The FIA has shared details of F1 Italian GP in terms of track limits, changes to circuit, the DRS zones, stewards names and more.
The track limits for F1 Italian GP at Monza remains the white lines as per the FIA Race Directors’ note. But he has noted about the escape roads at various corners which the drivers have to oblige, if not, it may lead to lap deletion.
- Escape Road at Turn 1 – Turn 2: Four rows of polystyrene blocks have been placed in the escape road at the first chicane. In order to ensure the cars are able to re-join the track safely any driver using the escape road must go around the end of each of these rows and re-join the track at the end of the escape road. Drivers may only use the grass if it is clearly unavoidable.
- Escape Road at Turn 4 – Turn 5: Any driver going straight and who misses Turn 4 and passes the shaded area to the right or any driver crossing the shaded area before the apex kerb of Turn 5 must stay to the right of the yellow line and the bollard, he may re join the track at the far end of the asphalt run-off area after the exit of Turn 5.
Additionally, the whole circuit has been resurfaced which will be a challenge for the F1 drivers and the teams. Also, the Turn 2 section will see a change with gravel strip added in the run-off to lessen drivers taking advantage in the corner. Changes here:
- The track has been fully resurfaced.
- The bollards in the run-off in Turn 2 on LHS have been replaced with a 2.5m wide gravel strip.
- Between Turn 4 and Turn 5 on RHS a 2.5m wide gravel strip has been installed with a distance of 1m from the track edge.
In terms of the DRS zones, the first’s detection point is at 95m before Turn 7 with the activation being 170m after Turn 7. At the same time, the second detection point is 20m after Turn 11 and activation being 120m after the finish line – which is 5m beyond from 2023.
The FIA stewards panel will be led by Garry Connelly, where he will have the support of Mathieu Remmerie, Johnny Herbert and Valerio Brizzolari. The preperation of the grand prix saw a bizarre incident of the Aston Martin safety car crashing on Thursday.
Both the safety car and medical car go out for fast laps on Thursday of the weekend to double-check the track conditions. And in a rare occasion, Bernd Maylander crashed the safety car going off on the gravel and hitting the barrier at Parabolica.
The marshals retrieved the car and the medical car could carry on with the system checks, with no harm done to Maylander. “There was an on-track incident with the FIA Safety Car today at Monza,” a statement said.
“Aston Martin is investigating the cause but can confirm both driver and passenger are fine. There is an additional Safety Car at the circuit and it will not impact the weekend’s event. Here’s the crash: https://x.com/ErikvHaren/status/1829132061426270347v
Here’s what F1 drivers think of track changes –
Sergio Perez: “No, I’ll wait for tomorrow. I know that the kerbs have changed, the grip has changed. I did my sim session beforehand and it was with the old layout. So, yeah, it’s going to be interesting to see and also to see if it changes the approach as well, you know, with the downforce. It might push you to go for less now that there is a little bit more grip. So I think it will be interesting also to see what it does with the tyres.”
Alexander Albon: “I mean, I’ve seen it. I feel like it’s maybe lost a bit of its character. I feel like some of the kerbs they’ve put in are a little bit more generic. And I think generally Monza had quite a specific style of track. It was quite bumpy, but that’s not a bad thing. And the kerbs were quite unique. Let’s see how it goes. I think there’s going to be a lot of exploring in FP1 and FP2. I think with these kerbs, if you can use them or not and how much you can use them will be a big question mark. But yeah, let’s see.”
Nico Hulkenberg: “It’s all real. It happens. There is new asphalt, there’s new kerbs. So we go out there and learn about them tomorrow and see, you know, how the tyres cope with it, how that might change, you know, some little details. Overall, obviously, the layout is the same, but yeah, all these other small things have been tweaked, but overall Monza, you know, one of my favourite events. It’s an amazing atmosphere here. The D4Z, the energy is incredible. Yeah, look forward to the weekend ahead.”
Lewis Hamilton: “I don’t want to judge it before I’ve driven it. Maybe we’ll get in and it’ll be the greatest thing and greatest changes ever. So I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot with that. Ultimately, we loved it before. For years, it’s been super bumpy in so many places and That’s been a huge part of the character of what this track is. The kerbs as well. that have been pretty much the same for definitely over 20 years, I would imagine. So it is a big, big change. But ultimately, it’s still the same track. But yeah, we won’t know until tomorrow. It’s going to be a lot smoother, it looks, and probably quite a bit quicker.”
Charles Leclerc: “I agree. It’s difficult to judge for now. The tarmac, ultimately, you get at one point where you’ve got to renew the tarmac. So it’s not like there’s the choice of just keeping the same tarmac for years and years and years. Because at one point, you just get too bumpy. And especially with our Formula 1 cars and the way they are run so low, the tracks have to renew that. So on that, I’m fine. On the kerbs, it’s true that some tracks have the historic kerbs. And even if they renew it, I think in Canada it was done this year where they keep exactly the same shape, which this is nice. But I haven’t tried yet the new kerbs. So maybe they feel even better compared to the old ones. But this I’ll be able to tell you on each more.”
George Russell: “The kerbs through Ascari, before they were very unique to Monza. You had a bit of a drain that dropped down about 10cm, then it came back up, and you could just poke your inside wheel through these drains. It always created an iconic photo. You saw cars drifting through the corners with the inside wheel just dipping into this drain. Now they are dead flat, and it’s going to offer the opportunity for drivers to cut the corner. It’s something we’ve spoken a number of times in the past that drivers are often the last ones to find out when there’s track changes. I honestly don’t know who makes these decisions. I don’t think it’s the FIA. I think it’s the circuits themselves. I guess we have to appreciate that circuits are designed for a whole season and all sorts of different categories.
“But we’ve always said for these old-school circuits with incredible character, you need to preserve them. Definitely the drivers will speak about it. If I’m being rational, it’s 20 drivers who have maybe lost out on a great corner, going from great to good, but it shouldn’t really change anything. It’s racing, we want the best tracks in the world to race against with the most character, but ultimately we want good racing above all else, and the change to this circuit is not really going to help or hinder the racing. It just makes it marginally less enjoyable for us drivers. We are quite selfish and we do want the best of everything, but hopefully we can find a better way in the future.”
Daniel Ricciardo: “They’ve changed the kerbs. I went around the track this morning. I can’t say I’m that impressed because I think some elements have lost some of the character of the circuit. Obviously, a lot of you have been following F1 even longer than me and maybe it’s just as a driver, because we drive it and experience it, so maybe it makes sense to us, I don’t know if it makes sense to the outside. But kerbs and things like this…they make a circuit unique, and when you just kind of put some flat kerbs and stuff, like second chicane, so turn five, you get over the kerb and then there was like a thin concrete strip and then gravel. In the past you’d always just try and run your wheels on that little bit of concrete and use all the track, but not too much. It’s quite bumpy as well. I think it was kind of old-school and now that’s gone. We haven’t driven it yet but the resurfacing looks great. The asphalt looks really nice, but the kerbs, I’m a bit disappointed in.
“It’s [Ascari in particular] very flat now, so ultimately, because we can use so much more kerb probably, it’s going to be wider and easier to be flat than through nine and ten. I don’t want to be all negative – maybe that means we can follow closer because it’s easier flat and you get a bigger slipstream, but I don’t know. I think they still underrate the kerbs and what it does to a circuit, how it changes the feeling, the character, the approach. We’ll see. Obviously, I am going to enjoy driving here but it feels like it’s lost a little bit of that ‘old-schoolness’ that it had. We go to a lot of modern circuits now, which are fun, they’re great, but if we’re going to keep the old-school ones, then let’s keep them old-school – that’s a little bit of my concern. We don’t need an overriding say, but at least just let us give some feedback. Maybe we save them money. They don’t have to change the kerbs.
“Maybe we have a more cost-efficient solution. We’re still sometimes a little bit left in the dark. At the end of the day, we’re driving. OK, again, we don’t maybe make a final decision, but at least hear us out and let us try and give the in-car point of view. The one they did consult us on, which was Montreal, was great. And we were all very complimentary after Montreal, because they resurfaced it and they left the kerbs. In Montreal, if they put flat kerbs in, I guarantee you none of us would drive a lap there as big of a smile as we normally would. So it really does change it. It still seems that a lot is slipping through the cracks without any of our opinions. We don’t need an overriding say, but at least just let us give some feedback – and maybe we save them money.”
Yuki Tsunoda: “It’s a smoother, flatter track, flatter kerbs. So it feels like it lost a bit of character of Monza, which maybe might be in a positive or a negative way. I think that Ascari, the first part of a kerb you can use aggressively but some cars cannot because you don’t have much load as much as the other cars and you have to kind of compromise lines… but I don’t know how it will be on this track, but let’s see.”
Kevin Magnussen: “I love this track. This is one of those races where you really feel like it’s a Formula 1 race, some of the new ones are great too but they feel like new, almost like the new Formula 1 and you feel like you’re coming back in time a little bit and I enjoy that. So it is a very enjoyable track and very enjoyable race and I just hope the track still feels like Monza. I think it will but sometimes subtle changes are made to tracks and they lose their characteristics.”
Fernando Alonso: “Originally, I was giving my FP1 to Felipe here in Monza. Then we understood that the resurface was a little bit bigger than we thought. The kerbs were different than we thought, so the team changed the plan, and I think it’s going to happen in Mexico now.”
Also, Pirelli shared photos of a special cap for the podiums finishers and the ‘VROOOM’ trophies:
Here’s the FIA Race Directors’ note: https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/decision-document/2024%20Italian%20Grand%20Prix%20-%20Race%20Director’s%20Event%20Notes.pdf
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