on about this for years, are you sick of it yet?

    1. @john-h, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. We still keep seeing comments complaining that the tyres don’t wear out fast enough, there are not enough pit stops, bring back re-fueling, strategy is more important than car on car racing, etc. etc. So keep up the good fight, if they won’t listen to Alonso, Hamilton and all the other drivers we will just have to keep hammering the message home or give up on F1.

  47. Can’t help but think that the rating has been a reflection of how a particular driver performed on the day. Considering the huge advantage he had on Saturday, many expected him to crush the opposition today.

    Unfortunately that never materialized and one couldn’t write laurels about how he performed.

    A standard Monza race BTW. Looking at the difference in speed between the teams it was always going to be a tiered race.

    Rated it a 7. A good battle for 5th and a couple of great overtakes. Some mixed strategy and some good radio communication.

    P.S. I rated it as soon as it ended, maybe now I would have given it a 6. Hopefully next year the teams will be a lot closer and there is a battle for the lead. 2010 like.

  48. Another dull race. The only shining driver was Button with his overtakes. Perez showed lack of respect of modern drivers to track limits when just simply driving off the track when being passed, rather than using his brakes, which shows the state in which the sport is. I feel very generous with 4/10. A year or two and i wont even bother anymore with watching F1. Losing 3 hours per weekend for mediocre and sterile performances is just wasting youre life for nothing…Well done to the people that made the sport as it is today and it will aparently continue to be in the future…Shame.

  49. A tad dull but that’s not the fault of the track itself but the present level of competition or lack of competition. Mercedes-Benz/AMG simply have no equal in the sport.

  50. A 6 for me. The race was OK, but nothing special. I think DRS kills all the high speed tracks. Only 3 or 4 real overtakes apart from DRS highway overtakes.

  51. It wasn’t particularly gripping – in fact I hadn’t noticed it had finished for a while. Pretty boring.

  52. ILuvSoundtracks (@)
    4th September 2016, 16:36

    3. The remaining races won’t be exciting anymore.

  53. Very boring. I kept waiting for something to happen only to be disappointed with each passing lap.
    The GP2 race was far better and it was nothing to write home about.

  54. I kept falling asleap. 3.

  55. I don’t think it was quite as bad as people make out. Was a bit boring for sure but not a terrible race by any means.

    The directing of the footage however was terrible. Why did we needed to see Hamilton fail his start from 3 different on-board perspectives when there was so much happening throughout the field? Even throughout the race almost all of the camera action was focused on the front of the field where nothing was happening. Considering that I’d be pretty livid at the lack of camera time for such a race if I was a backmarking team owner, these type of “boring” races should be made for them to get some advertising time at least.

    Refreshingly we didn’t hear the words “track limits” or “blue flags” 200 times throughout the weekend and there was little in the way of luck or controversy influencing the results. Besides those involved in collisions everyone ended where they (or their team) deserved pretty much which I enjoy (although I understand I’m in the minority there as most prefer the action produced by some randomness).

    A solid 7 from me, mostly being saved by RIC on BOT although due credit has to be given for Red Bull’s strategy call. They got that one right today whilst most people would have been scratching their heads at the super soft decision. Also it was good to see Rosberg get one back on Hamilton, that was a real confidence booster it was clear to see on the podium, shaping up to be an electric end to the year within the Merc camp.

    Oh and Alonso! He seemed a touch bemused today. Looking forward to seeing how he handles the pressure of Vandoorne, might push him to focus a bit more on actually going faster rather than making smart comments next year.

  56. favorite part of the event was when Nico raged at the fans with his antics. Hope they keep booing him, its the only interesting part of his character. As for Lewis bad start, how many does that make, starting to become ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as his reliability vs the rest of the merc powered drivers.

    the deck looks stacked for sure, if Nico continues to drive uncontested, Lewis will not win the championship, and he will probably go in to the last round 9 points (or more) under. This is managed racing. It’s too predictable, and nobody can stop Merc from keeping the ‘racing’ close. A real pity, but thats what happens when you don’t want real competition, you get a cart load full of … and a bunch of stupidity. I enjoy a good confidence game, I have been watching mosports for almost a decade now, and I am pretty sure I know how the biz works, I just hope Merc don’t screw over Lewis too much more this year. For a car that is head and shoulders above the rest, some issues should have been nipped in the bud quite a while ago.

  57. 5. Not particularly exciting, but there were a few good overtaking moves on brakes notably from the Red Bulls. Monza rarely throws up a classic, but for a place called the temple of speed the sensation isn’t there, it’s just not coming through the TV. The hybrid engines are shown up worse here than any other place on the calendar. They ought to be binned.

    Strategy wise, I’m surprised by Ferrari. Such was the performance delta to the Red Bulls/Bottas that they might as well have let Kimi do a one stopper, since he’s notably strong at tire management and would have likely finished 4th anyway had it backfired.

    One of my biggest gripes with the current template of F1 races is the rate at which the field sorts itself out. In the years before DRS, a lot of race-long rivalries would form, and even if one driver were stuck behind another until the flag, there’d at least be the anticipation that a move could occur. They’d wait in the tow, they might try a different line through a corner, or they might feint a move into the braking zones. Now what you get is a faster car waiting until lap 3 to get DRS, and then they’re sorted. There’s no slogging it out any more if the field can re-aligns itself by the mid-distance mark. This needs eradicated if we’re see a return to proper racing.

  58. 3. Any potential fun was killed dead by DRS. Really starting to crush my love for this sport, now…

    I think what bothers me most is the sheer laziness from the FIA to not adjust/move the zones and try some different things. After its first year in 2011, they made various changes and tweaks to many of the zones for 2012/13. Since then, we’ve seen barely any changes made, which suggests they’re perfectly happy with highway passes.

    It’s killing my love for this sport. I can’t force myself to be excited for inevitable passes, I just can’t. I don’t even have that same adrenaline that I used to get for the 5 lights going out now. The dull hum of the V6 doesn’t exactly help.

    This was sad.

  59. 7/10 – Not sure what people expected from a circuit with 3 decent straights with 2 of them gifted with a DRS zone, but all in all not that bad a race for Monza.
    And it deserves an extra point for the superb crowd.

  60. Waking up early on a Sunday – a holiday Sunday – here in the States to watch the race, only to decide to go back to sleep on lap 26. Race was too dull to handle. 5/10

  61. A 4 for me. Dull race with only a few exciting moments. Starting and ending a race with the first 9 cars of qualifying at the same place as the started or one place higher of lower at the most, you can say that it was pretty predictable.
    Some excitement at the beginning with the numbers 1, 7 and 10 almost frozen to the tarmac, buta fter that everybody came back at the place where their motor power should bring them (with the help of DRS).
    Positiv: the overtaking of both Red Bulls at the end of the race.
    Didn’t like tow the way Ricciardo didn’t even tried to defend his place against Hamilton in the beginning. He could be a little bit more like Verstappen, his crazy overtake at the end showed that they can match each other.

  62. Some nice overtaking happened. I don’t think this track needs DRS, cars are so low drag and the slipstream is so pronounced it just doesn’t seem to be dramatic. Watching Hamilton on a charge is always good and Ricciardo’s pass took some big ball-asts… 7/10

  63. 3. Dull as dishwater used twice already. A track living off its memories and hardly relevant to today’s cars. The new 3 year contract reflects the lack in confidence. Pretty poor reaction from the crowd at the end too – that’s not passion, more like the football ultras realising there’s no league football to go and watch this weekend.

  64. As mentioned my many quite a dull race, as usual for Monza. Good thing Hamilton and Verstappen had bad starts so they gave us at least something to look at…
    Btw, isn’t there some option to make the track more interesting? (without taking away the high speed attraction)
    Something like an extra 90 deg right turn before the Ascari chicane? Any suggestions?

  65. 4, it was very very very boring.

  66. I really enjoyed the commentators’ conversations about the tyres. And also Bottas succesfully defending off Hamilton on lap 9 (Pretty feisty!).

  67. 7, not many overtakes but decent race.

  68. Thank God there was MOTOGP after the race to wake me up!
    That was a real disappointing race i must say. Gave it a 2

  69. 2 out of 10. After watching the Watkins Glenn Indycar and the Silverstone MotoGP races will down it to 1 out of 10. Does anyone in F1 not realise that the other series are (or are getting) to be more popular?

    Even a Nascar race is more exiting now then a F1 race. GP2 and GP3 were pretty good as well.

  70. 3.

    Would have been a 1, but got +1 for RIC “where the hell did that come from?” overtake, another +1 for BUT actually overtaking cars on track (all but ALO unseen) up to 12th after being shoved off by NAS / PAL.

    GP2 & GP3 races were much better;

    In fact I had more fun getting soaked watching MotoGP Quali in the freezing cold and pouring rain on Saturday at Silverstone.

  71. I gave this race a 3, it could of been a lot worse but just but a couple of good overtakes shouldn’t mean this race gets a good rating; it should be part and parcel of racing. Unpredictability makes good races and this race could of made a lot of people rich on the betting markets. DRS only made this race more dull, cars passing each other before the breaking zone on many tracks normally leads to another move elsewhere but many cars just waiting to try again using the DRS. If Lewis had a good start I think we could of seen a decent battle between the two Mercs but trying to get excited over Lewis being 8 seconds behind Nico is terrible.

    Monza used to be a tricky track, powerful cars shed of all their downforce to win whereas now the base layer of aero downforce is so high that the turns are easy to do with no downforce. Next years cars are gaining more downforce which is a shame but with development to the engines and electrical systems there is a slight hope that it could make it more tricky.

    If this Monza track was in the middle-east or a less favourable country this track would of been kicked off the calendar many moons ago.

  72. I have to sum up the weekend of F1 as – “Mercedes! Makes everything else look like dung”

  73. 4. +1 for Alonso’s team radio. So it’s a 5.

  74. 4/10, will probably be remembered more for the announcements of Massa and Button than anything that happened in the race.

  75. 2/10 – one Mercedes starts badly therefore the other one wins

  76. 1 for start 2 for ricciardo pass on bottas 1 for button s race = score 4

  77. I found the race rather boring to be honest so I only gave it a 5 and I think that might have been generous.

    It was another case of whichever Mercedes was leading after the first lap was going to win unless they ran into problems.

    After Hamilton’s bad start dropped him down the field it raised the chance of him fighting back up to challenge for the lead but realistically the time gap was too large to catch back up to Rosberg while the Mercedes pace advantage meant getting back up to second was almost a certainty.

    It would have been good if both Mercedes had made bad starts, but with Rosberg in front of Hamilton, then we would have seen them both fighting back to the front and fighting each other as well.

    There were a few overtakes during the race but the only one which really grabbed my attention was Ricciardo’s move on Bottas, even with the tyre advantage Ricciardo had at the time I didn’t think he would be able to get past.

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