Italian Grand Prix 2018 Preview – September 2nd, 2018
Attention shifts onto Monza for the Italian Grand Prix and Ferrari driver and title challenger Sebastian Vettel will be feeling the force of the home support behind him.
Vettel closed the gap to Championship leader Lewis Hamilton to 17 points after beating the Brit into second place at the Belgian Grand Prix last weekend. Frankly, now the even-money price no Vettel coming through and winning this season’s F1 Drivers Championship is well worth considering because he has a clear advantage* (betting odds taken on August 30th, 2018 at 5:18 pm).
There is no doubt that Ferrari have the faster car than Mercedes. That was totally evident at Spa last weekend and Vettel was pretty comfortable in his run to the chequered flag there. Now with the long straights of Monza coming up this weekend which the Ferrari’s will take full advantage of, the German diver can ramp up the pressure on Hamilton even further. Vettel is the 5/6 odds-on favourite to win the Italian Grand Prix 2018* (betting odds taken on August 30th, 2018 at 5:18 pm).
Italian Grand Prix 2018 Winner Odds*
Sebastian Vettel 5/6
Lewis Hamilton 2/1
Kimi Raikkonen 5/1
Valtteri Bottas 10/1
Max Verstappen 20/1
Daniel Ricciardo 66/1
* (betting odds taken on August 30th, 2018 at 5:18 pm)
Vettel is a three-time winner of the Italian Grand Prix. He got his first win there in 2008 for Toro Rosso and then followed it up with successful drives in 2011 and 2013 for Red Bull. He is one behind Hamilton’s haul of four Italian Grand Prix titles, including last year. Twelve months ago it was Hamilton playing catch up to leader Vettel in the championship race and the Mercedes driver did it with great aplomb as well.
But he looked a bit concerned after not having the pace last weekend to get the better of Vettel out and Spa and the challenge becomes even harder this weekend for him as well. Mercedes just are not going to have the straight line speed to keep up but of course, it is imperative that Hamilton gets up on the podium for the sake of damage limitation. It may well be worth considering a Vettel-Hamilton forecast.
No-one handles pressure better than Hamilton in situations like this and he knows what he needs to do over the last eight races of the season. There is more pressure perhaps in this one on Vettel because of him being expected to win on Ferrari’s own stomping ground. Hamilton did dominate here last year but he was having problems getting out of the corners with speed at Spa and again, that straight line speed just wasn’t there.
Prediction
Ferrari are clearly the quicker of the two teams at the moment, there is no way around that. This is a huge weekend in the title race for Sebastian Vettel and based on what was produced at Spa last weekend, we can only see another success coming for Vettel. It may be worth doubling down on the German to get the Pole and the Win.
