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| Wish you were here? (Credit: Wikimedia Commons) |
The wait is finally over.
We have made it all the way from Down Under (a race that seems like an age ago
already), survived the biblical floods of Malaysia, trundled off to the UBS Chinese Grand Prix for a surprisingly
good race, dodged a few bullets in Bahrain and dutifully ticked off the
Race Before Monaco (Barcelona). F1 has landed in Monaco and it is time to
PARTY!
Ah Monaco, how we love
thee. With its gleaming sun-kissed harbour full of launches owned by Russian
oligarchs, its marvellously dysfunctional but oh so glamorous royal family
(note to Prince Harry – Charlotte Casiraghi would make a stunning bride and in one fell swoop immediately obliterate the Daily Mail obsession with ‘Her Royal
Hotness’, Pippa M), and all those ugly beautiful luxury tower blocks perched
perilously on the surrounding hills alongside the evocative Belle Époque architecture. Monaco is like Hong
Kong on the French Riviera. What is there not to love? I have been there
several times and it is absolutely my Favourite Place On Earth. The husband
even proposed to me there – he’s a crafty piece of work. Wining and dining me
in Monaco before a moonlit walk by the harbour. I think I must have thought
this was a taste of things to come…fast forward 7 years and we’re watching The
Voice on a Saturday night in deepest surburbia with the unbridled joy of Match
of the Day still to come. I have a big birthday (wail…..!) in a very small
handful of years time and that big birthday is in May, when the Monaco GP always
takes place. I have to telegraph things as the husband well knows.
Anyhoo we have
established that I love Monaco. But everyone freaking loves Monaco. The
roll-call of celebs, politicians, film stars and sports personages will be
immense and as much as I will mercilessly hurl abuse (not in the presence of my
small children of course) at the TV upon sight of any of them (who aren’t
self-professed petrolheads), I can’t really blame them for squeezing the Monaco
GP into their schedule. Heck, if you’re invited to the Monaco GP, then you go.
It’s a total no brainer. But I absolutely draw the line at Geri Halliwell who
always seems to be there. But then who doesn’t.
The hotpotch collection
of celebs floating around at the Cannes Film Festival normally give a few
pointers for what A to Z listers will pop up in the pitlane at Monaco. I am
fearing an appearance from Kanye West and his new ladyfriend, Kim Kardashian.
Actually she has the potential to overtake Geri in the annoyance stakes. At
least I know (faintly) why Geri is famous, mainly for singing (being kind) a
bit and wearing very short Union Jack dresses a very long time ago. I don’t
know what Kim Kardashian does and nor do I care. Old fart alert but honestly I
really don’t care. Still the spectacle of Martin Brundle interviewing braindead
Kim would be something to behold! <Suddenly remembers that Kelly Brook has
been at Cannes – weeps morosely into computer>
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| All together now "Monday, Tuesday, Happy Days!" (Credit: Wikimedia Commons) |
I also believe that Ron
Howard (who has just finished shooting his movie about Niki Lauda and James
Hunt) may be taking in the Monaco Grand Prix. Now could anyone be more
deserving of a gold-plated Monaco VIP pass than Ron?! Martin has to get a few
words with him. Lets hope anyway that Ron doesn’t get accosted by Eddie Jordan
who will undoubtedly bring up Happy Days.
So huge apologies in
advance for the stream-of-consciousness and unedited nature of today’s blog. Am
I allowed to chuck in some caveats or excuses at the very outset just in case I
fail to live up my usual blog standards (ie. mediocre or rambling or plain daft
or all three). Cheers!
1.
I like the rest of the UK have been waiting for some
semblance of summer or indeed sun (last spotted in March) and so naturally the
most and indeed only scorching weekend of the year to date coincides with the
Monaco GP.
2. It is absolutely, stone-bonkingly predictable that on the
day of my most eagerly awaited qualifying session of the whole F1 season, I had
a cram-packed schedule of lunatic proportions. Before anyone thinks that my
weekends are a never-ending stream of fun and excitement, rest assured most (if
not all) of the fun is for the benefit of the 4 year old and I am merely the
unpaid taxi-driver, PA, general dogsbody who is responsible for the family
itinerary running like clockwork or more realistically not disintegrating into
total chaos. Given the husband has cited lack of punctuality as one of my
failings (in our pre-marriage course from memory!), it’s a miracle we ever make
it anywhere to be honest.
3. I have been awake since
before 5am. As the 4 year old so succinctly put it in the car ‘Mummy, during
the week you wake me up and at the weekend I wake you up’. It’s a cruel world.
This all means that at
the time of starting this blog (6pm), I have only caught NINE minutes of
qualifying but they were THE BEST nine minutes of qualifying all season
(spoiler alert possibly if you know me well or have read previous posts and
bravely/foolishly come back for more!). I am currently watching the start of
qualifying while typing – this is the kind of upside down reverse time vortex
that I seem to live in these days. I blame Sky Plus and possibly Doctor Who for
messing with time.
After perusing several
hundred tweets from various members of the F1 fraternity over the last few
days, this had felt like the longest build up to a qualifying session ever. It
didn't get remotely annoying seeing countless pictures of sun-drenched Monaco
at all hours of the day and night for days on end. Occasionally there was the
odd reference to the forthcoming race but by and large, there was a lot of
'look at me standing by the harbour/on this big boat/in front of the casino' or
'here are some models in a hot tub' by people who should have known better. I
am saying nothing but a Sky presenter who is called Simon who I don’t rate
springs to mind.
So the Beeb coverage is now
underway on Sky Plus and after a quick recap of previous dramatic openings to
the Beeb’s coverage of Monaco in recent years (I never did get the point of the
one with all three of them in the lift – another achingly cool movie reference
I failed to get?!), they decided this year to save on the budget just
sit on a boat and talk about all the different race winners so far this season
and how we might get a SIXTH different race winner in Monaco for the first time
ever in the history of time. Yet to win is Hamilton, Webber, Schumacher and
Kimi to name but a few great drivers and Webber. The earth might stop turning
on its axis if we get a sixth different winner – or so the Beeb would have us
believe. I’m a bit scared to be honest.
Quick bit of footage of
DC winning the Monaco back in 2002 (I want to know if paying homage to DC’s
great racing moments is in his contract – if so, nice bit of negotiation there).
Coulthard then wondered out loud where those ten years went. You and me both, David.
Is it really ten whole years since 2002? <Opens first beer of the evening and
sobs into it>
Inspired by my new
obsession of reading fashion blogs (hard to imagine our respective readers
overlap at all but must do a quick plug for the very entertaining Does My Bum Look 40), I’m trying to pay more attention to matters of style and so nearly passed
out when I caught sight of the sheer monstrosity that was David Coulthard’s ensemble.
He was sporting a shirt of the most vilest neon bogey colour you have ever
seen. Good god man, its Monaco, make an effort! If there was ever a place to
wear your wardrobe stable of white jeans + pink shirt it surely is here. Even
the husband who NEVER plays any attention to matters of style commented on the
hideousness of the shirt. Eddie Jordan was reassuringly keeping faith with one
of his customary Pan’s People flower power shirt although the mind boggles as
to what he has in store for race day.
Quick mention that
Mercedes are apparently keeping tabs on Paul Di Resta. Just as I thought to
myself ‘why?’, the husband chimed up with ‘that’s because they think he’s
Italian’. I pointed out that Mercedes were a German team and the husband
mumbled something about Ferrari and the heat.
So has the Beeb not
splashed out on a few square foot of terrace with a bit of trendy decking and
wicker chairs like previous years? Poor old Jake Humphrey, DC (and less so
Eddie Jordan who kept veering off at random directions) seemed to be just
wandering around the streets of Monaco. But suddenly excitement of excitements
– they stopped and marvelled at the Rascasse corner. We told the 4 year old
this was where Mummy and Daddy got engaged and he said ‘why?’.
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| The Great Michael Schumacher - he quite likes driving at Monaco (Credit: Wikimedia Commons) |
Now I don’t think the
Beeb have so much an axe to grind against Michael Schumacher as a full-blown fatwa
kind of vendetta. They had found some never-seen-before footage of Michael
Schumacher ‘using his car as a weapon’ against our plucky Brit, Lewis Hamilton,
in Barcelona. Two points. Firstly, dudes, this is Monaco, there must be a
trillion magical moments in the Monaco archives that F1 aficionados would love to see way much more. Secondly, Lewis is no saint
either, nor was Senna, nor was Prost etc. Just deal with the fact that Michael
is A Racer. Heck even Damon Hill over on Sky isn’t that biased against
Schumacher even though Hill was deprived of an almost certain title when Schuey
crashed into him at Adelaide in 1994. Anyway Eddie was in full rant mode saying
Schuey needed to learn some basic common manners – oh puh-lease Eddie, you
would have walked over broken glass to get Schuey behind the wheel of a Jordan
again after his debut race. Oh that’s right you applied and failed to get an
injunction to try and prevent Schuey moving to Benetton. STFU.
Next
up for a mauling was none other than last time out’s race hero, Pastor
Maldonaldo. Apparently he also ‘used his car as a weapon’ (new Beeb buzz-phrase
alert) when colliding into Perez in FP3 and we were told he had previous (cue
footage of some incident with Saint Lewis Hamilton at Spa in 2011). Maybe these
dastardly acts mean he is the next Schumacher. So Pastor has a bit of a dark
side. I like a drivers with a dark side. Anyway he has a ten place grid penalty
as a result presumably after Eddie marched up to the stewards with his
clipboard of grievances.
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| Niki Lauda, coming to a screen near you soon (Credit: Wikimedia Commons) |
Then
a MASSIVE treat – a long feature on the Ron Howard Lauda/Hunt film. Lots of
snippets from the film and even better from real-life F1 racing back in the
70s. The husband even stopped following the cricket on his phone for a few
seconds and was waxing lyrical about the good old days. This movie looks
AWESOME. I am booking a sitter for the very first night that it is released. Down
in the land of surburbia as opposed to attending the Premiere. Obviously.
Apparently
Kimi Raikkonen is wearing a James Hunt helmet (it actually says James Hunt on
it!) for the Monaco Grand Prix. If there was any doubt as to Kimi’s
super-coolness it is confirmed for all eternity. I am SO glad that Kimi came
back to F1. It needs drivers like him who not only are pure racers and totally
uncompromising but are unpredictable and maverick and basically would have
fitted in perfectly into the 1970s.
Next
up an interview with Dickie Stanford. Apparently static electricity caused the
fire. Dickie, that is a great explanation – who can control the forces of
static electricity hey! But seriously a nice touch by the Beeb to follow up on
the Williams fire at Barcelona and a big hand to those teams who lent Williams Lots of Important Equipment for the race. Ooops lets hope Sauber didn't lend any equipment to Williams otherwise they will be mighty pee'd off!
Ah I spoke
too soon about the lack of terrace. Jake and Eddie were now located by the Red
Bull Pool. Ah yes, I remember the Red Bull pool from last year when DC and
Eddie were thrown into it. Happier times.
Time
for Q1. The main drama was Perez just slamming the car into the armco at the
Swimming Pool Complex. Two crashes in two years for Perez at Monaco. Safe to
say its not really His Circuit. Cue red flags. Out from Q1 – the usual
suspects, the two HRT’s, the two Marussia’s and the two Caterham’s, and poor
old Perez.
Moving
onto Q2. First point to note was that Nico Rosberg was looking very, very fast
and Button was looking pretty sluggish. And Vettel isn’t even at the races
(pardon the pun). Then to everyone’s total amazement (not least Luca
Montezemolo I suspect), Massa topped the timesheets in Q2. Absolutely
astonishing. Kimi and Button were battling it out to get into the top ten and
boy, its really not Jenson Button’s year. He finished up in 13th
place. Maybe its advancing years, maybe his desire and ambition is diminishing
but I feel we may be starting to the see the decline of Jenson Button. Cue
stunning Monaco victory after massive first lap pile up. Natch.
Finally
time for Q3 and for me a delightful re-watch of the 9 whole minutes of
qualifying that I did see live! Five minutes to go and the top grid order read
1. Rosberg, 2. Grosjean, 3. Webber, 4. Hamilton and 5. Schumacher. When
watching this live, the 4 year old spotted his surname on the billboards around
the track (V-Power). He is easily impressed!
Back
to the action and my beady eye was trained on Alonso with a minute to go, my
hot tip for pole, but he finished 5th. What do I know hey? The usual flood of drivers
were on flying laps and moments after DC said that Webber was too slow and
wasn’t going to improve, he plonked the Red Bull on provisional pole. Way to
tear up the Beeb script, Mark! Hamilton, Kimi and Grosjean were all on track.
Kimi didn’t improve on his time. Massa ended up 6th and suddenly
here was Schumacher who put the Mercedes ON POLE at the absolute death. His first
ever pole was in Monaco. I had forgotten that. Nice.
DC
reminded us at the speed of light that Michael 'Voldemort' Schumacher had a 5 place grid penalty after the
‘dishonour’ of the collision with Senna in Barcelona. Oh just shut up David.
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| The Lucky Cap! |
There
was a glorious moment when Ross Brawn came on the radio to Schuey and said ‘you
little star’. The 4 year old was demented with joy and dancing around in his
new Michael Schumacher cap and I didn’t have the heart to remind him (he wisely
doesn’t listen to DC’s warblings) that Schuey will drop 5 places. Lets just all enjoy this Truly Golden Moment.
All
hail Michael Schumacher, 43 years young, rolling back the years. This might possibly
be his last ever pole position but there is no finer or more fitting place to
do it than Monaco, the track which is the ultimate test of driver skill.
And so the last word is from
Michael: “I told you guys already that my situation is going to be that I will
be on pole, start the race in sixth and go on to win it. And that’s what I’m
going to aim for. That’s all I have in my mind and the past doesn’t matter at
all.”
Legend.
End of.
So,
so excited about tomorrow. Who knows, I might have to locate a bottle of Krug
after all!
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