Race 15 - 2023 Italiian GP [Monza- Imola]

[Nitrodaze]

Alonso is now 33 points away from Perez as the fight for 2nd in the driver's championship ramps up. With Hamilton 12 points adrift from Alonso in 3rd and 45 points from Perez. It is still a three-man race for 2nd with so many races ahead, anything is possible.

On the constructors front, Aston Martin has closed to 40 points behind Mercedes and has put 14 points between themselves and Ferrari. By all accounts, Aston Martin seems to be the team on the move. Mercedes and McLaren stalled at the last race.

But the fast track of Imola promises to be a venue where things might get shaken up again. We can expect McLaren to find their mojo on this fast track. The true speed of the upgraded Mercedes would be evident, to give us a clear indication of the state of the pecking order behind the Redbulls. We shall also find out whether Aston Martin has recovered performance enough to mix it with McLaren and Mercedes.

This track has Redbull and Verstappen written all over it. While it is hard to see anyone beat Redbull on this track, one hopes that Redbull would let Perez challenge Verstappen for the race win at least.

The performance delta between Verstappen and Perez does not seem to me to be down to driver performance. The ease at which Verstappen is able to catch and pass Perez suggests to me he [Perez] is not getting full beans in his engine. Perez may be rattled but not that much. The quality delta between the engineers on each side of the garage is beginning to show again. The balance and apparent setup of the car since his last win has been noticeably poorer than on the Verstappen side of the Redbul pit. Ok, one could argue that he has been relegated to the number two driver, which would suggest what happened to Webber is happening again.

This weekend is a full race weekend for Liam Lawson who was brilliant at Zandvoort; considering he had jumped into the car at short notice. Which would make Ricciardo very nervous if he performed even better at this race. If Lawson somehow manages to finish this race ahead of Yuki, l think question marks on Ricciardo would start to emerge, l think.

I think the Williams would go very well at this race. Ferrari would need to pull out their best performance of the season for the expectant Tifosiis. Hence, a Ferrari podium is likely.