Monza is the fastest circuit in the Formula 1 calender and the reason for that is that it demands a low downforce setup from the cars to be able to extract maximum speed from the track. It's really important to make up those milliseconds in each chicane and corner to be able to carry maximum speed into a straight and build on it. The maximum speeds recorded by all cars running the race yesterday would have shown that something more has been done to the car to extract the speed from it with a little compromise on traction. Consider this - Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso both hit maximum speeds of 350 kph in Monza while in Hungaroring Lewis managed to hit 296 kph while Fernando managed 299 kph. What do the race engineers and drivers do the extract this sort of performance from their cars? We know for sure that the engine specification remain same for the full year and the rpm is limited at 18000/minute. What exactly changes in the setup that helps drivers hit such high speeds?
Let's attempt to answer this question using the two pictures below. Picture 1 is Lewis Hamilton's car running in the Italian Grand Prix while picture 2 is Lewis' car running in the Hungarian Grand Prix. Let's first look at the section marked as A. This is the rear wing and in Monza it sported a flat profile which is evident in the way 'vodaphone' looks on it, it's facing the sky. This helps in reducting drag to get higher straight line speeds. The drawback to this is the reduced downforce in curves which don't make too much of a difference in a track like Monza where you don't have hairpin bends and too many tight turns. Look at section marked as A in Picture 2 and you will see the double profile rear wing which is slightly tilted to that extra bit of downforce for better traction and the difference is markedly evident in the way the letters 'vodaphone' appears to the front. It's tilted a little and not as straight as we've seen in Monza.
Turn 1 in Monza is the a tight turn which can take a car off it's line or cause a skid and depending on how much speed is carried into the turn a lot of nasty things can happen. All other turns are less tight. We can observe drivers attacking the kerbs with ferocity to turn as little as possible because of the reduced traction available and the less effort required to get in and out of a chicane/turn. Alonso did this to perfection during qualifying and all through the race to take the first place. In the section highlighted as B in Picture 1 we can see the absence of the the upper profile in the front wing. The front wing has two smaller flaps connecting the nose and wing which gives just the bare minimum amount of downforce required for this circuit. Compare this to the section marked as B in Picture 2 and you'll see that the double profile front wing could have hampered the front end aerodynamics of the car and shaved off those milliseconds that could have added up to a longer lap time.
Aerodynamics .... my oh my .... how much of a factor they are in a Formula1 car!
