BUXTON: Monza Delivers Vision Of Future

Formula 1

BUXTON: Monza Delivers Vision Of Future

Esteban Gutierrez is a name which, if you haven’t already, I would heavily suggest you commit to memory...

Will Buxton | Posted September 11, 2010 Monza (ITA)

Will Buxton joined the SPEED/FOX Sports Formula One broadcast team in 2010 with reports from the grid. (Photo: SPEED)

There is something special about Monza. You can feel it the moment you arrive. The trees that line the circuit predate the track’s very existence and their craggy trunks hold within them the memory of some of the greatest racing drivers to have set foot on this earth. The wind that rushes through them speaks of triumph and tragedy as the old disused banking scythes through the park, standing as a monument to absolute bravery and the ultimate challenge of man and machine.

Monza is a place where legends are born and on Saturday morning, as the dewy mist began to clear and the first rumblings of engines awoke the slumbering tifosi in the campsites around the circuit, those who had set their alarms for dawn were blessed with the fortune of watching the latest chapter in the story of a driver who could come to shape the future of this sport.

Esteban Gutierrez is a name which, if you haven’t already, I would heavily suggest you commit to memory. The recently turned 19 year old and 2008 European Formula BMW champion has already tested Formula One machinery courtesy of BMW, and at 09:15 on Saturday morning a lap of sublime timing and execution landed the Mexican with the most important pole position of his life. For the two points that came along with that pole handed him the inaugural GP3 Series crown.

The GP3 Series was established this year as a feeder category for GP2 which is, in turn, by far the most successful feeder category for Formula One of the modern era. The championship consists of 30 drivers running identical two liter turbo engines, identical chassis and identical Pirelli tires. Just as with GP2, the only advantages in the championship are born of driver ability and of how each driver is able to work with his engineers.

From the off, it was obvious that Gutierrez was just that little bit different to his rivals.

We’d seen it in Formula BMW, which acted as a Formula One support event when he took the title two years ago, but this time it felt different. Gutierrez was that little bit older, that little bit wiser, but no less devastatingly fast.

In the first weekend of the GP3 championship he took a podium in both races. At the next three rounds he scored a hat-trick of feature race wins with simply awe-inspiring race craft. His win in Istanbul set the tone. Taking the lead at the start, he reeled off fastest lap after fastest lap. If memory serves he notched up 10 in a row. It was a challenge to his rivals. “Catch me if you can.” And it crushed them.

His pole position in Silverstone left me staggered. The lap looked slow on screen. He wasn’t turning in aggressively and he used up so little of the rumble strips and curbing that it appeared to be just a plain old run of the mill lap – nothing special. I looked at the screens. He was setting purple sectors. And then he crossed the line. In a spec series of identical cars, he’d taken pole with what appeared to be the most effortless of laps by six tenths of a second.

Spa was the only weekend he didn’t score a single point. He put it down to the fact he’d cut his hair, something he never usually does during a season. He can be a bit superstitious like that. To be fair the weather and the stewards made for an odd weekend that saw one of the strangest wins I’ve ever witnessed for Robert Wickens and a win on Sunday from the back of the grid for Adrien Tambay. It was, to be honest, a lottery.

The upshot of the Belgian weekend was that he arrived in Monza with an 18-point gap to second placed driver Robert Wickens, with 20 points up for grabs from the final weekend of the season. Wickens needed a perfect weekend and to hope Gutierrez didn’t score a point. A long shot, at best.

And so we arrived at the early morning qualifying session on Saturday in Monza. And as we’d hoped, it came down to a shootout between the championship rivals. With five minutes remaining Gutierrez went top... but only just.

With a little over one minute left on the clock, Wickens started his last flying lap. Through the first sector he was just 0.020 off his championship rival’s provisional pole time. This was going to be close. The Canadian had to make this lap count. It had to be perfect.

The cameras cut away from Wickens and centred on the Parabolica. A long line of cars pulled through, and on the back sat the white and red car of Gutierrez, his golden liveried helmet catching the light of the early morning sun and acting as a beacon of intent to those ahead of him. If the other cars held him up, Wickens really did have a shot at this.

But this was where Gutierrez had been clever. Timing his final run to perfection, he had caught a stream of cars in the middle of Parabolica and on the exit used their combined slipstream to maximise his straightline speed to devastating effect.

He crossed the line and improved his own P1 time by over half a second.

Esteban Gutierrez won the inaugural GP3 Series title. (Photo: Courtesy of GP3 Series)

Game over. Wickens’ 0.020 deficit had just become a 0.520 deficit. With nobody near him to use for a tow, there was no way he could hope to pull that kind of a gap back. Gutierrez had pole, he had an extra two points and, most importantly, he had the championship.

I made my way down to the GP3 paddock to congratulate him after the session, and found him posing for photos and signing autographs. He walked over, shrugged his shoulders, high fived me and gave me a hug.

“Has it sunk in yet?” I asked.

“The team only told me I had pole when I got to the pitlane,” he laughed, coyly. “But no, this feels good. Really good.”

The thing I like most about Esteban is that there is no arrogance or ego to him. He’s a frighteningly normal guy, blessed with the most incredible talent. An immensely religious and patriotic guy, he wears his heart on his sleeve and isn’t afraid to simply be himself. It is something I hope he never loses, and I suspect he possibly won’t.

So what next for Esteban Gutierrez? GP2 beckons, undoubtedly and there are some who say he’s ready for Formula One already. Still held under the wing of the Sauber team, they don’t want to rush him before he is ready, and a disappointing year in F3 in 2009 would suggest that he might not be the complete article just yet against stiffer opposition.

Thus, the 2011 GP2 season could be one of the most competitive for some time. Gutierrez, Wickens and American Alexander Rossi are all expected to feature, and it could prove the making of all three of them.

As for Gutierrez, the plaudits are already pouring in for him.

To my mind, he is one of the single most gifted young drivers in the world right now: the kind of shining diamond which only appears once in a generation. He has all the hallmarks of Lewis Hamilton or Fernando Alonso at the same age. But while his racecraft is a wonder to behold it is his maturity, level-headedness and humility that mark him out as not only a great driver, but also a great bloke.

If he keeps performing like this, it will not be long before we see Esteban Gutierrez in Formula One and the paddock will be a richer place for having him. His welcome mat is already prepared. For in the F1 paddock, where his ultimate racing dream resides, he has already picked up a pretty weighty moniker: “The Chosen One.”

Will Buxton joined SPEED as a Formula One grid reporter just before the start of the 2010 season. The founding Editor of GPWeek magazine, Buxton served as the GP2 press officer from 2004 to the end of the 2007 season, and was sole communications/media representative for 2006 and 2007. The native of Great Britain has been covering single-seater racing (F1, GP2, F2 and F3) since 2002. Check out Will’s Blog, follow him on Twitter or visit his MY SPEED page on SPEED.com.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Will Buxton

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