No place like home as Ferrari hope to draw power from Monza's 'temple of speed'

Under mounting pressure to turn their faltering season around, team boss Mattia Binotto has insisted Ferrari will be more competitive on home turf at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.

And he has good cause to believe they will, at least, be in the hunt for only their second victory since Australia in April because there are three key elements to winning in Monza and his team majors in all of them: power, power and more power.

Monza is little more than three sections of ultra fast flat-out motorway broken up by brake-wrecking chicanes as the speed of the thundering F1 monsters is cut from 360kph to 70 in just 40 metres before ripping back up through the gearbox time and again.

There is precious little need for the intricate balance required at the last two rounds in Zandvoort and Spa. Averaging 250kph, it’s the fastest track in the championship. Not for nothing is Monza known as the "temple of speed".

What is required is a car with plenty of power and svelte aerodynamics and Binotto insists that the top speed deficit to runaway championship leader Max Verstappen so evident at the last power race, Belgium, has already been solved.

The famous red racers (which may have a flash of yellow to celebrate 75 years since their inception) could certainly do with a morale-boosting victory right now. And where better than the home race where they last won in 2019 with Charles Leclerc.

Of course, trailing Verstappen by a cavernous 109 points, Leclerc is – barring a miracle or unthinkable tragedy – no longer in the title hunt. So Ferrari are racing for pride alone.

20. Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Tauri) earns $750,000 a year, according to spotrac, making him the lowest paid F1 driver in 2022. AFP

In Zandvoort, though, the errors continued