THE Monaco Grand Prix provided plenty of talking points, recriminations and celebration. This is my view of an action-packed weekend;
Lewis Hamilton’s weekend in Monaco was an absolute disaster. It ended with a ‘joke’ about his racial colour which was distasteful and disgraceful. Having said last week in the Spanish blog that I had been impressed with Hamilton’s discipline throughout the season so far, Monaco was totally the opposite. In qualifying, he had been flying. He was fastest in Q1 and Q2 and had a golden chance of snatching pole position from the king of Saturday qualifying, Sebastian Vettel. McLaren made a grave mistake by gambling on just the one run for Hamilton, and when the red flag came out for Sergio Perez’s big accident, their strategy had backfired. Before this, Hamilton claimed he had been held up by Felipe Massa as he came out of the pits, which certainly seemed a bit far-fetched. To compound matters, Lewis cut the chicane at the Swimming Pool and had his one qualifying time deleted. He started out of position in ninth and then frankly drove like an amateur who had failed their driving test miserably on Sunday. Granted, he pulled off a spectacular pass on Michael Schumacher early on, but his run-ins with Massa and Pastor Maldonado were daft.
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| CLUMSY: Hamilton and Massa got into a banging match |
The lunge on Massa into the Loews hairpin, where it is impossible to overtake was clumsy to say the least. The pair interlocked wheels and continued their race into the Monaco tunnel. Hamilton forced his way through, which pushed the Ferrari onto the dirty marbles and left Felipe clattering into the barriers. This bought out the Safety Car. Lewis got a deserved drive-through penalty for causing the collision, and had the cheek to blame Massa on his team radio; “I went up the inside and he turned in on me. That was on purpose!” Well Lewis, if that was on purpose, then I shall eat my summer hat!! If he wants lessons on purposely turning into corners, then ask Michael Schumacher, he’s a proven expert!
His run-in with Maldonado was just as bad, and it cost the rookie his first championship points. After the red flag interlude, for which Lewis should have been disqualified for driving around with a rear wing about to collapse for at least two laps, he dived up the inside and rammed into the Williams at Ste. Devote. His claim was that Maldonado turned in early, but the replays will indicate that when Lewis made contact, he even used the pitlane exit, not the track! Stick to the road and you might have a point. . . He got a time penalty after the race, which did nothing to his finishing position, so it was pointless and it isn’t going to get back Maldonado’s points place. Afterwards, he called the race stewards a “freckin joke,” blamed Massa and Maldonado, slagged his team off for a diabolical pitstop, then said this; “I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m black. That’s what Ali G says!” Martin Whitmarsh ordered his driver back to the race stewards to apologise and Hamilton was ensured that the matter would be resolved there and then. On Tuesday, it was clear that Lewis had regretted his words and he apologised to his fans, Massa and Maldonado via his Twitter page; “To Massa and Maldonado, with the greatest respect, I apologise if I offended you. Both of you are fantastic drivers who I regard highly.”
For me, the incident should now be drawn underneath the line and we must move on. However, Lewis Hamilton is a lucky lad to not face any further action from the FIA for his derogatory comments. Whether it was a joke or not, it doesn’t matter, his comments have no place in today’s society and he is experienced enough now to know better. I hope in Canada, I can talk more positively about Lewis Hamilton rather than all the negatives of this race.
Away from Hamilton’s horror weekend, the 2011 Monaco Grand Prix was the worst for serious accidents in a single weekend since the 2001 Australian Grand Prix. In Melbourne a decade ago, Michael Schumacher walked away from rolling his Ferrari in practice, Luciano Burti suffered a suspension failure in his Jaguar during qualifying, which ripped his car into bits and pieces and finally, there was the tragic collision between Ralf Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve in the race that led to the fatality of 52-year old trackside marshal Graham Beveridge. In Monaco, it was the drivers who were more at risk.
First, Nico Rosberg crashed during Saturday morning practice, when his Mercedes got unsettled under braking for the Nouvelle chicane. Rosberg only narrowly missed the tyre barriers head-on by millimetres. After this scary incident, race director Charlie Whiting insisted that the speed humps in the chicane be removed for qualifying. It was this action, plus the strength of today’s Grand Prix cars that saved Sergio Perez’s life in qualifying.
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| WRECKAGE: Only minor injuries for Sergio Perez after this shunt |
The Mexican rookie had done a brilliant job to reach the final part of qualifying, when he got off-line in the tunnel. On the notorious bumps, his Sauber went the same way as Rosberg, but the side impact with the wall did its job, even though it was terrifying. The lack of flailing movement from Perez inside the cockpit just added to the distress for his father and the Sauber team inside the pit garage. It was a crash that bought echoes about Karl Wendlinger’s shocking shunt at the same place in 1994. The Austrian went into a deep coma when he crashed his Sauber car in almost the same way as Perez did just a fortnight after the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger. Perez was ruled out of the race by concussion and a thigh injury, but he was released from the Princess Grace Hospital on Monday morning, following two nights in hospital for observational purposes. He should be fit and raring to go for the next event in Canada next weekend.
24 hours later, and another driver was admitted to hospital in a far less significant impact, which could have been tragic. Vitaly Petrov was released from the same clinic a day earlier than Perez, with minor concussion and bruising after a brush with the barriers which again worried many seasoned observers. His crash came on lap 69, during a traffic jam, which nearly saw the three race leaders, Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button end up being caught up in the melee. The incident began at Tabac, when Maldonado passed Adrian Sutil and the Force India driver grazed the wall, puncturing a tyre. As Sutil limped around, Hamilton braked to avoid him and was whacked from behind by Jaime Alguesuari. With the Toro Rosso using the McLaren as a launch pad, Petrov’s Renault was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Remarkably, Sebastian Buemi, Rosberg and the three leaders got through the wreckage undamaged. Again, although he had removed his steering wheel, there was a lack of movement from Petrov inside the cockpit, with the Russian complaining of pain in his ankles. Thankfully, there were no broken bones, but it was the last thing Formula One needed after Perez’s brush with life 24 hours earlier. In fact, the sport has had three lucky escapes this weekend and it is time to make some radical safety improvements to the Monaco circuit. The harsh will say that racing cars have just simply outgrown the streets. Well, without Monaco on the calendar, there’d be no point of a F1 world championship. Just some urgent track resurfacing and barrier movements should be needed to improve the safety levels around the Principality. However, this weekend was definitely a wake-up call.
One driver who must be feeling the pressure now is Jaime Alguesuari. Whilst Sebastian Buemi collected another point for Toro Rosso, Alguesuari is on seriously borrowed time, especially with the highly-rated Daniel Ricciardo sitting in the wings of the Toro Rosso garage. Alguesuari struggled all weekend and was knocked out in Q1. Even worse, he was comprehensively outpaced by the two Lotus cars and spent the first half of the race behind Jarno Trulli. His race-ending incident, against Hamilton’s McLaren, considering he was a lap down in the melee won’t have impressed anyone. Franz Tost is known for sacking drivers in mid-season. Both Scott Speed and Sebastian Bourdais have felt that in the past, and more performances like this and Alguesuari will join them in the ‘Unemployed’ category. As much as I don’t like to see these things happen to racing drivers, Jaime needs to raise his game and quickly if he doesn’t want to get the boot. One man who has received the boot is Nick Wirth. Wirth was the technical director of the Virgin Racing team and another shambles in Monaco has led to his departure. For the second year running, Timo Glock suffered a scary suspension failure, where he looked to be driving on three wheels. The Virgin’s are the best part of five seconds slower than the frontrunners and are nowhere near the midfield in Formula One. In fact, Hispania seem closer to them, than they do to Lotus. Excuses run very thin in this business and Wirth has paid the price for the 2011 chassis, which is simply, a dreadful racing car. Handling a Skoda might be a better job and I know from Glock’s body language, that his frustration is plain to see. Having said that, rookie Jerome D’Ambrosio finished again and the Belgian is doing a creditable job, considering the resources he has at his disposal, which is certainly very limited.
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| TOP: Another classy weekend for Sebastian Vettel |
Finally, it is time to crown my Driver of the Weekend. Despite good efforts from Pastor Maldonado and Jenson Button, it goes to the runaway championship leader Sebastian Vettel. Vettel has never gone great around Monaco in the past, despite a fifth and a second place before. His form over the weekend was once again immaculate. His driving ability can’t be questioned and he did a wonderful job holding off Alonso and Button on far quicker tyres. He turned Red Bull’s disastrous pitstops into a race-winning performance. Of course, he received some well-judged fortune, through the late race suspension, which allowed everyone to change their tyres for the last five laps, but I think Alonso and Button would have struggled to get past anyway. The champagne is on ice and Sebastian Vettel is walking away with the 2011 world championship. Canada’s next; another weak Vettel circuit? Well, considering his form in Barcelona and Monte Carlo, let’s make him the race favourite again then!
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