For the past few years, the royal park of Monza has provided the backdrop for Formula 1’s farewell to Europe and that is again this case this weekend, because after the Italian Grand Prix, the circus heads off around the world for the final six rounds of the 2011 championship. The contrast could not be more marked, from Italy’s sixty second GP, all bar one held at Monza, to the modern face of Formula 1, with a venue that has never staged a race - India, to those only visited once or twice before – Korea and Abu Dhabi. If the Italian venue lacks the giant facilities and razzle dazzle of the more modern venues, it certainly makes up for it with the challenge presented by the actual race track. This will be the fastest Grand Prix of the year, both in terms of the average speed over the 53 laps and the top speed achieved by the cars down the straight.
For Scuderia Ferrari, it has always been a key date on the calendar, being its home race, a short drive down the autostrada from the Maranello headquarters. The Prancing Horse is the only team to have been on parade for every edition of this race, winning eighteen of them. So a key date yes, but a critical one, no: contrary to what some pundits have been saying, this weekend is not the Last Chance Saloon for the Scuderia’s season. Last year’s Italian GP winner Fernando Alonso sums up the scenario well: “The championship situation is even more difficult after Spa, in that there is one race less to go and the gap to the leaders has grown a bit more,” admitted the Spaniard. “We have to be realistic but we will never give up: we did not give up in the past and we will not do it now. I
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