This week's Grapevine brings you information fresh from the paddock on: Chaos In The Ranks Italy – A Technical Lowdown

Chaos In The Ranks

It's been a strange week – both in the real world, and the artificial fantasy land of Formula One. It's rare for outside events to have much of an impact on the 17 episode per year soap opera, but there was no escaping it this time. The whole weekend gone was overshadowed by the events at the World Trade Centre, and the potential impact to teams and individuals making their way to the Indianapolis Grand Prix two weeks later.

The initial responses have been fairly solid: the idea of jumping into a large passenger aircraft and heading to the States was causing considerable distress, and it split driver opinion. Those who were anti seemed to be put off by the whole concept of making themselves a potential target – likely or otherwise – of the type of zealot who has no consideration of personal safety in making their point. Racing, obviously, is dangerous enough when competing against like-minded individuals, whose collective insanity is oriented towards repeating the experience a couple of weeks later.

It's amazing how an apparently unconnected event can have significant knock on effects. Alex Zanardi's horrific accident in Germany impacted many in the paddock on a deep and personal level. The Italian might not have been a success driving a Williams, but all who knew him thought highly of him as a unique and personable individual. As news spread, the fairy tale took another big jolt of reality.

This time, it was to provide a counterpoint to the US situation: the events at the World Trade Centre, whilst tragic, seemed all too unreal. News of Zanardi's fate was personal, as most of the paddock actually knew him. The effect of the incident was to focus concerns on the potential dangers of the Monza circuit itself – prompting the drivers to try to arrange a "no overtaking" pact at the first two corners. That it was scotched by the team owners was an interesting turn of events: there are going to be some interesting repercussions from that precedent in the next couple of years.

Under the cover of this distraction, many drivers and team members have changed their opinions from "no way" to "if we must." With time, the teams and drivers are becoming more comfortable with the concept of competing at Indy. But still, even with the FIA's stated intent to attend, it's not a clear cut situation.

The logistics of getting there and back are going to be something of a trial: each and every item transported has to be inspected, and most of that will be by hand. X-ray machines are good at spotting hidden items in cases, but looking inside an engine or any sufficiently solid member with them is just not possible. Adding to the complication, there are very few machines in Europe large enough to X-ray a Formula One chassis: travelling via Holland is going to add time. Currently, teams are estimating an extra day apiece on the way out: realistically, they are now already scrambling to get out there in proper time to set up for the race weekend.

That's not the only issue. The transport system itself is in some danger of being inoperable too. Should there be a plane lost over American soil, the whole place will shut down again, until the security services are convinced it was an accident… or are able to deal with the issue if not. Then again, there is no telling when the military might need to be mobilised – which would, again, seriously upset international transport.

Italy – A Technical Lowdown

If anyone had thought the season was over when Schumacher and Ferrari wrapped up the Championships, the Italian Grand Prix demonstrated that the other teams, at least, are as intent as they have ever been to do well.

The name of the Monza game is power, minimising drag, and braking hard. If anything sticks out, it either carries an advert, cools the brakes, or gets removed. Of course, downforce is still important, as is controlling airflow around the wheels and under the car. In Hungary, sidepod flip-ups were big, looking for downforce: in Monza, all the teams had revised versions which just eased flow around the rear wheels.

The odd ones out seemed to be McLaren, who (officially, at least) offered nothing new. Both drivers were given the option of detuning their engines for longevity in the race, but neither took it. Judging by performance up to the race, running anything short of maximum pace would have probably left neither with a chance of scoring points. Sadly for them, the gamble did not pay off, as Coulthard's engine and Hakkinen's gearbox gave up.

The best approach to gaining downforce with a minimum drag penalty is through the bottom of the car – the undertray and diffuser. Ferrari and Williams in particular have been doing a fantastic job in this area, whilst Sauber and Jaguar have been making progress in leaps and bounds too. A significant fraction of Jaguar's recent improvements from a new aero package was due to their new undertray and the way they controlled airflow to it. It was also the source of their problems in Italy…

The new undertray is pretty effective, and generates good downforce, particularly at the rear of the car. However, with the front wing set up for low drag, the airflow is not quite as well directed, resulting in the car being twitchy: it is more sensitive to pitch. Which is a bit unfortunate, as it means the undertray can become less efficient under heavy braking. This makes it very difficult to find the "right" brake balance, and indeed, Irvine struggled with it all weekend.

From Montoya's perspective, running with the new, lighter, stiffer Williams chassis that Ralf debuted in Spa was a joy. It made the car slightly more nimble in cornering, which he believed gave a noticeable improvement to turn in. It was probably only worth around half a tenth in its own right, but the word filtering back from Montoya's mechanics make it seem as though the Colombian found another tenth in himself from the extra confidence it inspired!

As for Ferrari, they surprised the paddock by running with a strategy which doesn't win races at Monza. Potentially, had Barrichello's first stop gone better, they could have bucked the trend; however, that's not how it's being seen by others: rather, now they have wrapped up the Championships, winning is not the only thing until next season. So much so, that when analysis demonstrated that brakes would be marginal on a single stop, they went the conservative route. It was still going to be good points, after all, and the Ferrari advantage continues to grow at the top of the table.