F1-Blog

McLaren take Monaco by storm

McLaren Mercedes dominated at this weekends Monaco GP. Alonso and Lewis came home 1-2 in a dominant showing from the Grove based team.

The two McLaren’s lead from the start, and never looked like being surpassed all race. The Ferrari of Massa could not hang with the two silver cars, and made the race easy for the two at the front. Lewis had a few extra laps of fuel in the car, but struggled to maintain the race perfect pace of Alonso in the opening part of the race, and therefore could not capitalise on his longer first run.

Behind the two McLaren’s, Massa’s Ferrari showed that the struggling pace of the team was not just merely a practice and qualifying issue. Massa struggled to keep up with Lewis in the first section of the race, and after the first stop the Ferrari team resorted to trying the super soft tyres, in an attempt to give the Ferrari a little more pace. This did not work, and Massa could just not live with the pace of the front runners.

Australia - Qualifying

The first qualifying session of the season has been one that we as spectators were not expecting.

Lets have a look at how well the teams went compared to their expected results.

Ferrari - It was a mixed bag for the new look Ferrari team. Kimi Raikkonen ’sandbagged’ for the first 2 parts of qualifying, making Massa and the McLaren’s look quick. He than ran a 1:26.072 in the third part of qualifying, nearly half a second quicker than his nearest rival.

Massa though stopped out on track during the Q2 session with a damaged gearbox. It seemed to happen after he took too much kerb in one of the corners.

McLaren - A good day for both of the new McLaren drivers. With a 1:26.493 Fernando Alonso lines up second on the grid, with his team mate Lewis Hamilton starting in fourth with a 1:26.755. Both drivers seem to be carrying a little more fuel than perhaps the Ferrari of Raikkonen.

If the team has played the strategy right then they will be strong runners on Sunday.