How the controversial kerb tweaks have really changed Monza

The €21m-upgrade to the Monza circuit was a key talking point ahead of Formula 1’s 2024 Italian Grand Prix – but now we’ve had the chance to see the real impact of those controversial kerb changes from trackside.

Autosport headed to the famous Ascari chicane to see how the cars were taking the three-part sequence that leads onto Monza’s back straight now its kerbs have been lowered and flattened.

This was a particular bone of contention for the F1 drivers during Thursday’s media day, with RB’s Daniel Ricciardo saying “it’s very flat now”, while Mercedes racer George Russell reckoned “it’s going to offer the opportunity for drivers to cut the corner” of these changes.

Having headed out of the top of the paddock and observed the Renault engine staff protesting at Alpine’s idea of becoming a Mercedes engine customer – those in the grandstand beyond the start line stood to display their banner and politely applauded Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly out the pits at FP1’s commencement – we took a hard right to leave the long walk to Turn 1 and cut across the midfield to reach Ascari.

As we tramp on under the blazing late-summer sun here in Lombardy, the circuit commentators are getting really excited about Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s early laps. Their comments reach fever pitch as he puts Russell’s Mercedes W15 top with his first flier and then there’s a certain agony in the air when he biffs it into the Parabolica barriers on his second effort just as we arrive at our Ascari end point.

After a 13-minute delay, we can finally see how the drivers are indeed much more on the kerbs through here compared to their 2023 lines around the old kerbs. These had drains running slightly down from the main kerbs where drivers would try to thread their tyres through to nail their trajectories.

The new kerb-riding is particularly the case for the second and third parts of the Ascari sequence – the cars still stay wide through the first left as it means they can carry better speed into the longer second part.

Lando Norris catches the eye early on – he’s slamming across the kerbs at the third apex much harder than the other frontrunning drivers and particularly his team-mate, Oscar Piastri. But Norris is hardly outrageously cutting this point as had been feared on Thursday. It just doesn’t appear to be risking track limits,…