Preview - welcome to Ferrari's Cathedral of Speed !

We move form one of the greatest tracks in the world to...... one of the greatest tracks in the world. But for completely different reasons!

Monza is the site of the Italian Grand Prix. The fans there are interested in one thing and one thing only: Ferrari. They don't even care if an Italiandriver wins in another marque, the red car must come first! Expect to see a"zoo" type atmosphere at Monza as fans celebrate the Ferrari domination.

Monza is the one track on the whole F1 circus where the engine builders get to show their stuff. At Monza, you've either got POWER with a capital "P" or you don't. Rumor has it that both Ferrari and BMW will be running engines with around 890 horsepower. That's 890 normally aspirated horsepower, no turbos, and out of 3 liter displacement! At this track, the cars run at full throttle, top speed in sixthgear for 65% of the lap. That's an awful long time to have your foot to the floor.

Watch the onboard camera footage this weekend, it will be spectacular. Passing is possible, but you have to have the power to catch the car in front of you on the straight. In particular, watch the start on Sunday; the cars will hit the highest top speed point on the track (about 350 k.p.h.)before braking very hard for a ridiculous 115 k.p.h. chicane. With 16 or 18 cars all arriving there at the same time on the first lap, pandemoniumusually ensues.

The last corner on the circuit is also one to watch: the infamous
Parabolica. You approach the corner doing 340 k.p.h. in top gear, brake and downshift to 4th gear and 150 k.p.h., then turn the wheel and accelerate very hard WHILE TURNING, finally exiting the turn at 250 k.p.h. Only genuine maniacs would ever try to pass in this one!

Qualifying...

No doubt about it, Saturday at Monza gave us one of the most exciting qualifying sessions of the whole year. Remember the setting: Monza is the home Grand Prix for Ferrari; the entire team, engineers, technicians, executives, test drivers, everybody who has anything to do with the Scuderia was there on Saturday watching the qualifying. It was extremely important for company pride that Michael or Rubens qualify on pole. And so it was doubly exciting to see first Ralph Schumacher and then Juan Pablo Montoya in
their Michelin-shod, BMW powered Williams out-qualify the scarlet Ferraris.

Ultimately it was Juan Pablo who set the fastest time of the day, in the process wiping the grin off the faces of the assembled Ferrari throng. Even the boss of Ferrari was seen pacing around in the team garage during qualifying, a sight rarely seen. Even more surprising was his dramatic reaction when his drivers failed to grab pole.

The story of the day, however, was Jaguar Racing's sudden and dramatic return to form. The two British racing green cats were competitive from the first minutes of practice on Friday, confirming the fine form they showed in testing throughout the week. Eddie Irvine was a very happy man and he did a superb job to place the car in sixth place on the grid (later to be moved to fifth as a result of a penalty to Raikonnen). Only the two Ferraris and the two Williams were ahead of him (albeit a long way ahead). An absolute dream session for the team! De la Rosa did well also, placing his car eighth on the grid.

The Race...

With Montoya on pole, you just knew it was going to be a cracker of a start on Sunday, and so it was! The perennially mentally deranged Montoya first tried to block Schumacher at the start, thereby allowing his own teammate to pull up alongside. He and Ralph went into the silly chicane side by side and, of course, disaster occurred. Ralph was forced to drive over the chicane, thereby guaranteeing himself a penalty, while Juan managed to just barely make it through legally. It became obvious that Ralph was going to be penalized, so he moved over later in the lap to let Juan go through. It all went wrong for them however, as Barrichello took advantage of this silliness to blow right past both of them into the lead. At the same time, Ralph's engine blew up! Michael wasted no time either in driving right by Montoya, who by this time had already done some serious lawn mowing in a ridiculous attempt to stay ahead. The Williams is simply not as fast as the Ferrari, end of story. All the crazy moves in the world won't keep those two cars ahead of the superior Ferraris. When will Montoya accept this? Credit to Michael Schumacher for coyly sitting a few car lengths behind all this mayhem and simply waiting for the inevitable to happen.

Triple World Champ and Jaguar Racing boss Niki Lauda congratulates Eddie Irvine for his podium finish. The first since Monaco 2001... and this one is no accident but the result of hard work by the team throughout the season. Picture Jaguar Cars / Mark Thompson - Getty Images

Credit also to Eddie Irvine, the veteran driver showed great skill and maturity. First by making a good start and getting through the early shenanigans intact, then driving hard to his first pit stop in order to consolidate his track position, then nursing the car just enough to hold onto 3rd place at the finish. Yes, he was 52 seconds behind two Ferraris who were going very slowly at the end, but it was a well deserved podium finish for Jaguar. BRAVO!!

Pedro de La Rosa got it all wrong today. He started poorly, dropping from 8th to 15th..., and then pushed way too hard trying to make up for it. His race ended early after being pushed by Sauber's rookie Felipe Massa... broken front suspension for Pedro... broken rear one lap later for Massa. The young Brazilian who will be replaced next year at Sauber by German veteran Heinz Harald Frentzen did himself no good in his search for a race seat next year ! And to make things worst... race stewarts have annouced he will be penalized 10 grid positions at the next race, the US GP...

The podium scene was downright scary! Thousands and thousands of people pushing and shoving and screaming so loud you couldn't hear the anthems. I noticed young men digging up pieces of the track as souvenirs, typical crazy Italian practice I'm afraid.

The ITV (British) announcers seemed to be quite excited about Rubens's successful drive to stay ahead of Michael, but I can't help but thinking that 95% of the television audience were yawning in their coffee. We all know that Ferrari team orders forbid a teammate from overtaking after the final pit stop, so where is the "drama" in all of this? The answer is that the drama is manufactured, not real, and the sport is suffering because of it.

A huge round of applause to the Jaguar team and Eddie Irvine. They have succeeded in finding some of that F1 "magic potion" and are suddenly competitive. It should be a good sign for American fans of Jaguar who eagerly anticipate the team's arrival at Indianapolis, a team who has now jumped to 6th in constructor championship,