As Formula One continues to hurtle towards almost-certain disaster with the ongoing rules spat, the annoyingly trifling matter of a Grand Prix weekend is here to get in the way. But then it is Monte Carlo, so I suppose we'll let it off.
The Talking Points
- The Curse of KERS
It is fairly safe to say that the jury is still out on F1's "exciting" "new" "idea" that is the KERS experiment. Only four of the teams have run the system on their cars so far this year, and of those, both Renault and BMW have gone very much back to the drawing board. Ferrari and McLaren claim that they will run their own devices at the Monaco weekend, though the merits of the weight-affecting overtaking aid around a track where overtaking chances are so small as to be non-existent must be limited. Though the KERS boys will get some benefit off the line, the extra weight may just see them qualify out of position anyway. The short-term future of the much-maligned devices, ostensibly brought in to help develop greener technology for the sport, but artificially reduced to mere "six second a lap" overtaking aids, remains rather sketchy.
- Qualifying tactics
In the last couple of races, Red Bull have somehow managed to shoot Sebastian Vettel square in the foot by prepping him for qualifying on the best strategy. Twice Vettel has qualified well with fuel to spare on his rivals, and twice he has seen his hopes of a win destroyed by getting stuck behind slower cars for large parts of the race. In Monte Carlo, the chances of your race chances being ruined by traffic is higher than ever (for proof, just ask David Coulthard his thoughts on Enrique Bernoldi), so the frontrunning teams will need to walk an even more delicate tightrope between wanting a tactical fuel advantage on the opposition and needing to qualify as high as possible to get best track position. Will anyone take the gamble of going for an extra fuel stop in order to maximise their pole position chances? Insert your own gambling/Monte Carlo/casino analogy here.
- Frosty Relations
While the racing will recommence on track over the weekend, the hope is that the behind-the-scenes lovers tiff between the teams and the FIA over the proposed "two-tier" championship in 2010 will reach an inevitable resolution in Monte Carlo. Another round of talks between FOTA and the FIA is scheduled ahead of the approaching deadline for entries into next year's championship. With the expected result being an increase in the level of the proposed budget cap in order to incorporate everyone happily underneath it, the only real question will be how successful the FIA are in balancing the greedy needs of the manufacturer hordes with the spendthrift desires of the wealth of new blood knocking on F1's door for 2010. Lola have recently confirmed that the increase of the cap from £30 million to £40 million wasn't enough to put them off, but how much higher can the FIA afford to push it. Insert another gambling/Monte Carlo/casino analogy here.
- Winners and losers
Though Brawn GP and Red Bull will remain the pre-race favourites, the relative resurgence of Ferrari in Spain will be expected to continue around the Monaco streets. They seemed to be the big winners in the raft of new parts for the teams in Barcelona, and while their reliability and general fecklessness is still an issue following Kimi Raikkonen's early elimination in qualifying, their first win of the year can't be far away, which should be enough to worry the current championship protagonists. Meanwhile, Toyota seemed to be the biggest losers in the new parts battle, the team falling to Earth with a bump after their front row exploits back in Bahrain. With Daddy Toyota haemmoraging money in the credit crunch, John Howett being one of the more vocal "we'd rather bugger off to Le Mans or something" moaners during the current politicising and the lack of Honda to crow over in their private Japanese power struggle, the idea that Toyota have dropped the ball when they looked closer than ever to their maiden F1 win could be the last straw in this particular big-budget F1 story.
Track Facts
Circuit de Monaco, Monte-Carlo
Number of Laps: 78
Circuit Length: 3.340km
Race distance: 260.520km
Lap Record: 1:14.239 (Michael Schumacher - 2004)
2008 Pole: Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
2008 Winner: Lewis Hamilton (McLaren - Mercedes)
Timetable
Thursday 21st May
Free Practice 1: 10.00 (Local Time) / 09.00 (BST)
Free Practice 2: 14.00 (Local Time) / 13.00 (BST)
Saturday 23rd May
Free Practice 3: 11.00 (Local Time) / 10.00 (BST)
Qualifying: 14.00 (Local Time) / 13.00 (BST)
Sunday 24th May
Race: 14.00 (Local Time) / 13.00 (BST)
Race Revisited -2005
It's easy to forget these days, but Kimi Raikkonen used to be renowned as being pretty much the best driver on the grid. Though the Finn has suffered no end of ignominy since his championship win in 2007, but back in 2005 in Monaco, he produced one of the drives of his career to lead every lap of the race and take a prefect win. Starting from pole, Kimi controlled the early stages of the race, but then Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard tangled and caused a blockage in the road, necessitating a safety car. While the Renault pair behind Kimi both pitted, Kimi stayed out, then put in quick lap after quick lap when released to extend enough of a lead to make his final stop and re-emerge still in the lead. What Ferrari wouldn't give for some of that nous around about now.
See the whole race for (presumably) a limited period only, by going here. Look! Jim Rosenthal standing on a speedboat!
One Year Ago...
Monaco 2008 was a crazy, rain-affected and safety car-dominated affair, with Lewis Hamilton grabbing an unlikely victory despite pranging the wall at the Swimming Pool early on. He took advantage of any number of mistakes by the other leaders, with Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen both spinning off while leading, to take the chequered flag. The other notable incident of the weekend saw Force India's Adrian Sutil cruelly denied a battling points finish when he was bumped out of fourth place by the recovering, if largely out-of-control, Raikkonen. Relive all the action by going here.
Best Race Odds
Jenson Button - 3/1 (ExtraBet)
Sebastian Vettel - 7/2 (Ladbrokes)
Rubens Barrichello - 9/1 (Bet365)
Mark Webber - 12/1 (William Hill)
Patty's Tip - A fail for Patty in Spain.That'll teach us to back Nelson Piquet Jr to do something useful. For Monaco, the potential for a crazy crash-fest makes any bet an unsafe one. Apart from maybe a punt on the number of finishers being low. You can get 6/4 with BlueSq on there being less than 14 classified finishers, and surely even in these reliable times, we'll see more than 6 cars crash out over the course of 78 laps? Surely?
The Weekend on Patronise
Tragically, to the mournful, Buemi-esque cries of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" from literally about three people, Patty's live coverage of Friday (or in Monaco's willfully unique case, Thursday) practice sessions looks to be at an end for the time being. We hope you'll all survive with just some tardy reports on the goings-on from the opening day of the weekend until such a time as real life will allow us to spend three hours of our life every other week watching one of the least critical sporting spectacles ever and describing it in text format. Despite this sad loss, Patty will still have full coverage of the main fun for you. Live textual witterings on FP3, qualifying and the race itself will all be available for this weekend. Hurray!
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