Grand Prix 2014 Monaco Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Monaco. The jewel in the crown. Where the crowd is closer and the colours are brighter. A truly unique track on the F1 calendar and everyone has massive love for it. Well actually they don’t. A lot of voices point out that there is hardly ever any overtaking, the races are dull and the track is just not suitable for modern F1. I, however, am not one of those because I absolutely love Monaco.

For me Monaco is one of the most exciting sporting events on the year. Some people have the cup final, I have Monaco and despite the cries of ‘dull races’ if you think back on It we always have drama at Monaco. Whether it be the three car train and the bumper cars behind of 2011, The team orders of 2007, Schumacher hitting Montoya in the tunnel in 04, Panis coming through the carnage in 96, Mansell all over the back of Senna in 92 or even the wet race no one wanted to win in 1982, there is always something to talk about at Monte Carlo.

So why do people think its dull? Well it is true that it is not easy to overtake so you are never going to see wheel banging and people charging through the field. Its just not going to happen. If that’s what makes an exciting race for you then, yes, you’re going to find it dull. However this is a track that is surrounded by walls and is completely unrelenting when it comes to errors. The drivers have to be completely concentrated throughout as one error would result in disaster. Throw in the fact that track position is everything and more often than not you’ll get cars holding up people who are far quicker and you get a pressure cooker situation. Sometimes you can actually feel the nerves sitting in your arm chair at home knowing that drivers are gritting their teeth as one false move means they’ve made a mess of their race.

Which brings me to this seasons new cars. We keep hearing comments from pundits about how they’ve never seen so many errors and how the drivers are really having to get a hold of the cars. This to me means that we should expect a very interesting Monaco. If the cars are difficult it means mistakes are more likely to happen which means we could be in for a topsy turvy race with a high attrition rate. You only have to go back to the race in 1996 and even a glance at 2004 to see mixed up races in Monaco can produce a completely unexpected result.
Due to the nature of the circuit its is also somewhat of a car leveller which means the driver comes into play a lot more. If you look at previous winners it appears to be a track number 2 drivers come to the front on. I suspect this is to do with a sudden confidence boost they have that they are not being beaten hand over fist by their team mate.

So where are we with this season? Well despite the pressure from his team mate I still think the only person who can beat Lewis Hamilton this year is Lewis Hamilton with the radio transmissions in Spain reminding us that he is certainly a worrier when things don’t feel 100%. Rosberg is always good at Monaco and it will be interesting to see what happens to Lewis if he does lose one. Despite the playing field being levelled somewhat by the track I can't see past another Merc win if they finish the race or don't mess up. We haven't seen this sort of dominance by a team since the Williams era of the mid 90's and its not going to go away quickly.

Red Bull are certainly best of the rest with a great recovery drive from Vettel in Spain and a steady but impressive podium from Ricciardo. Its pretty certain that Seb will have it in his head that this is where he is to stop the charge of his new team mate but he’ll need to have better luck with mechanical failures if he’s even going to get the chance to do that.

The team mate battle at Ferrari finally hotted up in Spain but it was still Alonso he came out on top. Some debate over whether he only managed it due to the better strategy but there is no question that Alonso pulled a pretty handy move off on Kimi near the end. Kimi does not have the best rep at Monaco although having said that Alonso hardly has an outstanding track record.

The dark horses? Well Grosjean had a blinder of a race in Spain despite his car having a fault and being massively under powered down the straights for the entire race, not to mention the fact he was complaining the whole car pulled left when he braked, so it could be that the car leveller that is Monaco will allow him to dice it out proper at the front. Bottas appears to be getting closer and closer to the front each race and Hulkenberg is always worth a punt if you are after a dark horse, however Perez has been keeping him at bay of late.

So Moanco – do you love it? Do you hate it? What are well expect from this years race?
 
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Spare a thought for Kewee over here in NZ. Monaco starts at midnight and finishes at approximately 2.30am. Grab three and a half hours sleep then "Yikes!!!!!!!!" was that my alarm? Sure was, a bit blurry eyed but about to be wide awake by 6.00am for the start of the Indy 500. Two of motorsports most historic races back to back. Does it get any better than that? Not for me, I wouldn't miss a minute of either except to make a coffee. :snacks:
 
Qualifying was certainly fantastic when G Berger was in an oversteery mood back in the day.

No particular reason for including this oldie on here, other than the spectacle of watching a driver fighting a car that's constantly trying to swap ends on him through Casino...


"There's a man enjoying his work" - not sure "enjoying" would be quite the right word! I'd definitely make sure I was wearing my brown underpants before doing that lap in that car.
 
Spare a thought for Kewee over here in NZ. Monaco starts at midnight and finishes at approximately 2.30am. Grab three and a half hours sleep then "Yikes!!!!!!!!" was that my alarm? Sure was, a bit blurry eyed but about to be wide awake by 6.00am for the start of the Indy 500. Two of motorsports most historic races back to back. Does it get any better than that? Not for me, I wouldn't miss a minute of either except to make a coffee. :snacks:

Lucky bastard!!! The monaco GP around midnight, that's better than counting sheep.
 
For me, Formula 1 wouldn't be formula 1 without Monaco.

So many memories, high and low:
Senna's debut in a Toleman in his rookie season, gaining fast on Prost's Mclaren in the rain until the race was red-flagged;
Senna again, holding off Mansell in 1992 after Nigel's pit stop; Schumacher crashing on lap 1 and Damon Hill dominating in 1996 until his engine expired, leaving eventually only three finishers with Olivier Panis winning; not to mention the five wins by the original 'Mr Monaco' himself, Graham Hill. There are loads more, of which these are just a few.

Here's hoping for some new memories next weekend, to add to the list.
 
I really doubt it with the Merc's being as dominant as they are now.

But there is a chance of rain at the moment, so let's just hope it does.
 
I think time has a way of distorting perceptions over the years.

There seems to be a general perception that Mansell's chase of Senna in 1992 made it a great race. The last few laps were certainly exciting but the 92 Monaco GP was definitely no classic.

It was a complete procession with Mansell light years ahead of the rest until he was forced into a pit-stop in the last 5 laps or so with a suspected loose wheel-nut.

Having subsequently fallen behind Senna and rejoining the track on fresh tyres certainly made it exciting exciting on the last 5 laps but about the 73 laps before that?
 
Doesn't stop the race being a classic though; it doesn't have to be all-action every single lap for that.

It reminds me of the 1979 FA cup final between Arsenal and Manchester United. The Gunners had gone 2-0 up quite early on and the rest of the game was pretty average until about five minutes left, when United scored twice in a couple of minutes. Just as it seemed that extra time was on the way, I think it was Graham Rix who made a run down the left wing and sent over a superb cross for Alan Sunderland to poke in the last-minute winner. I still remember it almost as if it were yesterday, and I'm not even an Arsenal fan, I support Chelsea!
 
That race was interesting because you didn't know who was going to finish and who had to do another fuelstop.
 
I think remembering the 96 event as a car park event is doing Panis a disserving though. I mean, he wasn't exactly cruising around during the race. He actually was in great form and did perform a few overtakes before inheriting the lead from Alesi...
 
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But there is a chance of rain at the moment, so let's just hope it does.


I hope that it's dry next weekend, as it is right now in California. Looking for a Lewis performance next weekend, similar to his GP2 race win that he achieved in 2006.
 
that's a great video. It really shows the point I was making about modern F1 having out grown the place. Those cars are half the speed around the corners.

the open barriers at the harbour and the low barriers everywhere with people hanging over them is insane.

Monaco was I'm sure a great race back in those days, but in modern times its like racing F1 on a gokart track.
 
Monaco is and always has been about more than the racing.

I enjoy the razzmatazz and circus element and there is always something during the race that makes it worth sitting through. That and no other circuit comes close to showing the risks an F1 driver faces. Yes, it is dangerous but that is what we want to see. 'We' bemoan the huge run-off areas and lack of punishment for mistakes at many modern circuits yet still complain about Monaco for giving us exactly that.

I'm not totally sure about F1 cars having outgrown Monaco either... just because you have the potential for huge speeds doesn't mean you have to use it all the time. I would like to think that a smaller budgeted team with a less powerful engine could pull a surprise with a nimble chassis and a bit of luck (probably a pipe dream but...).

What does strike me from footage in the 70's and before is that the cars look bigger these days and that, more than power, is restricting overtaking. Maybe we should be begging the FIA to return to smaller cars...
 
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