Drive through the gates of the Royal Parco di Monza and just breathe in the atmosphere. That’s the smell of 60 years of Italian Grands Prix, although pedants will point out the 1980 race took place in Imola. This place is just the business and is a great venue at which to bid farewell to the Old Continent before the final quartet of flyaway races.

It’s a beautiful sunny day which means the gold braid shines even more brightly on the uniforms of the police officers who appear to have carte blanche (or should that be carta bianca) to wonder through the F1 paddock without any sort of pass, apart from the shiny leather gun holster on their belts. They spend most of their time posing down the Ferrari end of the paddock, but this year, although the appointment of Giancarlo Fisichella as Kimi Raikkonen’s team-mate for the rest of the season is using up a lot of ink, the main story has nothing to do with the Prancing Horse and is all about the Lozenge. That’s the Renault Lozenge logo and the story of course is did Nelson Piquet deliberately turn his F1 car lozenge-shaped against the barriers to facilitate Fernando Alonso’s flukey victory in last year’s Singapore GP.

We won’t know the truth, or at least the outcome of the hearing, until the World Council meets on 21st September, but already the newshounds are producing more theories than Archimedes. It is widely felt that if Renault is found guilty of race fixing, then the French car company will pull out of the sport. As for Nelson Piquet, he’s unlikely to get another racing licence for a very long time, if ever, if his allegation is deemed to be correct. The third twist, on a day when Spanish banking giants Santander announced that next year, they are switching from sponsoring McLaren to Ferrari, thus almost rubber stamping Alonso’s move to the Scuderia, is that if Alonso is found to have known all about the reasons behind the Piquet crash, he might also face some sort of ban or suspension.

But never mind all the politics; just take a look at the policewomen at every circuit gate. It’s enough to make you chant “Down With Ferrari,” just to get them to handcuff you. To ensure balance, we’re reliably told that the policemen are also of an attractive hue…

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