A Few Conclusions From The Monaco GP

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Sunday 25th May 2008

Monaco never makes much sense, but at least this year's chaos brought a bit of order to the World Championship...

What A Contradictory Event The Monaco GP Is
Monaco always glitters but its grand prix only sparkles in the rain. The Monaco GP is a contradiction wrapped in sport's most expensive bow. It is Formula One's showpiece event, but it often bores. It is the race all drivers want to win, though it doesn't welcome overtaking. It attracts the famous and idle rich, yet it only produces memorable races when it goes cold. And that is the ultimate contradiction: Monaco would invariably be the race of the season if only it was held out of season and always had a welcome sprinkling of stardust from grey skies. But what would Monaco be without the glamour of the blue skies, the late-night soirees, and those sun-blessed bikinis whose purpose is to emphasise rather than conceal?

Lewis Hamilton Has Turned His Season Around
With a little luck, Hamilton was unstoppable in Monaco. Without that luck - in the form of the Safety Car being deployed shortly after he returned to the track, his fuel tank filled to the brim, following his first-lap excursion into the barriers - the outcome of Sunday's race may have been very different. Yet luck can be overplayed and overanalysed. There was no luck involved in the staggeringly quick lap times he set at the half-way stage of the race with which he constructed a sufficient lead for him to take a second and final pit-stop and still return to the track in front. The speed displayed was, in his words, 'ridiculous'. From the perspective of his rivals, not least a subdued Kimi Raikkonen, 'frightening' may have been more appropriate.

Three races ago, Hamilton's season was at cross-roads. Now, not only is it heading in the right direction, but he also heads the championship. Canada may be a tipping point. If he can win there, as he did last year, the momentum behind his title bid may, like his performance in Monaco, be unstoppable. A little luck would, though, still come in handy along the way.

Force India Were The Monaco GP Losers
In one sense, Kimi Raikkonen did Adrian Sutil a favour by crashing into the back of his Force India because, by making his misfortune so public and so newsworthy, everyone became aware of what an accomplished drive the young German delivered. But for Raikkonen rearranging his rear wing, for instance, Sutil almost certainly wouldn't have been hailed as Martin Brundle's Driver of the Race. And as James Allen perceptively noted, the performance itself - regardless of the points robbery - should be sufficient to guarantee Sutil a seat with the team next season.

The real loser in the incident, then, wasn't Sutil but the team itself - as demonstrated by the contrast in emotions as Sutil calmly and phlegmatically reflected on a "disappointment" while the team's Technical Director, Mike Gascoyne, raged against Raikkonen's "idiotic" driving. Given the value of points to Force India, who are the only team still on the grid yet to trouble the scorers this term, the Rottweiller's bark was understandable. Yet his bite, in the form of a complaint to the stewards, was doomed to failure. To quote Sutil, "Raikkonen obviously didn't do it on purpose" and the World Champion's mistake seemed to be a consequence of excessive caution as he braked unusually early upon exiting the tunnel. It was bad luck and nothing more. For Kimi, the debit of four points is already punishment enough.

Testing Times For Junior
The crash that warranted official scrutiny was Fernando Alonso's move on Nick Heidfeld. As a two-time winner around the streets of Monte Carlo, Alonso should have known better than anyone else in the field that it is impossible to overtake at Loews. That his attempt was made in second-gear slow-motion shouldn't detract from its recklessness or its folly.

Yet Renault's attention will be focused on the continued travails of their other driver. Speaking of whom, Flavio Briatore is quoted as saying on Autosport: "Nelson's race was disappointing, but Monaco remains a difficult challenge for a test driver." A test driver? What an insult to be levelled at a rookie promoted to the rank of race driver five months ago. Although a misquote - Briatore actually remarked in the Renault press release that "Monaco remains a difficult test for a driver" - the dismissive barb is also unfortunately apt.

Kubica Is Coming...
It would be tempting to describe Robert Kubica as F1's next superstar if it weren't for the presence of Lewis Hamilton and the fact that the Pole is the more experienced of the pair. Better to say then that, but for Hamilton, Kubica would be being feted as a superstar capable of taking on the Ferraris. His performances this season have been sensational and he was only denied the opportunity of properly challenging Hamilton for victory by the difficulty/impossibility of overtaking the Ferraris even though Raikkonen, in the early stages of the race, and then Massa, for as many as twenty laps, were slowing him down.

As anyone speaking a second language is prone to do, Kubica can seem a little dull-witted in interviews (those that are conducted in English, that is). But he possesses a sharp racing brain. Although not one for self-praise, he revealed after the race that the decision to change for dry tyres was his after he spotted that "Timo Glock was in front of us with grooved tyres, and as soon as I saw he was much quicker than us I called the team to change tyres. Fortunately we did it quicker than Felipe and managed to overtake him there."

In fairness to Massa, it should be acknowledged that he was denied the opportunity to make such a call: his radio broke down twenty laps from the end of the race. Quite why the teams involved in the most advanced sport on the planet struggle so frequently to hear themselves speak remains a perplexing mystery.

Kubica Is Bad News For Heidfeld And Alonso
In public at least, BMW continue to support Nick Heidfeld but Kubica is surely showing his beleaguered team-mate to the exit door. At the start of the year, this website noted that the one question mark against BMW remained the identity of their lead driver. Kubica has thrust himself into that role and thoroughly diminished the man already nicknamed Little Nick along the way. His future with the team must be in considerable jeopardy - F1 never regards a team-mate trouncing with much patience.

On a note entirely incidental note, it was claimed this weekend that Fernando Alonso has both agreed and signed a contract to join Ferrari. The small print of the claim was that the deal was for 2010.

Regardless of whether this particular rumour is true or not, it is the case that these sort of look-to-the-future deals are becoming the norm of F1. Alonso's deal to move to McLaren for 2007 was announced, for instance, in November 2005 and was actually agreed long before that. There is, though, an inherent risk to these deals in so much as they provide a guarantee of the future based on a prediction. After all, while Alonso was ultimately proved right, in a sporting sense, to drop Renault for McLaren in 2007, he himself must have had doubts about the wisdom of such a course as he won a second world title in 2006 with Renault while McLaren continued to loiter around the midfield. Ferrari's risk is much the same, for who can guarantee that Alonso will be part of the elite and competitive in two years' time? From Ferrari's perspective, it already seems a remarkable gamble to take. On this year's evidence, never mind next year's, Kubica will surely be the man in demand in 2010.

Heikki's Bad Luck Is Bad News
Here's a different scenario for Sunday's GP: It begins with Heikki Kovalainen actually beginning the race from his position on the second row rather than the pitlane, sees Lewis Hamilton crash into the barriers on lap one but doesn't then see David Coulthard make a familiar mess of his Red Bull and the resultant deployment of the Safety Car.

What then? Well, Hamilton would be trailing the leaders by forty second and Kovalainen would be the McLaren driver best placed to fully exploit the pace in the MP23. The race would be his to lose.

But lose it he did in Turkey, tangling with Kimi Raikkonen at the first corner, and his victory hopes were scuppered in Monaco when his clutch failed to engage before the warm-up lap. Kovalainen, who has generally matched Hamilton for pace this season, was culpable for neither misfortune - just as he was a passenger when his McLaren suddenly veered off the track in Barcelona after his front-right tyre failed. Fate can be cruel. F1's tendency to overlook the value of luck - and, in particular, turn a blind eye to the distortion produced by the bad version - can be even crueller.

Pete Gill

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