Mark & Seb's Pre Monza Thoughts
By Ian Lockwood
September 10 2009
Red Bull Racing drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber share their views ahead of this weekends Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
Sebastian Vettel:
“Without a doubt, Monza 2008 is one of my best memories, as it was where I scored my first F1 win, after taking my very first F1 pole. It was a perfect weekend and one I will remember always, whatever else I achieve during my career. To take this win with Scuderia Toro Rosso, an Italian team, in its home race, with Gerhard Berger standing next to me on the podium, seeing all the team members down beneath us, cheering and crying with joy was an unbelievably emotional experience.
"Monza is in any case a special appointment on the calendar as you can really feel the history of the place, especially as, just a short walk from the paddock, you can see impressive banked corners of the old oval track. The modern circuit is all about having a car that rides the kerbs well at the many chicanes. Even though they were put in to reduce the speed of the cars, this is still the fastest circuit on the calendar and the one where we run the lowest downforce. While this gives you top speed, it also makes the car more unstable through the turns, under braking and accelerating out of the corners, so it is a very interesting high speed challenge.
"Things have changed a lot in the space of 12 months. Although at this point last year, the Toro Rosso car was improving and even if we saw we were competitive even in Friday practice, my pole and win were something of a surprise to everyone. This year, Red Bull Racing and me and Mark are fighting for the Championship titles, so we are considered front-runners. It doesn’t put me under any more pressure, but it does mean that our expectations are higher.”
Mark Webber:
“Monza is another good challenge. We have got to focus on ourselves and do the best job we can. We can’t control Brawn’s performances or Force India or whoever’s turned it up this week, it’s up to us to get the most out of our package and make sure that we do the business in each session and are there for Q3 and in a good position. That’s all we did in the past and that’s what we have to do in the future. It’s not the case of ‘we have to try harder’. We’re trying very, very hard, it’s just that we haven’t been as strong as we were in Silverstone, Nurburgring places like that.
“My first reaction when I think of Monza is obviously it’s very fast. It’s a unique circuit, one that requires the cars to have very different downforce levels so the cars move around a lot more in the faster corners. Generally it’s a track where there’s a lot of full throttle, a lot of load on the engine and you also needs to get amongst the kerbs there.
“It’s not a physical track, you just have got to sometimes watch your elbows. In the past I’ve had a little bit of problems with my left elbow round there when you’re jumping the kerbs, but physically it’s one of the easiest tracks on the calendar.
“It’s always a good atmosphere and it would be good to leave Europe with a good result.”