The Sunday need-to-know ahead of Monza race, with Lewis Hamilton on pole; Watch Italian GP on Sky Sports F1 at 2.10pm
Sunday 6 September 2020 15:16, UK
With Mercedes so far ahead of their rivals - 0.8s in qualifying despite the engine rule change - and with usual challenger Max Verstappen only fifth on the grid, Sunday's Italian GP appears set-up for Lewis Hamilton vs Valtteri Bottas for the win. And if that is the case, surely it is a battle Bottas simply has come out of top in.
Already almost halfway through the season, Bottas simply cannot keep ceding momentum to Hamilton - who he has not finished ahead of in a race since his opening victory in Austria.
"It's now or never for Bottas," admitted Sky F1's Jenson Button.
Despite the long straights Monza can be pretty tricky to overtake on, particularly for drivers armed with the same car and the same power unit, but the long run-down to Turn One does give the usually fast-starting Bottas ample opportunity to make a move.
"When your team-mate's on pole and you're both so much quicker than everyone else, it's going to be a really tough race," added Button. "He has to try something on Lap One, otherwise I don't know how he's going to do it."
Sky F1's Johnny Herbert, meanwhile, urged Bottas to get mean: "We've got to see a darker side."
One thing's for sure, Bottas has got to change something if he wants to stop what currently feels like an inevitable romp towards records (89 wins and counting) and a seventh title for Hamilton.
So what chance the podium places consisting of Hamilton, Bottas and Verstappen for the fourth race in a row and the sixth time this season come the end of lap 53? If the top two can be considered as near to a given as you can get in Formula 1, the presence of Verstappen on the famous - and, in normal circumstances, theatrical - rostrum that overhangs the start-finish straight isn't quite the same formality on this occasion.
That's largely down to his fifth-place starting position, behind one McLaren and one Racing Point, as the RB16's race pace had looked rather more competitive than that on Friday. Sainz himself agrees that Verstappen remains favourite for third: "Looking at the last few races, that podium should be there for Max to have it. He clearly has a lot more pace on us on race trim and he's the only car in the race that can keep up with the Mercs and for us that is impossible."
But Perez is confident Racing Point could have the pace to challenge for the podium after a Saturday showing more in line with what had been expected from the team going into the Spa-Monza double header. Conversely, Renault were expected to be rather stronger over a single lap after starring in Belgium, but Daniel Ricciardo remains a threat to those ahead from seventh after a Saturday disrupted by a stoppage in final practice.
"Our car in the race is strong, so I'm confident we can pick it up a bit and have a good one," warned Ricciardo, who may not have a better chance of a maiden podium at Renault than Sunday.
Starting outside the top-10 at their home race for the first time since 1984, you'd usually believe the only way is up for Ferrari. And while that may be the case for Sebastian Vettel, who will start 17th and probably would have made it through to Q2 in qualifying without the traffic "mess", Charles Leclerc (13th) arguably got the maximum out of his Saturday and so making ground in the race will be very difficult - particularly with his car's straight-line speed.
Looking ahead, Leclerc has six faster cars ahead of him - Mercedes, McLaren, Racing Point, Red Bull, Renault and AlphaTauri - so solidifying Ferrari's standing as seventh-fastest, which the Scuderia couldn't even manage at Spa, is, sadly, probably all he can really aim for, and then hope for some luck.
"It was very difficult on Friday with the race pace," he said. "But we are going to give it absolutely everything. There's not too much hope but let's have a bit of optimism. We need to stay motivated."
The famous team they built will make the 180-odd mile trip south to Mugello next week, but the long F1 road ends for the Williams family at Monza on Sunday.
It's a 740th and final race as a family-run team, 43 years after Williams Grand Prix Engineering was first born out of an old Oxfordshire carpet warehouse. Drivers, engineers and engine partners have come and gone over the decades, but Sir Frank has remained the legendary figurehead and team boss all the way through, with Claire, his daughter, taking the day-to-day reigns through the often-turbulent last eight seasons.
The back of the Monza grid may be an inauspicious place to start their final afternoon as a racing family, but whatever result they end with on Sunday certainly won't take away from the glittering achievements and legacy of the staunchly independent Williams family era.
Speaking in a Sky F1 interview earlier this week, Claire Williams said of her father: "What my dad has achieved in this sport is monumental. It's extraordinary. He came from nothing. I think a lot of people have forgotten where this team came from. My dad literally came from nowhere with a small dream and he fought and fought to get this team to where it is.
"He won 16 world championships despite having a horrific car accident and he didn't care about that, he kept fighting. For me my dad is one of the most inspirational individuals that this sport has ever produced."
As the fulsome and deserved tributes from around the sport have underlined over the past few days, nobody is going to dispute that.
