Grand Prix 2013 Monaco Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

After the excitement of Spain the GP circus moves on to the glamour of Monaco, the longest serving race on the F1 calendar. Monaco, I'm sure, is probably the most testing circuit of the season for the drivers. Hurtling millimetres from unforgiving armco barriers at speeds of up to 180 mph, trying to wrestle 700 plus horsepower engines through tight and twisty corners with no hint of a run off area and having to cope with going from broad daylight into a tunnel with your foot planted hard to the floor before bursting back into the sunlight metres from probably the tightest chicane on any track, anywhere.

It is, almost certainly, the most marmite race on the season. Many love the glamour, the history and the challenge for the drivers. Others feel it is an anachronism in 21st century sport, that it is dangerous and doesn't show F1 at it's best with virtually no opportunity to overtake anywhere on the circuit. Whatever your feelings toward Monaco it isn't going anywhere soon and, I believe, is the only race which can thumb it's nose at FOM when they come along asking for money to allow the race to run. As important to Formula One as Ferrari apparently.

The battle at the top of the WDC leader board has closed up post Spain. Fernando Alonso & Ferrari were outstanding in the Catalan race and the team chose exactly the right tactics to help him win on home ground. Red Bull looked out of sorts, third best behind the Ferrari's and the Lotus Renaults (in Kimi Raikkonen's hands at least).

The tyres should probably not have quite so much of an influence on the racing in Monaco as they have in other races so far this season and Pirelli are planning changes to the rubber to give a maximum of 3 pit stops. Maybe this will help Mercedes, who appear to suffer most of the top teams with decaying rubber. Either that or Ross Brawn should remove the cheese graters Adrian Newey screwed on next to the tyres on the Merc when no one was looking.

If Mercedes manage to show the one lap pace they have elsewhere this season this could be their best chance for a win as they can lead a train around the track. However, it's hard to see past Alonso and, without some mistakes and mechanical failures, you can imagine he would have a VERY healthy lead in the drivers race by now. Perhaps the better driveability of the Renault engines will allow Lotus and Red Bull to mount a more serious challenge to Ferrari. Could someone like Force India spring a surprise, or McLaren? Sorry Macca fans, a little joke there. I shouldn't get your hopes up.

Meanwhile, down at the back. Aww, who cares as long as they get out of the way when being lapped, or get in the way depending on which driver arrives behind them. No safety cars so far this year, some how I'll be shocked if Monaco doesn't give Bert Mylander his first outing.

So Monaco, remember FP1 and 2 are on the Thursday as Friday is a religious holiday for Monegasques. Who'd have thought all those millionaires were so religious. Hope you all enjoy the race, or doing the ironing or gardening if it get's too dull/exciting (delete as appropriate).
 
Whether you want to call it "racing" or not is a matter of semantics. The fact is that the two Red Bulls set the two fastest laps of anyone on Lap 31. They "raced" almost 4 seconds ahead of the cars released behind them. They made up 10 SECONDS on Hamilton in the second sector alone after being released. And these are pretty short sectors at Monaco mind you.

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They basically matched Lewis in the final sector even though Hamilton came through the pits shortening the distance to the timing stripe.

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It wasn't even that close upon pit exit either. The Red Bulls had several seconds in hand. Here are a bunch of Lap Times from Lap 31. You'll also notice the drastic difference in middle sectors between the Red Bulls and the rest of the field. Let there be no doubt they picked up a ton of time "racing" under Safety Car conditions.

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Hamilton did a 2:02.320 on this Lap. Rosberg a 1:54.863. So Mercedes requested a 6 second gap and they got 7.5. It didn't matter anyway.

And another kick in the nuts about this whole cluster**** is the Purple time Hamilton laid down just prior to Massa's accident. The Merc's were in full control of this race in every aspect.
 

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If that is true why did no one absolutely no one protest it? not Mercedes not no one, the stewards never even looked at it or thought there was anything wrong.

Why do you think that is KekeTheKing?

Maybe because there was nothing illegal about what they did, and you have to remember the 10 seconds you are talking about were more than lost by RedBull being behind the safety car before they were released....

Mercedes have admitted fault Lewis has admitted to being at fault only you try to blame someone else, why is that.....?

Edit

And by the way those sector times you posted only prove that Red Bull did nothing wrong as it is the sector three times that matter not the sector two times and if you look at the sector three times they are all about equal...
 
Do you seriously think Mercedes was in a position to lodge a protest for P2 when they were already embroiled in a major protest against themselves. They were more than satisfied with their points haul and were not going to ruffle any feathers with anyone.

Sector 2 is quite relevant. The Red Bulls were released somewhere near the end of Sector 1-beginning of Sector 2. As for your Sector 3 hypothesis, I already explained that S3 times when pitting and when staying on the circuit are incomparable. And what of the fastest laps of all on Lap 31, well that pretty much speaks for itself.
 
They made up 10 SECONDS on Hamilton in the second sector alone after being released. And these are pretty short sectors at Monaco mind you.

Scrap my previous post, let's just deal with this, how in the hell on gods green earth could they have possibly made up 10 seconds on the leading pair without being in the lead of the race? When there wasn't 10 seconds between them on adjusted time before the bloody safety car came out...?
 
Scrap my previous post, let's just deal with this, how in the hell on gods green earth could they have possibly made up 10 seconds on the leading pair without being in the lead of the race? When there wasn't 10 seconds between them on adjusted time before the bloody safety car came out...?


Vettel pitted, therefore dropping back. Webber had already pitted.

And they did make up 10 seconds (9 for Webber) in Sector 2. It's all on the timing screenshots Meph.

Ham - 49.2
Vet - 39.0
Web - 40.2
 
I'm quite sure the rest where behind the safety car in sector 2, while the Red Bulls where released.

Not that it matters, as they weren't exactly doing anything wrong, not sure why this matters.
 
KekeTheKing

You're looking at the wrong data here. Remember that Hamilton was backing off to give Rosberg the 6 second gap he was asked to! This is not evidence that Red Bull were "racing", but instead evidence that Hamilton was going a lot slower than them! Frankly, all this argument is irrelevant anyway, as they didn't break any rules. They weren't breaching the lap time behind the safety car, therefore, no case to answer!

A further, more relevant question would be "why was the safety car released ahead of the red bulls? As this would mean that they were far more likely to be behind the Mercedes after they stopped.... Was this the FIA trying to manipulate the results? no of course it wasn't!!!!!

EDIT

you could use those timing sheets to make the similar argument that Hamilton (and others) were racing through sector 1... I mean, they made 10 seconds up on Vettel in that section.... Do you see now why the whole argument is just garbage?
 
I'm not sure those lap charts prove Redbull did anything wrong. SC Delta times were introduced to deal with issues like this to ensure that no one was disadvantaged when racing under SC conditions and it is easily policed by FIA and the teams. Until you know exactly what the delta time was, it's difficult to argue that any rules were broken. It's obviously the combined sector times that matter and you can apportion your sector times to suit. It looks like Redbull figured out pretty quickly that sector 2 is where the times could be made in order to pass Hamilton so they drove a fairly slow first sector and put the hammer down in S2 on both lap 30 and 31. When you look at the gap in the charts the field was closely bunched in the top ten with two trains of cars. The first train including the Redbulls had a better spread and possibly explains why Redbulls found a better lap time. How else do you explain Verge going almost 6seconds quicker than Vettel in 10th. It was just one of those things and unfortunately for Hamilton he paid a heavy price.
 
Yes, I meant a red flag plus cars parked on the circuit, not on the grid.

Imagine the mayhem that would have caused, getting all the cars back to the grid.
 
Ah... I understand now! The written word can be confusing sometimes! - And I agree, it would have been an absolute nightmare! I'm not sure what it says in the rules about cars getting back to the start line under their own steam when there's been a red flag... Once upon a time, if a car took a shortcut back to the pits when the red flag was shown, they were disqualified... (Wasn't that what James Hunt was dsqd for back in 1976 at Brands?)
 
They didn't break any rules. They weren't breaching the lap time behind the safety car, therefore, no case to answer!

I agree with that hence no protest. It does raise an interesting question as to the point of the safety car if they were slowed down sufficiently behind it that they could put in normal sectors but still come in under lap delta time. Perhaps there should be a speed limit under safety car rather than lap delta as it encourages racing until picked up if its part way around a lap, which rather defeats the point of releasing a safety car in the first place.

Safety car only applicable once leader is behind...
 
Why was Raikkonen only reprimanded for breaking the delta time?
If that had been speeding in the pit lane it would have been a drive through penalty.
 
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