Monaco Grand Prix: Winners & Losers (by A.Davies)

Star of the Race
Fernando Alonso, McLaren, 1st
Alonso put the young upstart in his place, yet Hamilton was only a gnat's away from taking pole and dictating the race himself.

Alonso was far more confident in the opening laps, though, while Hamilton looked like he'd been told to take it easy. When Hamilton was let off the leash Alonso was more than a match for him.


Overtaking Move Of The Race
Shamefully this is the second race in a row where we haven't had one. (The charge to the first corner doesn't count, unless it's an audacious move). Ever since the days of Senna vs Mansell it's been difficult to overtake round the tax-dodging capital of Europe. However where there's a will there's a way. If the principality makes £60 million from the race then maybe they should have the money to change the seafront section, a part of the track where change is possible.


Winners
Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 2nd
Hamilton's luck started to run out on Saturday when he came across Mark Webber on an outlap when he was about to take pole. Given that the Red Bull team had already had a problem with giving Coulthard clear instructions to get out of the way you'd have thought Webbo would have been looking in his mirrors. There were only ten cars on track at the time.

Hamilton had already set a first sector time of 19.7 (the fastest Alonso could manage on his Sector 1 was 19.9) and then he came across the Red Bull. As a result Lewis couldn't snatch pole, and as a result he had to play the corporate line and follow Alonso into Ste Devote and as a result he dropped back etc.

Lewis survived some leery moments while pressuring Alonso and though the double World Champion set the fastest lap, Hamilton's PB was only 0.1 slower. It was another impressive race from the rookie


Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 3rd
Ferrari big cheese Luca Montezemolo had a go at the points-scoring system after Felipe Massa won the last race and said how it didn't reward Ferrari's dominance.

Which is true, it hasn't given them a massive points boost.

Yet in the previous two races Massa won by a handful of seconds. Today Ferrari were totally mullah'd by McLaren, blown into the background yet still Massa collects only two less points than the guy who almost lapped him. Swings and roundabouts.


Giancarlo Fisichella, Renault, 4th
Crikey, if Giancarlo managed to get a 4th place, then Renault must have a Championship-winning car. Last year he could only manage 6th and Fernando won.

So actually, Renault are doing better than last year...


Robert Kubica, BMW 5th
The one-stoppers all expected a Safety Car and didn't get it. Kubica fought his way up to 5th despite dropping to 9th on the opening lap so it could have been a lot worse. They won't be pleased to see Renault in front of them, but Canada and Indy should see them retake their regular 4th place


Nick Heidfeld, BMW, 6th
A great start from Heidfeld elbowing Rosberg aside, but running for such a long stint on the supersoft Bridgestone tyres ruined all chances of 4th place. He'll be annoyed to have dropped a position to Kubica though.


Alex Wurz, Williams-Toyota, 7th
Hooray, the toothy plankmeister scored two World Championship points. As unashamed fans of the most articulate driver in F1 we like to see him do well and he was losing a lot of ground to Rosberg for whatever reason.

He got a good start ahead of Jenson Button and kept Raikkonen at bay in the latter stages - though as we know, even Enrique Bernoldi can do that kind of thing round Monaco.


Scott Speed. Toro Rosso, 9th
Speed needed a result in Monaco and despite failing brakes brought his car home just out of the points. A heroic drive. Though Jackie Stewart has won with no rear brakes at all Speed's machine was appreciably quicker and tougher to stop.


Losers
Ron Dennis' Fashion Advisor
Whoever told Ron that a white body warmer with red trim looks good wants shooting (or if you're a Ferrari fan, applauding). When Ron went to pick up the constructor's trophy he looked like some shelf-stacker from a downbeat French supermarket chain. One year the McLaren team look like bouncers at a gay disco, the next they look like middle-aged women working part-time.

Nobody does gloating worse (or better) than Ron and his post-race assertion that the McLarens could have gone quicker was a load of old toss. How many barriers would Alonso have had to kiss for that to happen.

As it is we're grateful that Ron let's his drivers play and the fact that they continued to put on a show after the final pit-stops on Lap 52 we're grateful for. Had that been Ferrari then they would have managed the 40+ second gap down to about fifteen over the final 26 laps and Peter Gill's snore-ometer would have hit an all-time high. Or broken.


Anthony Davidson, Super Aguri, 18th
Ant Davidson's a likeable guy, but he's getting so obsessed about beating his team-mate that he's ignoring the fundamentals of F1. He was penalised once on Sunday, for not moving over to let faster cars through, but he could have been hauled in several times. As a result he finished last and behind Sato.


Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 8th
Raikkonen showed flashes of speed whenever he was released in Monaco, but all the damage was done by himself in Saturday qualifying. Stefano Domenicali's idea of Kimi just "kissing" the barrier wouldn't hold up in an insurance claim. "I left the road at 40mph and kissed my car round the telegraph pole..." Raikkonen's qualifying accident was a massive and inexcusable blunder. If that had been Taku we'd have all been going: "Yeah, Taku, what is he like."

It was hilarious that Raikkonen got to park his car in Schumacher's Rascasse parking space. Next year the Monaco authorities ought to paint a little box there so Ferrari know where to put the car in advance.


Ralf Schumacher, Toyota, 16th
Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 15th
Considering he was last at Turn 1 (thanks to the Spykers taking illegal short-cuts across the corner - any action taken by the stewards? No) by the end of the race he'd hauled himself back to be just 0.9 behind team-mate Jarno Trulli.

Trulli made himself no friends by being about as obstructive as Anthony Davidson, Jarno won the 2004 Monaco GP (for Renault) and he's generally very good around the streets, so it shows how low the team have sunk when they finish 15th and 16th, duelling with the Spykers and SuperAguris as they go.


Red Bull, Mark Webber DNF, Coulthard 14th
Mark Webber probably thought he was moving up to bigger and better things when he dumped Williams for Red Bull at the end of 2006. He was fed up of retiring from promising positions. In Monaco not only did his team-mate of 2006 (who he consistently beat) outqualify him, his car didn't break down either.

David Coulthard should have been up at the polite end of the grid on Sunday except on Saturday his team told him that Kovalainen was on an outlap when he was on a flying lap and hence he got a grid demotion. Had he been further up then he wouldn't have got a smack from Liuzzi that gave him permanent understeer.

Last year the team were promoting Superman and took third place, this year it was definitely Wallace and Gromit.


Honda
It seems that the two Honda drivers are so evenly matched that they are always destined to have near-collisions at the pitlane exit. To show that the team have weakness in depth across all departments they decided to put both Button and Barrichello on the same ineffective race strategy.

Let's just tap future on the shoulder and say, "more forward please".



That Mark - "git orf me bling encrusted barra" Blundell doncha know.
Mark was poor in qualifying with very few "alluded to, Steves" a lot of mentioning of "ve guys" but very little else. However race day was another matter.


Mark on McLaren strategy:
"We've seen every race this season, that's the tactics they've done with."


Mark on qualifying:
"The experience of Alonso made itself known out there."


Mark on not taking nothing away from Alonso.
"Don't take nothing away from Alonso, Steve."


Mark on Lewis Hamilton's race prospects.
"I have a feeling that we might see a great driver come his age today."


However he didn't beat James Allen's excitement at seeing Robert Kubica in between the two McLaren drivers after their final pit-stops. It was Murray Walker at his best and almost as good as the time they mistook Marc Gene for Juan Montoya at the Italian GP. (A gaffe that was re-recorded for the highlights programme).

Kubica was an entire lap behind the McLarens at the time, "This could be interesting Robert Kubica's between the two McLarens and he doesn't have to stop!"

Yeah, right, and Sato's in front of them both.

by A Davies.

 

Excellent commentary. I would say I trust your opinions more than anyone else on this forum.

Thanks.

 

Maybe they'll put up one of those "Ferrari Parking Only" signs at Rascasse.

 

Well it looks like team orders kept LH from doing even better.

Scott Speed had a good race moving up 10 places to 9th.

Kimi screwed the pooch in qualifying which is a major no-no at Monaco. Who else crashed their car in qulaifying?

Amazingly, there weren't many retirements from the race.

Loser: The weatherman. Predicted rain with an 80% chance. Not a drop. that was SF's only hope other than McL mech failure.

Conclusion:

SF may need to get a Sicilian actuary to take the McL boys for Montreal.