The last two Mercedes and Ferrari F1s fought on race day during the Manja tour. However, there is little chance of Mercedes facing a lot of competition in front of the field at the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday.

The ‘Qualitative Mode’ ban did not prevent the team from dropping the front row of the grid by eight-tenths of a second. Ferrari is already ranked 13th and 17th for their first home race in the 2020 F1 calendar.

The Mercedes’ closest challenger on the track is McLaren, who climbed to the top of the midfield scrap with racing points, Red Bull and Renault. Carlos Sanz JNR planted his MCL 35 in the third grid.

Can they continue to fight against Mercedes? Realistically, given the potential for restrictions on how competitive tires perform and strategies, there is little reason to wonder what they will do given

F1 regulations force teams to make at least one pit stop, which is more than the need for tracks where tire decay is very low. So race becomes a normal part of scheduling that maximizes the opportunity to stop the pit and / or limits the loss of the driver’s track position.

Given this, McLaren knows that trying to fight Mercedes very quickly will result in very few things that are likely to pass them straight with the DRS, most likely to overtake them in holes.

“For example, if you can climb on top of a Mercedes in the beginning, you must find the right balance,” said McLaren team president Andreas Siddle. “What does it really mean to fight these boys or try to keep them behind? Because it can happen that in the end you will lose more effectiveness by trying to do something that is simply not possible. “

The top 10 qualifiers will start on all soft tires and they will stretch the first mediums until they can pit for the mediums and run to the end. They may opt for hardware instead of the duration of the initial protection car. It is doubtful, however, that they happened at the spa, at the end of the race they would be able to manage a significant drop-off of tires.

With Max Verstappen fifth on the grid, the Red Bull can be expected to be strategically aggressive. It would be no surprise to see them stop early. Seventh-ranked Daniel Ricardo at the grid may be encouraged to try a small first step to gain a position by seeing how well their car performed at the end of the long second tier at the Renault Spa.

Qualifying three places ahead of Worstapen, Voltaire Bottas has a strong chance of overtaking him in the drivers’ championship on Sunday. But his real goal is his teammate, who is 50 points ahead of him in the title fight.

Botas will have to pick up some points from Lewis Hamilton for the first time since the start of the season if they hope to keep him a bit away from the championship. A decent start – Botswana which some found very difficult to come up with this year – will help a lot to turn it into a long-term one.

But Hamilton must know it. During the final practice this morning he was just as keen to start extra from the holes to make sure that when the red lights went out he had the scrap of information he needed for all the important moments available.

Quote: Dieter Ranken

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Which Mercedes driver will win – and who will be closest to them? And can Ferrari make any points at home?

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2020 Italian Grand Prix

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