If it wasn't for the rain, this race would have been dreadfully boring. Red Bull Racing has the best car with the best driver. Max even excels in wet or changing conditions, so it is really no surprise he won the race. Perez on the other hand looked like a rookie on his first day. Hitting the wall, crashing into other drivers, cutting the chicane, and never takes any accountability for any of it. It shows how bad Monaco is for racing when the best car doesn't even attempt a pass on the slowest cars. Aston Martin have a serious dilemma. Fernando Alonso drove another brilliant race. Was an absolutely monster going through traffic. Doubtful to ever have a legit shot at the win, but the very slight opportunity of pitting at the perfect time for inters, and the team puts on mediums. What a disaster. I cannot help think that this decision was aided from the feedback from Lance Stroll, who was completely useless for the team today. He had a couple laps to explore on the inters, and instead he screwed it up, barely staying on the track just as if he was on slicks. After failing in quali, he was ultra aggressive in the race relative to everyone else, and only found himself being a bumper car. With Lance Stroll as the second driver, Aston Martin very possibly will not finish 2nd in the WCC. Alpine showed up. Great weekend. Ocon had a stunning lap in quali, and even though was well off the leaders pace in the race, drove perfect in terms of defense and strategic and earned the podium. Gasly brought home solid points in 7th. A great day for the team. Mercedes introduce their B spec upgrade. Can't judge the performance on the slow Monaco track, but the team did get a good result. Both drivers just lapping at their own pace, not challenging anyone, not really defending either. Russell backing into the track and collecting Perez was pretty awful. Backing up in an F1 car is pretty blind, so the driver must rely on the team to let him know it's clear to back onto the track. 5 second penalty made no difference to his race. Ferrari continue to fail over and over and over again. A track that should suit the car, both drivers looked extremely quick at times during the weekend. Race pace was super slow for everyone to preserve tires. Ferrari also had a faster car than Alpine, and no Perez in sight. A podium was a lock. Instead Ferrari pit Sainz to cover Hamilton, making an overtake on Ocon impossible and ruining their Hard tire strategy. Sainz messing up his own race by damaging his front win and a late, costly spin. Leclerc even in clean air didn't have much pace. Ferrari leaving both drivers out way too late and were the last to switch to Inters. Radio from Ferrari is always "we're looking into it". It's like they huddled around their strategy computer, waiting for it to tell them what to do it. Bunch of clowns. McLaren must be very pleased with their race. Most of the season they hardly have pace to fight for points. Today they drove excellent and got points all on merit. Piastri often has been well off the pace of Lando, but today was in sight of his gearbox all day. Great job by the whole team. Alfa Romeo had Bottas give one of his better drives of the season. Unfortunately it was only good for 11th. Odd call to start Zhou on soft tires. I guess they were hoping to jump a couple spots and then hold position. Or they planned to pit on lap 1, similar to Red Bull's strat. Hard to say. Zhou was a fighter though and seemed to do pretty well in the tricky changing conditions. Alpha Tauri almost had points with Yuki. To be fair, it did appear he was having brake trouble and it wasn't just driver error. Nyck was still a long way off his teammate even though he finished ahead in 12th. Williams had moments of looking to be dead last, and moments where they might have pace for points. They ended up being somewhere in the middle, at least with Albon. Logan Sargeant got passed easy by a lot of cars, in a track that is extremely easy to defend and hold position. Probably his worst performance of the season. Haas had a tough one and and probably a big repair bill. They got hit by more than a few drivers, but made more than their share of mistakes. Leaving Magnussen out on Hard used slicks on a completely wet track. Come on guys. He was performing better than Hulkenberg too. Not that it mattered in the end. Driver of the Day: Esteban Ocon. Mid field car, one of the best laps in quali which is critical to the race. Had a few iffy defensive moves, but otherwise didn't put a foot wrong even while being under pressure the entire race. Drove pretty much the perfect race to get a podium.
Zhou finished up 6 places. Best drive for him. Alonso blew it coming in for dry then again for In ter. I'm yelling no! The team blew a chance for 1st. And a long dry spell for Alonso for the top step. I'm sure Alonso would have won with track position. Amazingly, he did not dis the team call for drys.
I have a hard time supporting Ferrari. I dislike Lec as a driver and personality while sainz just doesn't have the talent. The team is basically a strategy clown show. This year Aston/Alonso has my attention despite the championship going to RB.
...Alonso would not have had track position. They had to force Max into a decision/mistake they were not winning without something breaking their way. They had a free pitstop in hand and slicks were faster when he came in. I would have done the same thing because I would be betting on Max going inters to play it safe. If the track drys he's a sitting duck, if it got worse then out again and concede just like they were before the rain. Gotta Zig when everyone Zags. Well worth the gamble IMO. Edit: if Alonso grabs interns, max pits immediately after for inters and it's over. Alonso going new meds left Max out for another lap...a lap that he tagged the wall on, just not hard enough Was a great gamble.
Yes, thank goodness for the rain. I don't think it makes sense to race these obese cars there another year. Make the Monaco vintage event an annual affair. That would be worth going to and watching. Spain next week will show us the upgrades that never were seen at Imola. Leclerc is so totally discouraged I don't think even a fast car would help him these days. If Hamilton announced he was going to Ferrari, I think Leclerc would give up entirely and go to Williams and replace Sargeant. The car pecking order after today is Red Bull, Aston Martin, Alpine, Mercedes, McClaren, Ferrari followed by the other losers.
That’s exactly why I’ve attended the 1st thru 11th Grand Prix Historique de Monaco meetings over the past decades.
Has been like watching overweight trucks manouvering in a parking lot, Monaco shouldn’t be there for contemporary whales. I think Sainz deserves being the undisputed, unrivalled #1, the top dog, the alpha of his team. That team being Haas or Alfa Romeo, of course.
Max’s drive was masterclass in those conditions It was like a Schumacher moment. He was even using the barriers to his advantage. Haha.
Well in Sainz defense he has the same support at Ferrari that Perez has at RB but with Ferrari's strategists. That's a nail in anyone's coffin. I'm not sure whjy Ferrari embraced Lec so completely. He is fast but has not matured into a better driver. He still makes the same mistakes as when he was ousting vettel. Lec has not grown at all as a driver and Ferrari has not figured out how to act as a team.
The Scuderia is supposed to be the benchmark because of its seniority and historical record in F1. Now it appears to be an empty shell. The top management doesn't seem to care, and the team principal has limited power. They will be lucky if they finish 3rd this year.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/mercedes-ferrari-floors-prehistoric-compared-red-bull/ Mercedes, Ferrari floors ‘look prehistoric’ compared to Red Bull
At least Charles doesn't make mistakes while figthing other people, he just makes them trying to drive faster than the car actualy can....That Move on Ocon by Sainz was Stroll's worthy!
It's true that Ferrari's strategy was not perfect, but no disaster either, ane the pit crew job had been very good so far, so, maybe they're not as good as Red Bull, but they're clearly better than last year.
He crashed in France under little pressure. His history is bad with mistakes and continues. He seems weak in sensing the limit at times.
As i said, he doesn't crash fighting aginst other people, he crashed in france under a huge pressure, because he had to gain tme to a driver that would come up in front of him after he pitted...had the teram pitted him before, that would probably not happened. And no, i see no mistakes from him, he crashes in qualy, but that's the only reason we've got 2 poles this season, if he drives slowly like his team mate, he won't crash, but that's not what he's payed to do. to tell you the truth, i'd much rather have him crash 14 races if that meant he would win 1, than to finish 4th or 5th for the rest of the season....but i guess we all like different things.
Actually when he crashed in France he wasn't under so much pressure anymore. The undercut wasn't very effective that year due to the colder tyre warming blankets, and Leclerc had build up a bit of a buffer at this point already. Quite why he didn't pit immediately after though, is utterly beyond me. Can't recall whose call that was, but I suspect Ferrari's. I don't have much of an issue with him crashing when he's not in contention for anything. Rather be risky and get a podium (or better) or crash trying. But that's not the attitude you can have when you're in for a title charge...
Do the maths. F1 is about accumulating points. A driver who wins only one GP, but crashes in all the 14 others will end up with less points than one who regularly finishes 4th or 5th in most of the races. Beside, he will cost a lot of money to his team in repairs.
William, i've told you already, i'm not an acountant, and i don't like to watch them work, I just wanna see teh fastest possible driver, driving to the best of his abilities.....Max lap on saturday, or Charles were a lot more entertaining to me than the whole race. I would lie if i said i wouldn't care about the position he finishes, but that's not why i watch. i wan't to be entertained, and that is not gonna happen driving like Carlos Sainz....heck, at least Stroll makes me laugh with his constant banging on the wall ..or making Alonso fly!
