Grand Prix 2019 Monaco Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Ah the monaco gp the glitz the glamour, the yachts, the harbour, the jewel in the crown & according to reports the most viewed race globally at 110 million viewers. it is the only Grand Prix that does not have to adhere to the FIA's mandated 305 km minimum race distance for F1 races. so its 78laps instead of 91. sad story for the 1st ever winner of monaco gp in 1929 William Grover-Williams who was captured & killed by the nazis in final few months of the war remaining.

but on brighter news. when you think of the Monaco GP you cant help of think of

Sainte devote - the corner that is 100m from Sainte-Dévote Chapel that is named after & dedicated to Saint Devota, the patron saint of Monaco.

Casino square - which has been Featured in 3 bond films & also in weird quirk Charles Leclerc is forbidden by law to even set foot in the Casino. because its illegal for people born in monaco but legal for people of other nationality but live in monaco

Mirabeau - the ex mirabeau hotel, now luxury apartments on rumoured the most expensive street by square ft in the world. & if you have a spare 37.5m euros you can buy the 6 room apartment that's for sale

Fairmont (lowes) hotel - which if you fancy a night there at end of the june just set you back £508

Tabac - on the outside of the corner is the tobacconist

Swimming pool - or The Rainier III Nautical Stadium which has a heated saltwater Olympic-size swimming pool, with 1m 3m 5m & 10m diving platforms & apparently the pool is converted into a 1,000m ice rink from December to March

La Rascasse - where if you fancy a meal at the restaurant. mushroom risotto costs €12, cheeseburger & fries €11 or creme brulee for €7

Anthony Nouges - the founder of the Monaco GP, set up the Automobile Club de Monaco, helped create the Rallye Monte-Carlo in 1911 & He suggested the international adoption of the checkered flag to end races.

On the race its hard to get exited about the championship because we had so much hope preseason after the anti climaxs of 2017 & 2018 but wheels have come off Ferrari before weve only just begun. the constructors championship is all but over seems like 2014 & 2016 where the drivers title is also off to mercedes but which side of the garage is it going to. The circuit some love it some hate it. for me im a fan, its the biggest test of a driver to thread it through the barriers not just the race but Practise & Qualifying because as max verstappen proved in 2018 when he effectively handed the monaco gp to his teammate in FP3 when he slammed it into his wall in a qualy dress rehearsal. i think the race gets more stick than it deserves. because it has more memorable moments than most over the last decade just 2011 & 2013 where a bit boring & anonymous then in the past 1981 1982 1984 1992 1996. also if we are going to have a boring race then at give me monaco over catalunya any day.

Finally a big rarity for only the 3rd time after Louis Chiron who made podium in 1950 & Oliver Beretta 8th 2 laps down in 1994, we have a monasque in his home race on the grid in charles leclerc. although hopefully he will have better luck than when came in F2 which a chance to win got pole. but in feature & sprint if it could go wrong it did. so maybe could be the 1st ever monasque pole sitter or 1st driver to finish in the top 2​

 

[siffert_fan]

The commentator on the Sky broadcast mentioned that 30% of the residents of Monaco were millionaires. Made me wonder about the other 70%.

The rest are multi-millionaires and billionaires.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Matter closed, I wish that I had seen a similar reaction when someone insulted all the Italians, but maybe I missed that, I'm sure that you upheld the high morale standards of the forum also in that occasion (or in a few others that spring to mind and that I refrain from mentioning because I left kindergarten many many moons ago)

Good night

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[F1Brits_90]

remember the Monaco GP

interesting that 24 years ago today we had final F1 race with 26 cars on the grid & in 3 months time at the proper 1000th F1 GP it will be 27yrs since a car failed to qualify

 

[cider_and_toast]

it will be 27yrs since a car failed to qualify

Cough

2012 Australian Grand Prix - Wikipedia

Cough

 

[Angel]

Speaking of things that happened a while ago, apparently it's a year ago today I joined here, so that must have been just after Monaco last year too. Hasn't the time flown by?

 

[F1Brits_90]

Cough

2012 Australian Grand Prix - Wikipedia

Cough

good point but 27 yrs ago was final race with pre qualifying i shouldve said with competent teams

interesting that christian fittipaldi who final guy to be eliminated was 0.043 off & with 105.2% of pole. which is percentage wise as quick kubica in the recent monaco gp. with HRT at 110%

but proof that F1 money problems arent a new thing we been struggling since early 90s

 

[Il_leone]

Publius Cornelius Scipio I remember a lot of people said the same theory about why Hamilton kept getting screwed over or had reliability or bad lucks issues at Mclaren when Button was his teammate

going back to Ferrari - LeClerc must be thinking " Why always me?" what happened in quali was simply daft from Ferrari Ferrari would have got themselves pumped up to think about potentially winning the race and only for the inexcusable to happen

LeClerc wants an explanation about what happened. I don't think he means" Its a minor issue, Charles get over it and onto the next race" response. He did not sign up to be No 2. Next time the team issues team orders he might simply ignore them and do what Verstappen has done for years at Red Bull and Toro Rosso simply not budge and make his teammate race him and we know Vettel hates racing his teammates

I don't want to see LeClerc becoming an A***hole but I fear Ferrari are pushing him to become one. YOu say he does not have options elsewhere but stranger things have happened in F1

 

[Il_leone]

cider_and_toast Hakkinen efforts in 1999 and 2000 took a lot out of him but what really finished it off was the monster crash he had in practice in Melbourne 2001

I would say Hill was a driver I thought after winning the title in 96 , could have gotten a more competitive drive in Jordan in 97 and then turn down Mclaren in 98 for Jordan was an example he could not do it consistently anymore and some of it was the mental side

Other drivers have done the same like Scheckter in 1980 and before him Lauda and Hunt suddenly quit when they no longer had love and hunger in them

 

[Publius Cornelius Scipio]

Publius Cornelius Scipio

going back to Ferrari - LeClerc must be thinking " Why always me?" what happened in quali was simply daft from Ferrari Ferrari would have got themselves pumped up to think about potentially winning the race and only for the inexcusable to happen

...

I don't want to see LeClerc becoming an A***hole but I fear Ferrari are pushing him to become one. YOu say he does not have options elsewhere but stranger things have happened in F1

I think that the point is that it's not always Leclerc... that's the real issue, you assume that it's always Leclerc but it isn't, Vettel had a similar issue at the end of Q2. Leclerc at the start of the week end had the same chances of winning the race as Vettel did: next to zero. The point is that Ferrari's car is not half as good as the Mercedes, it's not as if there is some sort of conspiracy to ruin Leclerc's races for the benefit of Vettel.

There was a very interesting article on the Guardian yesterday with a very clear explanation of why there was a problem in Q1 with Leclerc, I quote

Their miscalculation was an operational mistake but it had been prompted by their desire to save a set of tyres, as Binotto admitted because they now had to take chances to catch Mercedes. “We are facing a situation where we need to catch up points in the championship,” he said. “We need to catch up compared to our competitors and when you need to catch up you need to take some risks as well.” Such measures in round six suggest they know the title is already gone.

I'm sure that at The Guardian they are not in cahoots with Vettel to bring Leclerc down, it's just that Ferrari is not as competitive as the Mercs, they have to take risks and they (often) make mistakes, to me this looks extremely simple and extremely clear. They are desperate, they know that 4th place or something similar is irrelevant to them and they must take risks and risks, by definition, are "risky".

Assuming that the Ferrari is by far the best car and that they don't win because Vettel is a third rate driver and the team goes to any lenght to ruin Leclerc's races look to me to be a bit simplistic as there no evidence whatsoever to support that (Ferrari's car is not good enough even according to third parties like Dr. Marko, Vettel and Leclerc have been rather evenly matched so far this season, Mercedes' dominance is total, etc).

I don't think that Ferrari are pushing Leclerc to become an a**hole, it looks to me as if they are trying to prepare him to be their next WDC (let's be honest it's not as if next year things will change dramatically, it will be a few years before Ferrari can have a realistic chance of winning the chanpionship, Vettel knows full well that he'll never be WDC at Ferrari).

I understand that anything that goes against the mainstream view that Ferraris is deliberately ruining the career of a brilliant young driver (who they have subsidized for years) in order to help a third class driver as vettel will be seen as "disrespectful" by some and that, by default, I will be deemed as a diehard Vettel fan (the last driver that I called myself a fan of was Damon Hill... just to put things into perspective) but that seems to me to be the problem, in all fairness it doesn't look as if this is about how good Leclerc is or if and how Ferrari are spoiliong his chances, sometimes it just looks to me as it's about Vettel and how much he is disliked (to be open and honest I never warmed up to Montoya when he was in F1 and only after he was gone I could appreciate how good he was, nor I have ever been Maldonado's greatest fan, it happens, maybe someone feels the same way about Vettel)

 

[Izumi]

Ross Brawn assessed current Ferrari as being third best car on the grid. Add some strategy errors, and you have recipe for very ugly race-afternoon. Based on couple of interviews (Vettel, Binotto), I am not that assured they have managed to identify source of their problem yet. Could be combination of several issues (tires, aero).

 

[F1Brits_90]

might be controversial but i was thinking its harder now than in senna day when you think senna pole lap in 1988 averaged 88.95mph. hamilton pole lap in 2019 averaged 106.5mph. 106mph around narrow streets that you wouldnt dare doing 30mph at some points

 

[olegg]

 

[RasputinLives]

I'm surprised Sainz has got so high so quickly. He has been above average this season it's true but given he is coming off the back of such a terrible year last year I though it would have taken a bit more to recover his rep.

 

[olegg]

Hamilton make spectacle from last Monaco race. And it isn't bad ))
Lewis Hamilton's Monaco Miracle | 2019 Monaco Grand Prix (formula1.com)

 

[Bill Boddy]

Sorry, but I do not regard Hamilton's victory as coming anywhere near a miracle. he had problems with his front tyres but his rears were excellent allowing him to pull away out of every corner. Ricciardo showed that even when his power was down he could still control the race, that was far more impressive.

 

[olegg]

Sorry, but I do not regard Hamilton's victory as coming anywhere near a miracle. he had problems with his front tyres but his rears were excellent allowing him to pull away out of every corner. Ricciardo showed that even when his power was down he could still control the race, that was far more impressive.

Miracle - this of course an exaggeration from journalists.
But I'd like this race and I count that a significant role for this action was played by the emotions of Hamilton.

 

[Publius Cornelius Scipio]

Miracle - this of course an exaggeration from journalists.
But I'd like this race and I count that a significant role for this action was played by the emotions of Hamilton.

Hamilton was pulling away from Verstappen out of Portier because Verstappen forgot to return the engine mode to "race" after his pit stop, also it looks to me as if Hamilton's rear tyres had some blisters

I'm not Hamilton's greatest fan but what he did last Sunday was amazing