F1-Blog

Monaco run through

The rain soaked Monaco GP threw up a few surprises, and a few incidents. So let’s have a look at how the teams and drivers got on in the Principality.

The race started with the teams having to make a difficult choice over which tyres to have on the cars before the three minute warning, something Ferrari messed up, as they fitted Kimi’s wet tyres after the three minute siren, causing him to perform a drive through penalty.

All the teams made the same choice though, and they all started the race on the wet Bridgstone tyres. Heikki’s race weekend was ruined when a software glitch in the gear selection program stalled the McLaren on the dummy grid, and had to start from the pit lane.

Lewis got a great launch off the clean side of the track, beating Kimi’s Ferrari into the first corner, slotting in behind Massa to take the second place.

The rain however was starting to cause incidents, on the first lap Nico Rosberg bumped the rear end of Alonso’s Renault, and Jenson who had got his Honda away from the start well decided that Nick Heidfeld was going to slow, and made a rash manoeuvre to try and get passed. Both incidents saw the offending drivers stop for nose repairs to their cars.

Up at the front though, Massa was pulling away from Lewis, looking like he was relishing the slippery conditions of the green track surface. Lewis in turn was easing away from Kimi, Kubica and Alonso.

  Further back Jarno Trulli in the Toyota was starting to hold up the traffic behind him, and this benefited Lewis Hamilton when he made a mistake at the exit of Tabac, and bumped his rear tyre into the barrier on the track edge. This caused the tyre to deflate, and for him to limp round to the pits for a replacement, he rejoined the track in fourth after taking on a lot of fuel as well as new tyres, and was fortunate again as moments later both David Coulthard and Sebastien Bourdais aquaplaned at Massenet and ended up having the same crash one after the other, this brought the pace car out so the track could be cleared, allowing Lewis to catch back upto the front running trio.

The drive through penalty for Kimi was issued while the cars were following the safety car, and that put paid to any chance of a decent race for Kimi, who seemed to be struggling with the Ferrari in the wet. The time behind the safety car also eliminated the 11.5second lead that Massa had accumulated, and is where the race was probably lost for Ferrari, as the strategic decisions they made around this part of the race were obviously the wrong ones.

Lewis was still heavily laiden with fuel, and Massa and Kubica started to pull away from him, Lewis seemed to be struggling with the heavy car, as onboard and external footage showed him with armfuls of oversteer on all the tighter corners.

Kubica was now the fastest man on the track, and threatened Massa a couple of times, he then managed to harass Massa into making a mistake at St Devote, and took the lead. He started to pull away from Massa, and Lewis was a further 7 seconds down the road.

Lap 26 saw the first of the scheduled stops from the front runners. Kubica came in and took on fuel and tyres, he came out of the pits just ahead of Räikkönen who was obviously distracted by the BMW and over ran the entry into St Devote, damaging his nose in the process.

Massa pitted 6 laps later, this promoted Lewis to the lead, and with a more balanced car on the drying track he proceeded to pull away from the Ferrari. Lewis was managing times that were the best part of a second a lap faster than the chasing pack.

By the time the track was starting to come towards the dry weather tyres, it was about time for Lewis to stop for his one stop. The McLaren team brought in Heiki to test if the car and track were ready, and when the green light came back from him, then McLaren pitted Lewis for the dry tyres. McLaren were not the first team to switch however, as the Renault’s and sole remaining Red Bull of Webber switched first, but it seemed Webber struggled to keep the heat in the tyres. Piquet also seemed to struggle on them, and had an accident into St Devote shortly after switching.

Massa and Ferrari made a bad key decision, keeping him on the wet tyres until lap 56, which was three laps after Kubica had switched to the then much faster tyres. This allowed the Pole to get passed the Ferrari when it stopped, demoting Massa to third spot.

Hamilton by this time was some 40 seconds ahead of the BMW, and it looked like he had the race in the bag. All that changed though when Nico Rosberg smashed his Williams in the swimming pool complex.

The drivers all bunched up behind the safety car, but there seemed to be some confusion in getting the race re-started, as the lapped cars were unsure about overtaking the pace car. The order for the restart was Lewis Hamilton, Robert Kubica, Felipe Massa, and Adrian Sutil a great fourth, after keeping out of trouble all race, and starting with a full fuel tank.

Unfortunately for the Force India team, the great run cam to an end shortly after the restart, as Kimi locked up braking for the harbour chicane, and ran straight into the back of his car, causing far too much damage to the back of the FI car for it continue. I’m sure words will be had with Ferrari, as I doubt that Force India will be inclined not to pay for the repair to the Ferrari engine that was damaged.

Lewis however had plenty of speed left in the tank, and pulled away from Robert, and took the race win quite easily in the end.

The team were obviously overjoyed with the win, as was Lewis and family.

So we head off to Canada next, another track that usually suites the McLaren cars more than the Ferrari’s.

Lewis heads to the race back on top of the drivers championship, and with a McLaren that is looking at least as strong as the Ferrari’s.

BMW-Sauber have caught up some of the pace that they seemed to have lost at Turkey, so it could be an interesting race at the circuit de Gille Villeneuve.

Link to results table