Welcome to The Briefing, where you can get a jumpstart on the Italian Grand Prix with our guide to the key topics.

Every race weekend, we’ll speak to one of our engineers to discuss the key talking points ahead of the upcoming Grand Prix and simplify them so that you can dive straight into the action with a better idea of what to expect and what you should be looking out for.  

This week, powered by Google Cloud, Andrew Jarvis walked us through the changes to the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, which has been resurfaced and reprofiled ahead of this year's race. Andrew explained the impact of these changes and how we’ll be tackling them. He also discussed how we’ll choose our rear wing and the work we’re doing to perfect our slipstreaming and heavy braking techniques.

Here’s what you need to know…

1. It’s a track we know extremely well, but we won’t find it exactly as we left it

No track has hosted more F1 races than Monza, so it’s a place we know really well – but this year, it’s going to be very different. The whole track has been resurfaced, a lot of the kerbs have been altered and some of the corners have been reprofiled. It’s like a new circuit, so there’s a lot of uncertainty and a lot to learn today.

The key learning point for today is going to be figuring out how the tyres react to that new tarmac. The intel we've got so far is that the grip has improved since last year. There have been GTs and EuroFormula cars around Monza, and they report that grip has improved quite significantly. We’re also expecting the ride to be better because some of the bumps have been eradicated. 

We've tried to take this into account in our pre-event simulations and how we set up the baseline car, but you never really know what it's going to be like until you actually hit the tarmac. The biggest unknown will be tyre behaviour: whether it's going to be a thermal limit, as we expect, or if it's going to graining on the softer compounds.

Graining seems unlikely, given the forecast and track temperature expectations. Allied to that, the new tarmac is very dark, which tends to absorb more heat, and so we expect the track temperatures to be higher than previous years for similar ambient conditions – which feeds into the expectation that the tyres will be thermally-limited, with graining less likely. Finding out for sure is one of the big focus-points on Friday, and so you’ll see us running all three compounds across the two sessions to learn that.

2. Selecting which rear wing we use

Obviously, Monza is famous for its long straights, which makes it a low-drag circuit, so understanding our rear-wing choices is going to be important. We’ve got two versions with us: there is the low-downforce rear wing that was introduced for Spa, and an ultra-low downforce version being introduced here that may also be useful in Baku and Las Vegas.

We’re going to split the cars for FP1 to run both versions and assess the difference between the two. Our simulations suggest the Spa wing might be a bit better, but that can change very quickly – for example, if the new tarmac has a bit more grip than we expect. Oscar is also going to be running a front wheel wake rake at the very start of FP1. With Zandvoort being very wet, there are also some tests that we didn’t complete there that we’re going to do here.

3. Perfecting our slipstreaming and heavy braking techniques

Another thing we’d like to find out is the ideal following distance for a Qualifying lap. You may remember a couple of years ago, half the top 10 didn’t start their final Qualifying lap because everyone was jostling for position, trying to get a good tow. It’s why we now have a maximum out-lap time – but we’ve still got to figure out what kind of tow is best. If you’re too far away, you lose time on the straights, but if you’re too close, you lose time in the corners. There’s an optimum point. It’s not the same across tracks, and it’s not the same year-to-year at the same track. Trying to learn this is an important task for today.

High speeds at Monza also means heavy braking at Monza. Turn 1, 4, and 8 are very big braking zones. Even into Turn 11, there’s a lot of lateral load. It’s a high duty-cycle for the brakes, so we’ve got a larger cooling scoop to fit here to try to alleviate some of those concerns, and will also run a different brake material to what we had in Zandvoort to help with the potential for high wear. These ideas will be tested today.

4. Running low while protecting the car

Bottoming is also a concern. Fewer bumps around the track may mean we can run lower – but lower brings with it the potential to heat the skid and cause damage to the bib area at the front of the floor – so understanding the ride-height limitation on this year’s track is going to be another important box to tick today.

Finally, there are the new kerbs. In the past, there's been a lot of double-element curves, with the initial kerb and then the bigger element behind it. On some corners, those have been replaced with a single-element kerb with a gravel trap immediately behind. There’s more risk of bringing gravel back onto the track and the potential for damage that brings to the tyres and floor. Something else we need to understand today. Hopefully, by this evening, we will have a much better picture of how these track upgrades are going to impact the rest of the weekend.

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