Monaco Grand Prix - Monaco - 16 May 2010

[Guest]

Monaco GP grid
Saturday, 15 May 2010 00:00

1  WEBBER       Red Bull     1m13.826s
2  KUBICA       Renault      1m14.120s
3  VETTEL       Red Bull     1m14.227s
4  MASSA        Ferrari      1m14.283s
5  HAMILTON     McLaren      1m14.432s
6  ROSBERG      Mercedes     1m14.544s
7  SCHUMACHER   Mercedes     1m14.590s
8  BUTTON       McLaren      1m14.637s
9  BARRICHELLO  Williams     1m14.901s
10 LIUZZI       Force India  1m15.170s

11 HULKENBERG   Williams    
12 SUTIL        Force India  
13 BUEMI        Toro Rosso  
14 PETROV       Renault      
15 DE LA ROSA   Sauber      
16 KOBAYASHI    Sauber      
17 ALGUERSUARI  Toro Rosso  
18 KOVALAINEN   Lotus
19 TRULLI       Lotus        
20 GLOCK        Virgin      
21 DI GRASSI    Virgin      
22 SENNA        HRT          
23 CHANDHOK     HRT          
24 ALONSO       Ferrari  

If you wondered what happened to Alonso, he hit the barriers in morning practice so hard that the chassis is damaged and took no part in qualifying.

Not much else to add really - its Monaco. I'd imagine if you were there its pretty nuts seeing F1 cars flying round the streets, but in reality its not a track where anyone is really going to overtake without a) some help like I'll pull over and let you by or b) the other driver making a mistake and accidently doing the same as option a.

The slow cars were slow. Everyone moaned about it. What a load of nonsense. I know lets go back to the years when each car was on the track for one quick lap. Remember that? no-one got in anyones way, and no-one bothered to watch either...it was dull.

These guys are competitors, clues in the name - its a competition so you have to compete. Doesn't matter if thats in the race or for space in qualifying.

Webber on pole.....ought to win then didn't he.

Alonso starting from the pit lane.....better be careful into turn one or he'll be in the wall with an HRT or a Virgin.

[MadBoB]

Monaco GP grid
Saturday, 15 May 2010 00:00

1  WEBBER       Red Bull     1m13.826s
2  KUBICA       Renault      1m14.120s
3  VETTEL       Red Bull     1m14.227s
4  MASSA        Ferrari      1m14.283s
5  HAMILTON     McLaren      1m14.432s
6  ROSBERG      Mercedes     1m14.544s
7  SCHUMACHER   Mercedes     1m14.590s
8  BUTTON       McLaren      1m14.637s
9  BARRICHELLO  Williams     1m14.901s
10 LIUZZI       Force India  1m15.170s

11 HULKENBERG   Williams    
12 SUTIL        Force India  
13 BUEMI        Toro Rosso  
14 PETROV       Renault      
15 DE LA ROSA   Sauber      
16 KOBAYASHI    Sauber      
17 ALGUERSUARI  Toro Rosso  
18 KOVALAINEN   Lotus
19 TRULLI       Lotus        
20 GLOCK        Virgin      
21 DI GRASSI    Virgin      
22 SENNA        HRT          
23 CHANDHOK     HRT          
24 ALONSO       Ferrari  

If you wondered what happened to Alonso, he hit the barriers in morning practice so hard that the chassis is damaged and took no part in qualifying.

Not much else to add really - its Monaco. I'd imagine if you were there its pretty nuts seeing F1 cars flying round the streets, but in reality its not a track where anyone is really going to overtake without a) some help like I'll pull over and let you by or b) the other driver making a mistake and accidently doing the same as option a.

The slow cars were slow. Everyone moaned about it. What a load of nonsense. I know lets go back to the years when each car was on the track for one quick lap. Remember that? no-one got in anyones way, and no-one bothered to watch either...it was dull.

These guys are competitors, clues in the name - its a competition so you have to compete. Doesn't matter if thats in the race or for space in qualifying.

Webber on pole.....ought to win then didn't he.

Alonso starting from the pit lane.....better be careful into turn one or he'll be in the wall with an HRT or a Virgin.

[halfpint]

at least the end of qualifying was interesting. as for alonso i dont like his attitude to sportmanship anyways so i won't miss him. i agree with u mad bob alonso is bound to take someone out into turn one. i reckon it will be interesting who takes out who.

[MadBoB]

Monaco Grand Prix provisional result (78 laps)

1  WEBBER       Red Bull     2  VETTEL       Red Bull     +0.4s
3  KUBICA       Renault      +1.6s
4  MASSA        Ferrari      +2.6s
5  HAMILTON     McLaren      +4.3s
6  SCHUMACHER   Mercedes     +5.7s
7  ALONSO       Ferrari      +6.3s
8  ROSBERG      Mercedes     +6.6s
9  SUTIL        Force India  +6.9s
10 LIUZZI       Force India  +7.3s
11 BUEMI        Toro Rosso   +8.1s
12 ALGUERSUARI  Toro Rosso   +9.1s
R  PETROV       Renault      +5 laps
R  CHANDHOK     HRT          +8 laps
R  TRULLI       Lotus        +8 laps
R  KOVALAINEN   Lotus        +20 laps
R  SENNA        HRT          +20 laps
R  BARRICHELLO  Williams     +48 laps
R  KOBAYASHI    Sauber       +52 laps
R  DI GRASSI    Virgin       +53 laps
R  GLOCK        Virgin       +56 laps
R  DE LA ROSA   Sauber       +57 laps
R  BUTTON       McLaren      +76 laps
R  HULKENBERG   Williams     +78 laps

Fastest lap: VETTEL  1m15.192s (lap 71)

[MadBoB]

Oh yes, it's a provisional result. Nothing new there then. Well the predictions of Alonso in the wall at the beginning were wrong. Alonso started from the pit lane seemingly a long way behind the field. Hulkenberg dropped his Williams into the wall midway through the tunnel and out came the safety car. Quick thinking by Ferrari switched Alonso onto the hard tyres and from there he just needed to look after his rubber and run the race to the flag. Worked pretty well really.

Provisional? Well, there were 4 safety car episodes, the last following a very costly banzau manuover from Trulli on Chandock that ended up with the Lotus parked on top of the HRT. ooer. This all came about 4 laps from the end and it looked like the race would finish under the safety car. It didnt. Last lap and the safety car pulled in two corners before the startline. So now you have to refer to the rule book and take a view on what seems to be conflicting rules. Schumacher overtook Alonso in the space between the safety car line and the finish line - any other lap this would be fine, but theres a daft rule that has been interpreted to say you can't overtake on the last lap. F1 at its best, ambiguous rules and Stewards deciding race results.

Anyway, mini rant over -

Red Bull - Can't fault them can you. Webber drove off the line and no-one could stop him. Despite the accidents in between that removed his lead, no-one came close. If a Red Bull wins the championship, please let it be Mark. Vettel - quick off the line, dived up the inside of Kubica who suffered a bout of wheelspin, and (at a distance) followed his team mate for the next 2 hours.

Renault - Kubica was fantastic in qualifying and did the same in the race. Pushed hard but never really got on terms with Vettel. Nearly got swamped at the start with Massa and Hamilton both having a go. Good effort and a great result for the likeable Pole. Petrov on the other hand didn't have such a good race and finally retired towards the end.

Ferrari - Massa did what he could, never really hassled Kubica and Hamilton faded away mid race to leave the Ferrari to run out the laps. Alonso, we've already mentioned, made an early stop which paid dividends as the other cars stopped for tyres. Early on it was amusing to watch him gesticulate at the HRT and Virgin cars as he failed to get by them. Maybe he'd forgotten these guys are racing as well, and at that point they were ahead of him. Suggestion, over take them Alonso, you are in a Ferrari and an ex world champion at this.....several laps later he remembered that this is motor racing and started overtaking them. Phew. As for the last lap thing, Alonso was napping. Spun his wheels, went wide and Schumacher took full advantage. Give it to Schuey.

McLaren - Button. Here's a word of advice to the team - please remember to remove the bungs from the radiators before you drive the car on the track...else it'll probably overheat something. They didn't, and it did. Game over. Hamilton on the other hand jusy kind of drove the laps and finished behind Massa. No drama.

Mercedes - Schuey you have to say, looked pretty good throughout actually. Good move at the end, shame about the Stewards. Rosberg looked good from early on and would have been ahead of his team mate had he not got bunched up behind Webber after his tyre stop. Lost a couple of seconds which proved enough to drop him behind Schumacher, doh.

Force India - Top 10 finish for the pair of them. Can't argue with that can you. Kept out of trouble and out of the wall.

Toro Rosso - did much like Force India - out of trouble and got to the end. Little spin in the middle for one of them, but didn't tap the wall and a quick 360 got back on it again.

HRT - What can I say, Senna ran towards the back and retired with 20 laps to go. Chandock did better only to be ravaged by Trulli in the B class race for honours. News is that the HRT chassis is woefully short on development - reply from Dallara when the team asked what developments were on the way?....'developments? thats the chassis for whole year' hmmm, have Dallara ever watched F1???

Williams - After the first lap demolition of Hulkenbergs carfollowed it up on lap 30 with a display of bouncing off the walls ending up facing backwards and throwing his steering wheel into the path of Hamiltons McLaren. Not the best move I'd say. Given that both cars seemed to launch themselves into the wall, it does make you wonder if both suffered similar failures. Not their finest hour then.

Sauber - I don't know, it all looked so good, and then it wasn't.

Virgin - I wonder if Branson is having second thoughts yet? Not really happening is it.


Next race - Turkey.

[halfpint]

great commentation madbob. was defo not what i expected.