Monday, 26 May 2014

Monaco Grand Prix – The Race

The clouds of war are gathering


The Monaco Grand Prix of 2014 was one of those rare Monaco races. One which was thoroughly engrossing and tension-packed from start to finish and full of flat out racing. There was even a smidgen of audaciously brilliantly overtaking, most outrageously Hulkenberg on Magnussen at Portiers. No one EVER in the history of Monaco has overtaken at Portiers. Normally you only get epic Monaco races when there are monsoon conditions or multiple pile-ups decimate half the field throwing up a leftfield result.

The top three from qualifying, Rosberg, Hamilton and Ricciardo, ended up on the podium in exactly the same order (admittedly only just and the tightest battle in the closing stages was NOT between the two Mercedes cars). We had yet another Mercedes 1-2 (for the fifth race in a row) and just like last year, Nico Rosberg drove immaculately to lead the race from start to finish.

Rosberg driving serenely to victory around Monaco

And yet the Monaco Grand Prix was so much more thrilling and unpredictable than those stark facts suggest. Rosberg’s victory was the perfect shot in the arm for the title race. Given the immense superiority of the Mercedes and the huge tally of points their drivers have accrued, it is probably already a two horse race for the title. Rosberg’s win in Monaco finally arrested the runaway momentum of Hamilton’s 4 consecutive race wins and not a moment too soon. But far more importantly the controversial events of qualifying (don’t worry, I’m not going there again!) seemed to rattle Hamilton’s fragile psyche to such a point that he openly criticised his team during and after the race. Damon Hill wasn’t far off the mark when he said the only person who could beat Lewis Hamilton was Lewis Hamilton himself. Behind the top 3, there were some remarkable drives and performances and the joyous scenes of a team winning their first points ever in Formula 1 at Monaco of all places.

The start of the Monaco Grand Prix

I was as nervous at the start as I have been for a very long time. And of course after all the talk and hysteria there was no Senna-inspired vengeful coming together between Hamilton and Rosberg in the run to turn one. The fact that Rosberg led coming out of Ste Devote was hugely significant to the eventual outcome but the fact remains he drove faultlessly for 78 laps around the mean streets of Monaco under extreme pressure from his team-mate for almost the entire distance. One error or lock-up or lapse in concentration and Hamilton would have been ready to pounce.

The other crucial development in cementing the order that the two Mercedes cars came home was the decision to delay bringing in both cars to the pits until after the Safety Car was deployed following Sutil’s crash on lap 25. Hamilton was quick to berate his team for not bringing him in earlier and remarked pointedly I can’t believe we just had to pit. Can you just inform me of what options I have? We should have pitted on that lap before but I knew you wouldn’t call me in, guys.

No Monaco GP is complete without an appearance from the Safety Car

When asked to elaborate after the race he explained that Mercedes have a centralised strategy and the car in front gets priority. Lewis pointed out it had been completely different at McLaren where they had the luxury and advantage of one strategist each per driver. Imagine how chuffed Mercedes must be to hear themselves upbraided by one of their drivers in front of the world’s media. Not cool Lewis and most definitely not the kind of thing Ayrton Senna would have done. Senna was a team-player through and through. Presumably when Lewis was in the ‘car in front’, he benefited from Mercedes’ rule in Bahrain and Spain. So really he needs to get over himself.

Lewis piling the pressure on Rosberg but he was unable to find a way past

The battle raged on for lap after lap and the outcome was by no means certain especially when we heard that Nico was having to save a lot of fuel. With just over ten laps to go, the cat and mouse race abruptly tailed off as Lewis Hamilton suddenly dropped back. Lewis told the team he had something in his eye affecting his visibility and he was trying to open his visor and clean it out at slow-speed corners. When Mercedes updated Lewis on the gap to Ricciardo in 3rd place, Lewis retorted that he wanted information on the gap to Nico not Ricciardo.

Turned out that he had far more reason to worry about Daniel Ric who sensed a chance of second place and was driving like a man possessed! Monaco being Monaco, it was nigh on impossible for Ricciardo to overtake but for the first time this season we saw another team almost matching Mercedes wheel for wheel in a race. What an impressive season Daniel Ricciardo is having! Totally outshining, out-qualifying and out-driving his teammate which is all the more mind-bogglingly brilliant as said teammate is the not-too-shabby Sebastian Vettel (of four back-to-back drivers’ titles fame). Vettel’s difficult and frustrating unfortunately season continued at Monaco when he was forced to retire on lap 8 after a string of techical problems.

The immensely likeable Daniel Ricciardo celebrating his first podium at Monaco

Fernando Alonso was the best of the rest in 4th place with what Brundle rightly called an anonymous race. Kimi Raikkonen had a phenomenal start to move into 3rd place only for his race to disintegrate when he suffered a puncture just after pitting under the safety car. Desperately bad luck and you sensed his frustration when he attempted a dubious move on Kevin Magussen that ended up terminating his race.

Nico Hulkenberg was an impressive 5th, Button 6th, Massa 7th and Grosjean 8th (a quite remarkable achievement in the twitchy Lotus). The second biggest talking point though of the day was the tremendous result for Marussia with Jules Bianchi finishing in 9th place. You wait 83 races for a single point and then two come along together. In the best place to celebrate on earth! Bianchi actually crossed over the line in 8th place but was awarded a 5 second penalty which dropped him down a place. It is a result which could be worth over £20m to the team when prize money is divvied up at the end of the season. On a day where #magicofmonaco was trending, it was wonderful to have a feelgood, heartwarming story in the paddock. And with so much talk of rivalries and the dog-eat-dog world of F1, it was lovely to see a congratulatory tweet from Fernando Alonso to Jules Bianchi on his fantastic result.

Jubilant scenes at Marussia as they celebrate their first points finish in Formula 1

Oddly, as a massive Benedict Cumberbatch fan, I felt slightly disappointed that he was on interview duty. This was really a race that deserved the incisive questioning of Martin Brundle or even some off-the-wall “Lewis, how gutted are you to come second?” lunatic prattle from Eddie Jordan. But then like gridwalks, Monaco doesn’t really do podiums. Lewis scuttled off presumably to lock himself into a darkened room even while Brundle was still interviewing Daniel Ricciardo. Ideally I think drivers should give other drivers on the podium the small courtesy of waiting until they have been interviewed.

Lovely Benedict manning up though a UN peace-keeping envoy might be advisable for the next race

I think many expected the rivalry at Mercedes to intensify during the season but no one expected relations to implode so spectacularly as they have done. Even Prost and Senna didn’t declare war on each other after only 6 races of a season. After the race Lewis made clear his feelings on Nico Rosberg to the assembled media “We are not friends, we are colleagues”.

Rosberg’s view – "We've always been friends, we always will be friends but friends is a big word. What exactly is friends? We have a good relationship and work well together."

Nico and Lewis - the early years

It was glaringly obvious after the race that the two Mercedes drivers did not shake hands or even acknowledge each other. It is hard to see a way back from this for Hamilton and Rosberg. The boyhood friendship which dated back to when they were 13 is well and truly over. The accusations have already got too personal and this weekend we have witnessed a seismic shift in their relationship. The huge challenge now for the Mercedes Team is how to best harness the considerable talents of two drivers at war in a title-winning car without jeopardising the team as a whole. We may well still see one of the drivers take a ‘page out of Senna’s book’ before the end of the season.

Next up it is the fantabulous Canadian Grand Prix which usually is a cracker. For the statistically minded it is where Lewis Hamilton won his first race and he has triumphed there 3 times in total. Does that give him a slight psychological edge?

To be continued…

Monaco Grand Prix – The Race Build-up


The gloves are off

Just when we thought things were getting a little dull, along came Monaco. And before even the race itself, the F1 paddock was mired in controversy. Rosberg's actions will be hotly debated but one thing is for sure - the F1 season has exploded into life.

I had the best of intentions to do a blog on this most thrilling of qualifying sessions but due to rushing out on Saturday evening and having a poorly child at home, it didn't quite happen. But thanks to the predictably inclement bank holiday weather, I am holed up (still with one poorly child) ready to relive all of the brilliantly controversial moments from the weekend.


Final practice at Monte Carlo - the stage was set

Monaco has a habit (probably because the grid positions at the start of the race are more critical and advantageous than any other circuit on the calendar) of throwing up hugely controversial and dramatic qualifying sessions. For anyone holed up in outer Mongolia – Nico braked too late and skidded off at Mirabeau onto an escape road at the very end of Q3. The rest of the session was yellow-flagged thereby denying Lewis Hamilton (who was on a flying lap) his first pole at Monaco. Of course we shall never know whether Lewis would have actually gone on to snatch pole but certainly in his mind he believes he was robbed of a dream pole.

The good-humoured, matey rivalry (if it really ever existed?) has fully metamorphosed into Full Blown Internecine Warfare. There are huge parallels to the bitter feuds between Prost-Senna, Mansell-Piquet and Villeneuve-Pironi. We haven’t had a fierce and nasty rivalry between two team-mates since Prost-Senna (although the husband did point out that Hamilton and Alonso didn’t exactly get on – a common theme perhaps emerging here). Lewis Hamilton seems to increasingly regard himself as a persecuted but brilliant driver and, in his mind, a modern day Senna who is fighting the system, his teammate, his team, the cruel injustices that life has dealt him by not coming from a rich F1 dynasty etc. Of course other drivers could look enviously at a driver who was brought into the McLaren fold at a young age and had his racing career financed and carefully nurtured by one of the giant teams in F1 from the age of 13. Not many drivers are as lucky as Lewis (even with his prodigious talent) to be given a title-winning car on his debut F1 season.

Suzuka 1990 - Senna clinches the title by driving into Prost at the first corner

On the eve of the race, Hamilton helpfully further stoked up matters by claiming he would "take a page out of his [Senna's] book". What like crash into your team-mate at the first corner? Might as well take a page out of Prost’s book then. Or here’s an idea Lewis, just STFU and get on with it.

But first to an hour of glorious build-up opening with evocative sepia footage of Monaco in yesteryear (or Mon-ark-o as old newsreels used to say). Officially in heaven. I could watch old footage of Monaco All Day Long. But snapping back to reality and the controversy that is still raging on and on as to whether Nico deliberately sabotaged Hamilton’s lap to ensure pole. Brundle tells us that Lewis is still very, very angry about Nico Rosberg’s run off at the end of qualifying. His take on the Senna comments is that Lewis is just trying to put pressure into the system. Martin doesn’t want to believe that Nico did it on purpose and knowing Nico as he does (which lets face it trumps the gazillions of us giving our tuppence worth on Twitter) he doesn’t think Nico would have done something like that.


Rosberg spins off at Mirabeau...


...ending up on the escape road

And we have a Damon and Johnny feature. I know I shouldn’t but I utterly love these! Its a total guilty pleasure. This weekend Johnny is making his racing comeback with Damon as a manager. They even got Alain Prost to take part. Respect! The husband reckons there isn’t much difference to the car Johnny is driving (a ’72 March Cosworth) to the one he (the husband) drove around Brands Hatch. Bless.

Time for Brundle's track guide which this weekend is interpersed with great footage from Monaco races of old. Triumphant moments, dramatic moments, heart-stopping moments (including Brundle’s horrific crash at Tabac in 1984) – Monaco has had them all. In spades.


The aftermath of Brundle's monumental crash in Monaco

Random Celebrities at the Race are in abundance this weekend – Benedict Cumberbatch, Glen Johnson and Patrick Stewart. Its going to get much worse before it gets better. I am almost weeping at the thought of Geri Halliwell popping up during #MartinsGridWalk. And as if by magic, here is Martin on the grid which appears to have about a zillion people on it and no actual cars.

A classy first interviewee – the legendary Jacky Ickx. He tells Martin that Monaco is very special, you can’t overtake and you cannot flirt with the rails here. Predictions are impossible! Martin is prowling around looking for Patrick Stewart who has been hanging out with Mercedes. Everyone is keeping things very close at Mercedes and the first few yards is where everything will happen. Well not necessarily but we'll see.


Jacky Ickx, F1 and Le Mans legend

I’ve come to the conclusion that gridwalks are pants at Monaco. There are far too many people for Martin to even move around let alone spot interesting people to interview (amid the throngs of stinking rich Eurotrash). Thierry Boutsen’s take on run-off-gate - no way did Nico do it on purpose. Just not in his character.

Aha, Martin has located Niki Lauda. He must be having an interesting weekend though I’m not sure even an imminent nuclear war would phase Niki. He has told the boys to be careful in turn 1. He is not sure they will listen to him and its going to be a very interesting start. Rosberg has apologised and that is good enough for him and interestingly he revealed that Lewis apologised after Spain for running with a higher engine setting than had been pre-agreed. Those in glasshouses…

Alain Prost wades in next. He doesn’t believe Rosberg did it on purpose. So where are all those scores of people that Ted told us about on Saturday who thought Nico had gone off deliberately. Either opinions are very divided or people are loathe to bag someone out as a cheat on live TV.

Derek Warwick (who is stewarding in Monaco this weekend – nice work if you can get it!) tells Martin that the comment Lewis made last night is a “little bit extraordinary”. Hamilton’s card is SO marked if he tries a little Senna-esque nudge on Rosberg today.

Time for the Monegasque national anthem. Oh god it is Princess Charlene with the sad eyes. She just looks sadder every year. 


Sir Jack Brabham, 1926-2014

A beautiful gesture to have a moment’s silence and pitlane banner to reflect on the passing of the great Sir Jack Brabham. I saw a great quote on Twitter about him in the week – imagine if Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher were the same person, you would basically have Jack Brabham.

This must be the most anticipated start of the season! The husband has predicted a crash. My Twitter buddies have predicted a crash. Make it a good one please Monaco!

Coming up in Part 2 – analysis of the race itself. It deserves its very own post! 

Saturday, 24 May 2014

Monaco - A Preview

Monaco on race day


This is it. The one we have all been waiting for. It is time for F1 to park its fleet of super yachts and check into the impossibly glamorous, opulent, crazy little Principality tucked away at the bottom of France.

Welcome folks to Monaco. It really is like no other place on earth. What is there to write about Monaco that hasn't already yet been written. So the husband suggested telling people stuff they might be surprised about. I'll give it a go.

Monaco is one of those rare eulogized over places that really, truly lives up to the hype. No one can go to Monaco and not fall in love with the place. Is it a bit gauche? Yup. Is it quite superficial? Yup. But no one ever said Monaco was perfect. It is a fabulous mix of contradictions and surprises. Admittedly I have never seen so many tiny little dogs (some even better dressed than their Chanel clad owners!) in one square mile anywhere else in the world but Monaco with all its off-the-scale wealth is genuinely such a friendly and chilled place. I have always found the service in restaurants to be amazing (stand out so - eg. maĆ®tre d' rooting out the last bottle of a particular wine from a cellar) and the bar staff to be fabulous. Maybe it helps if you love F1. I seem to recall talking about all the pictures of F1 drivers with the not-yet husband and the bartender in the Rascasse bar. On the night we got engaged!

Pretty safe bet that I'd say yes standing here!

The race experience at Monaco for a normal fan is all-consuming, intense and way more accessible than any other grand prix venue I’ve been to. The whole place is surprisingly jammed full of proper, fanatical petrolheads. Sure there are A-list celebs in abundance (that is a bad thing how?) and various scions of billionaires and oligarchs (admittedly the latter don’t stray far from their launches awash with with Cristal). Monaco is tiny but crammed full of mind-blowingly good restaurants, bars and clubs. Unlike other tracks where fans just trickle away in the hours after a race (most of those normally spent in a traffic jam) and head off to different venues, there is no need for anyone in Monaco to spend hours schlepping back to a hotel or somewhere else. Everything you need is there on tap. If you want a good night out,  why would you look anywhere than Monaco?

Basically if you like F1, then even in Monaco, you’re in The Club. I remember dining with the husband in a restaurant overlooking the exit of the tunnel (weeps at the memory of my once wonderful life) talking to The Two Biggest Rubens Barichello fans in the world. Now I like Rubens as much as the next man or woman but they took it to a whole new level. And they weren’t even Brazilian. They were English! Basically if you’ve seen the Alan Partridge stalker episode you’re getting warm. Nice enough guys but just a teeny little bit 'on the sign of three to husband' lets run away NOW! I think the evening culminated in (and the memory is slightly hazy) wandering into a Canadian bar where the husband talked to lots of Canadians about Gilles Villeneuve. There may have been hugging.

The not-yet husband by the pitlane

Monaco brings you closer to the action than anywhere else. The cars are literally millimetres away as they flash past and OH MY GOD the noise. I have never known anything like it. Another perhaps surprising fact about Monaco is where else can you walk the ENTIRE track of a GRAND PRIX CIRCUIT (without being a driver, girlfriend of driver, member of a team, TV/media personality, journalist, former F1 legend, former F1 driver-now-rentagob, Bernie, random A list celebrity and Geri Halliwell) – copy and paste the following caveat where applicable. Admittedly who would want to walk the Sakhir track in Bahrain?! But wow wow wow to do it in Monaco was simply amazing!

The race-winner's car. Thinking of Michael especially this weekend.

There was also the time after qualifying, we ended up randomly drinking in a gorgeous bar overlooking the marina with the ITV F1 team (who then had exclusive coverage of all F1 races). That was a slightly messy afternoon where we almost missed our coach back to our hotel. To add insult to injury as we stumbled onto said coach, I might have not been very polite about the pole-sitter, David Coulthard, before the husband drew my attention to the plethora of Scottish flags and caps all up and down the coach. David Coulthard fans didn't tend to like Michael Schumacher and I was pretty much the Schuey poster girl on the coach. Awkward doesn't even cover it.

The 1956 Monaco Grand Prix

Everyone universally agrees that Monaco is a visually stunning backdrop for a race but as is often pointed out the narrow streets of Monaco where overtaking is nigh on impossible do not make for great races – but then again you know what, you can get dullsville races at Silverstone and Monza. It is only really Spa and Interlagos with their nailed on thrilling races that are the exceptions to the rule. A lot of fans who take F1 very seriously are rather sniffy about Monaco. Each to their own and all that but I do think there is a lot of inverse snobbery towards Monaco. F1 without Monaco is unthinkable. It is an intrinsic part of the fabric and history of the sport. And those who think otherwise can bog off*

*I may have had a glass of wine at the time of writing (Friday night - not actually had one yet on Saturday morning!)

And when Monaco does entertaining, it does it very very very well. Just to rattle through a few classics off the top of my head (I could be here all day!)...

1982 – Any one of 5 drivers could have won. With two laps to go when it started raining, Prost was leading before then crashing out. Heading into the final lap, the race leader Riccardo Patrese spun and stalled at Loews. Then Didier Pironi led into the tunnel and ran out of fuel. Andrea de Cesaris also ran out of fuel before he could take over the lead. Derek Daly, the next potential winner, suffered a damaged gearbox meaning Patrese, who had managed to restart his car by rolling downhill and bump-starting, won the race.

Monaco 1982 - Patrese leads the field 

1984 – The one where Mansell crashed and Senna in a Toleman (quite) was quite incredibly catching Prost before the race was controversially stopped in Prost’s favour.

Monaco 1984 - The arrival of Ayrton Senna as a phenomenal talent

1992 – Perhaps Senna’s best ever Monaco win. After building up a commanding lead, Mansell got a puncture and ended up behind Senna. He threw everything at him – the racing was out of this world – but just could not get past Senna.

Monaco 1992 - Senna with Mansell in hot pursuit

1996 – A mental race. Should have been Damon Hill’s victory but his car conked out with engine failure (I was absolutely GUTTED for him as I'm sure it would have meant so much to follow in his father's footsteps) then Alesi, the new race leader, crashed out meaning Olivier Panis in a Ligier won the Monaco Grand Prix!

The most unlikely of podiums: Panis, Coulthard and Herbert

2004 – Jarno Trulli anyone?

If you're only going to ever win one F1 race, you might as well make it Monaco!

Whoever came up with the batshit crazy idea of racing a load of high performance cars around the ridiculously tight and twisting streets (with a tunnel thrown in just to add some spice)? Clearly a freaking grade A loon. It wouldn’t happen today in the modern-day F1 with its endless Tilke-bot circuits. So say all you like about the poseurs, the plastic celeb fans that Monaco attracts, it is still the Ultimate Challenge for a driver. And because of this, Monaco is actually a great leveller where the differential in the car performance can be more balanced out by driver skill than anywhere else. There simply is no room for error because erm... there is no room on the track! It is no surprise that the true greats of F1 have dominated at Monaco. No one has ever won more at Monaco than Ayrton Senna (6 wins). Michael Schumacher and Graham Hill (the original Mr Monaco) both chalked up 5 apiece and Alain Prost has 4 wins to his name.

The original Mr Monaco, Graham Hill

Outside their home race (and perhaps even including their home race!) the Monaco Grand Prix is the one that they all want to win. To see a driver win his first race in Monaco is such a beautiful moment.

A euphoric Jenson Button wins in Monaco for Brawn GP

And so to this weekend. Well I am bizarrely hopeful for a non-Mercedes victory. Probably slightly illogical (see wine, above) I feel if anywhere can buck the trend it is Monaco. Of course the outcome of qualifying (and the weather – currently predicted to be fine and dry…boo hiss) will be crucial. I would be beside myself to see another team grab pole and then we would have the wonderful prospect of Hamilton or Rosberg swarming behind a Red Bull (or whoever) trying to get past. And if they do then that’s cool. But I just want to see an Actual Race for a change. There is a reason I haven't blogged about the Spanish Grand Prix (though admittedly have been very busy on other fronts). It was mind-numbingly dull and I still feel p-ed off that I sat through the whole thing.

I feel Monaco is a Crucial Race for Rosberg. He had a magnificent win here last year which should lift him. I can’t help but think if he loses out to Hamilton in Monaco then it could be Game Over. It is fair to say the mind games have begun in earnest. Lewis Hamilton made these comments on the eve of Monaco:

“Let me tell you this, I come from a not-great place in Stevenage and lived on a couch in my dad’s apartment – and Nico grew up in Monaco with jets and hotels and boats and all these kind of things. So the hunger is different.
“I want to be the hungriest guy in the cockpit from all 22 of us – even if every driver has to believe that he’s the hungriest. If I were to come here believing that Nico is hungrier than me then I might as well go home. So I’ve got to be the hungriest. To win the world championship you need to be the hungriest.”

Its fair to say Lewis hasn't slept on a couch for many a year and I am sure that Nico Rosberg is every bit as hungry and desperate to win as his team-mate. Battle lines have been well and truly drawn.

Well 30 minutes to go until The Most Exciting and Important Qualifying of the Season. I am almost dizzy with excitement.

It ain't over until the bearded lady sings!