Grand Prix 2012 Monaco Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

For the first time in 3 decades there have been 5 different winners in 5 races and it's not exactly been the status quo winning races as not many people would have had Rosberg and Maldanado winning this early in the season and after Australia not many people would have bet on Alonso winning before the start of the European season. This is also when drivers like Hamilton, Webber, Raikkonnen and Schumacher havent won this season and the way things are going there could be 8 winners after 8 races which could almost be unprecedented.

Indeed, one thing that 2012 has shown is that no one team has been consistently fighting for the win at all five 5 races, while Lotus have possibly had the most consistent pace of the top teams, problems in the first two races meant they were unable to be competing for the win while Kimi might have been unlucky to not come away with at least one win in Bahrain and Barcelona where strategy troubles robbed him the top step but two podiums have shown that he still has the pace despite being away from the sport for 2 years.

The big surprise of the weekend was a first victory for Maldonado and a first victory for Williams since the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix, a win which was merited with no outside help apart from the disqualification of Hamilton from qualifying and the effect of this is unknown as to how the race would have been different but in the race Pastor drove the wheels off the car and did extremely well to keep a rejuvenated Fernando Alonso behind in an updated Ferrari on home soil. Considering Ferrari's early season struggles, for Alonso to be joint leading the Championship with Vettel is no mean feat at all.

The field is very tightly packed as well with the top 7 drivers being separated by 20 points, this time last year it was nearly 100 with Vettel claiming 4 of the first 5 races. This year that is not the case and for once Barcelona served up a classic which in my opinion was the best race of the season, finally there was close racing from 1st down to last with the outcome not being decided until the last few laps.

Going into Monaco there is no point prediction what the running order will be as the likelihood is it'll change again, for all we know the Force India's could suddenly be at the front and Lotus might only be fighting for points, it certainly makes for extremely fascinating viewing as no-one is dominating the Championship, in the city of the high rollers and casinos, it remains who will strike lucky in Monte Carlo and claim the big win, it will certainly not be boring, after all, if even Barcelona can provide an entertaining race, surely most places can (with the exception of Valencia!)
 
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I loved the race we were glueed to the screen in this household. The intensity was at its peak in the last fifteen laps with the threat of serious rain that could have turned it all around and the top five in a tight pack. Rain never happened but that kind of pressure exerted on them, their mirrors full of the car behind while trying to ambush the one in front or pushing him into a mistake. Remarkably there was no hhint of a mistake save the odd locked wheel. A text-book example of how a rae can be enthralling even when overtaking doesn't actually take place.
One o Webber's best win in his career who really kept a cool head throughout.
In fact I enjoyed it so much I didn't feel the need to log on here to tell everyone how so very bored I was with the race.
Sorry I meant "race". Ha ha.
 
Incubus said:
Rain never happened but that kind of pressure exerted on them, their mirrors full of the car behind while trying to ambush the one in front or pushing him into a mistake. Remarkably there was no hhint of a mistake save the odd locked wheel.
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But the pressure you normally get with those drivers at close quarters is that they can get overtaken. That was not the case. They knew, as they knew from the pitstops, that they just had to stay on the road to maintain position.

Monaco is a glitzy procession, its British equivalent is closer to the jubilee flotilla than anything that occurs at Silverstone.
 
Sure, a stroll in the park it is, for those drivers, what with the barriers miles away from the track and grip levels like superglue on a sheet of cardboard.
That'll account for the reason why just about every WDC who ever contested the Monaco GP a respectable number of times have had at least once their race either terminated against the barriers or severely been delayed by them. :whistle:
 
But there is always the possibility that the guy behind will do a "banzai" and to hell with the consequences. Alonso last year was saying if the race hadn't been prematurely stopped he would have done that because he had nothing to lose. "If we crash we crash". And as I was saying today there was a threatr of real proper rain falling in the last ten laps. That was certainly exciting because it would have changed things. We already got a hint of that when drizzle fell and suddenly some slowed and other looked more aggressive.
 
I wonder just how slowly an F1 car could go round Monaco and not fear being overtaken?
 
Regarding the whole not overtaking thing, didn't the exact same thing happen at Jarama in 81 with Villeneuve and that race being lauded as a classic?
 
Jarama '81 was different as it was a circuit where overtaking should have been possible. I remember watching the race and thinking if it had been any other driver than Laffite behind Villeneuve it would have been a different result. Jacques just wasn't brave enough, that combined with the turbo engine Gilles' could use to blast away on the straights and those with the Cosworth behind Laffite couldn't compete with the power of the Matra engine.
 
mjo. The difference is with jarama is that the circuit is actually set up to allow overtaking. Monaco, on the other hand, really is not.

It ws villeneuve's driving skill which kept the faster cars behind. However, a driver driving a metaphorical milk float could probably keep the entire pack behind himself at monaco, simply because there's nowhere really wide enough to perform proper overtakes...

Grosjean seems to have got off very lightly this weekend! I can't see what's much different from his action and what maldonado did in practice....
 
Incubus said:
I loved the race we were glueed to the screen in this household. The intensity was at its peak in the last fifteen laps with the threat of serious rain that could have turned it all around and the top five in a tight pack. Rain never happened but that kind of pressure exerted on them, their mirrors full of the car behind while trying to ambush the one in front or pushing him into a mistake. Remarkably there was no hhint of a mistake save the odd locked wheel. A text-book example of how a rae can be enthralling even when overtaking doesn't actually take place.
One o Webber's best win in his career who really kept a cool head throughout.
In fact I enjoyed it so much I didn't feel the need to log on here to tell everyone how so very bored I was with the race.
Sorry I meant "race". Ha ha.
Click to expand

It was like an Elmore Leonard novel; People aren't getting shot on every page but there's always the possibility someone might, and that's what makes it so gripping.

I remember a time when there was so much overtaking it seemed "artificial" and even longer ago (decades, possibly) there weren't enough different winners. Now opportunities have been presented for several drivers to take the win and each one who has, did it in impressive style. So Monaco wasn't a rerun of Catalunya? If you want that just...watch a rerun of Catalunya.
 
The Artist..... said:
Grosjean seems to have got off very lightly this weekend! I can't see what's much different from his action and what maldonado did in practice....
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Indeed.

No further action on any of the post-race investigations and the time to lodge a protest against Red Bull has expired so the results are official.

Well done Mark.

I'll say it again though, Vettel lucked in once more - I still think he should have been made to yield the places he gained by cutting the first corner. I know he took avoiding action but he shouldn't have benefited from it as he did, gaining a few places.
 
Even with the tyres going off the cliff it is still difficult to pass them at Monaco

I remember the Sauber of Kobayashi holding everyone behind him and you see Heikki even being slower was a mobile chicane

The one place where they really need DRS is the place where they said it was too dangerous to deploy it - the entry into the tunnel to have a go at the chicane out of it
even if you have DRs at the start it still requires a real dive down the inside to make it stick

The problem with modern Monaco - the track has not changed but the barriers are further back in interest of safety so the drivers don;t get punished as much and it is a procession

So either they have to make the place wider for two cars side by side or they have move the drs position elsewhere
 

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