By Phil Huff
September 10 2009

Located in a leafy royal park, the 5.793 km Autodromo Nazionale Monza is bursting with motorsport tradition and remains one of the most challenging circuits in the world. Possessing a unique character and ambience, Monza is Formula One's oldest track and despite being altered from its original layout in the interests of safety, it is still the fastest.

Featuring long, high-speed straights interspersed with tight chicanes, this year with high kerbs to prevent drivers cutting the corners, and culminating with the famous final sweeping bend 'Parabolica', the Autodromo Nationale Monza is a low-downforce circuit with a smooth track surface.

Because of the pace of the circuit, cars must be set up with the lowest downforce levels possible without causing stability problems under braking. They must also be able to "ride" the Monza curbs effectively and remain well-balanced without too much understeer at high speed. In addition, good traction is important for exiting the revised Rettifilo and Roggia chicanes effectively and braking must be optimised to cope with the very high temperatures generated when drivers slow from top speed to negotiate these low-speed sections.

The high grip and low downforce nature of the circuit suggests that drivers will be on full throttle for a lot of the lap, and that's right. With around 70% of the lap performed with the throttle pedal pressed down all the way, fuel consumption is also high, with Brawn GP's BGP001 likely to get through around 2.7kg of fuel each lap. The fuel penalty is around 0.35s a lap for every 10kg of fuel carried, and that's going to make decisions on pit strategy difficult, with track position perhaps being more important than running the fastest possible race.

Overtaking is possible at the first and second chicanes but the fast corners before each passing place make it hard to follow another car closely due to modern aerodynamics and races can become quickly strung out. These days, the slipstreaming manoeuvres seen in the past tend to take place only when cars on two-stop strategies have a significant performance advantage over heavier one-stoppers.

Last seasons Italian GP saw Rubens Barrichello qualify in 16th place, three ahead of Jenson Button. A frustrating wet race saw Barrichello drop one place to 17th, a lap behind winner Sebastian Vettel, while Jenson Button improved a little to finish in 15th. A race to forget.