.:: 2013 Monaco Grand Prix - 23/25/26 May ::.

DID YOU KNOW?: Williams and Ferrari, despite their massive success, aren't known so well for their performances in Monaco. Williams have only won here once in the last 30 years (3 total), and Ferrari - despite being in every season of F1 - have only won seven times, the last of which was 12 years ago.

POINTS OF DISCUSSION

1. Tyres, tyres and more tyres - but with Pirelli bringing their two softest compounds - which we'll be seeing for the first time since Australia - how many could the teams be going through before the changes for Canada? Do you think these can hold up better based on what we saw in Australia?
2. With the superb qualifying pace that Mercedes have, and the tight and twisty nature of the Monaco circuit - can you see either Rosberg or Hamilton winning this race?
3. Given that they seem closer to the midfield than ever, could Caterham or Marussia pick up a point or two if carnage were to happen?
4. Driving standards were brought in to question once again when in the GP2 race Sunday morning, Johnny Cecotto wasn't even called up to the stewards for not giving back a position as well as purposely swerving in to Sergio Canamasas, whereas Rio Harayanto - who took Canamasas' rear wing off in the chain of carnage caused by Cecotto - was given a 10-place penalty for Monaco. Can you understand as to why the stewards gave no penalty to Cecotto, and what does this mean for the standards in the future of F1?
5. Who do you feel will be King of Monaco this year? If a Red Bull driver, which TV personality is going in their pool?

1. Tyres will pan out nicely this weekend as Monaco isnt so tough on tyres.

2. Quite possibly seeing as Monaco isn't so hard on the tyres.

3. If carnage ensues, quite possibly.

4. I'm utterly flaberghasted as to how Johnny was allowed to get away with a stunt like that, he should of had his racing licence ripped up for those sorts of moves the other guy was put off line hence he got rear ended... I'm just so so shocked he got nothing for such dangerous driving, stewards need to get a grip, I hope this set a precident for other drivers to drive in such a way that they think that is okay.

5. Johnny Herbert or Suzi Perry :P

5. Johnny Herbert or Suzi Perry :P

kipi19

5. Natalie Pinkham. This is my request. 

1. Agree with kipi

2. Perhaps, depending on whether or not Qualifying goes their way.

3. I really hope so.

4. I have no idea how he got away without any reprimand at all, but I hope he never makes it to F1.

5. My money is on Lee McKenzie. Vettel always had a soft spot for her :P 

 1. Considering how slow the track is, they might fair well

2. No, actually. The same tire problem the hurts them in the race, helps them in qualifying. Given the nature of the track, their tires won't heat up sufficiently enough to overcome, for example, Red Bull's aerodynamics, and it'll massively difficult to overtake in the race. However, the light tire wear may actually play into Mercedes' advantage and they can possibly win with a good strategy.

3. Ask Maldonado.

4. It is utterly ridiculous that Cecotto didn't receive a race ban, let alone any punishment, for his dangerous antics at Catalunya.

5. I assume I have to be British to understand this question. 

1. Monaco is relatively easy on the tires so it should work out for teams like Lotus and Ferrari. 2-3 pitstops I'd say.

2. If they have a good qualifying and don't lose track position during the stops then I don't see why not.

3.  Doubt it.

4. Who do they get for stewards nowadays? Sometimes I think commentators do a better job than those guys.

5. I don't get it. 

For those not understanding number 5 (for the Red Bull part - beens as no one's actually said who they think will win the race yet...), Red Bull's celebrations for the past three years have taken place on their floaterhome, which has a pool on the top of it (Vettel, Webber, Horner et al. jump in there for photos and laughs), and they've always taken either a BBC or Sky presenter in with them (highly funny). See below:

1. Monaco isn't usually too hard on tyres. To be honest getting a bit sick of all the talk - it's not like tyre management has never ever been a factor before!
2. If they can get on pole they might hang on but it's not like overtaking is impossible so overall I'd say no
3. With a bit of luck and a few retirements I think they might score points in any race. This is as good a chance as any
4. Short answer - think the stewards need new glasses
5. Alonso or Raikkonen so the second part is irrelevant :) 

FP2 - RED FLAG (Duration: 4 Minutes)

Kerb damage at the entry to the swimming pool chicane. 

Cecotto has been suspended after an accident at Monaco... locking up going in to turn 1.

It did cause over ten cars to get involved, but it was nothing in comparison to his driving in Malaysia and Spain though. No mention that it was a collective response to previous incidents as well, this ban however. 

Cecotto has been suspended after an accident at Monaco... locking up going in to turn 1.

It did cause over ten cars to get involved, but it was nothing in comparison to his driving in Malaysia and Spain though. No mention that it was a collective response to previous incidents as well, this ban however. 

Redders1989

Look at Cecotto walking away. We know it was you!

FP3 - RED FLAG (Duration: 6 Minutes)

Felipe Massa (BRZ, Ferrari) crashed at Sainte Devote. 

FP3 - RED FLAG (Duration: End of Session)

Romain Grosjean (FRA, Lotus) crashes at Sainte Devote. 

RACE - RED FLAG (Duration: 25 Minutes)

Pastor Maldonado (VEN, Williams) crashes at Tabac, bringing the protective barrier on to the track and blocking the circuit. 

That was a good race - quite a lot of talking points.

Massa - Firstly I hope he is ok - seemed to be up and walking, so hopefully the trip to the hospital is just precautionary. Very odd how he crashed in exactly the same way as in FP3, and none of the driver commentators could work out why it happened. FP3 was put down to driver error, but for the same thing in the race is very unusual.

Perez - a series of aggressive overtakes into ever narrowing gaps, until the inevitable collisions started. By the end it seemed as if he had worked out the one corner to do the "last of the late brakers" manoeuvre and came a cropper when the car on the outside finally refused to move out of the way to let him through. Ultimately he ruined his own race as well as Raikonnen's.

Grojean - ran into the back of Ricciardo who was lucky not to be launched into the barriers or collide with the barrier that divides the track from the run off to the right. Looks like Grosjean's fault just not braking in time.

Chilton - turned in too soon after passing Maldonado, knocks the Williams front wing underneath the car, and then Pastor is a passenger as he flies into the barrier - again lucky not to be launched over it. I think the FIA will want to investigate why the protective barrier was able to break free and wrap itself entirely around the car whilst also blocking the track.

Well done to Rosberg for a very dominant weekend. Having Hamilton alongside on the front row certainly helped keep the Red Bull behind, even if the first corner was very tight, and if Hamilton hadn't taken his eye off the ball coming in for a safety car pit stop it could have been a Mercedes 1-2. I saw the after race footage on Sky, but still not sure why he was going that slowly.

POST-RACE PENALTIES

Romain Grosjean has been handed a 10-place grid penalty in Canada for his collision with Ricciardo. 

Kimi Raikkonen has been given a reprimand for being 2 seconds under the minimum time when following the Safety Car. 

MERCEDES RESULT
Stewards are to send a report to the FIA regarding the Mercedes secret test, who may bring it before international tribunal. 

Perez was a tad unlucky. I must admit, I am getting sick of hearing Button complain about him on the team radio or to the press about his driving style or that he is holding him up/being too aggressive. If you want to talk in private about it and maybe help him perhaps, fine, but don't do it in a public forum.

Good race, hope all are ok as Maldonaldo and Massa took quite heavy hits with their cars.

DoTD: Sutil, made overtakes and made them stick. Di Resta is second here as he made up ground and got into the points.

SoTD: Rosberg, finally getting the win he deserves this season and proving he is no number two driver.

What of the day: Raikkonen being 14th after a late pit stop and finishes 10th somehow making a lot of time over Hulkenberg and Bottas. What happened there?

POST-RACE PENALTIES

Romain Grosjean has been handed a 10-place grid penalty in Canada for his collision with Ricciardo.

Kimi Raikkonen has been given a reprimand for being 2 seconds under the minimum time when following the Safety Car.

MERCEDES RESULT
Stewards are to send a report to the FIA regarding the Mercedes secret test, who may bring it before international tribunal.

Redders1989

I was waiting to see if any of those investigations would impact the race result, but looks like the results stand as they were. I will get on with doing the predictions scores.

DotD: Adrian Sutil

SotD: Nico Rosberg

MMotD (Mad Mexican of the Day): Sergio Perez

DotD: Rosberg - Dominant throughout and thoroughly deserved the win

SotD: Sutil - overtaking and making them stick - without getting dangerous ( Perez take note! )

Entertaining race albeit for the "wrong" reasons - crashes and dangerous overtaking rather than good racing but......

Hope Massa/Maldonado are OK - think they will be from what's been said.

For me one of the big debates now is Grosjean. He either seems to be an OK driver or fast and dangerous with nothing much inbetween. Wonder how much longer Lotus will put up with it - given the car they have they could attract a better driver with no problem for next season for example! 

Well David Coulthard was very scathing of Grosjean in the BBC post race commentary and suggested he could be sacked before Canada. I really hope this is not the case, although how this crash happened I do not know.

I guess he needs to stop making a mess of the opportunities, but this is the first race this season where I feel like he has been having the incidents. If his qualifying had been better managed by the team maybe none of this would have happened (given he was high up in the practice sessions, he got put in a lot of traffic in Q2 which was not to do with the car being rebuilt). Hopefully he will stick around as I think he is a nice guy from his interviews and I want him to do well as he is constantly under pressure from the media.

It's unfortunate for Grosjean - he did have an irregularly high amount of crashes for one weekend - four - but three of those only affected himself (if we're not counting the semi-swipe with Lewis). Yes, the penalty is deserved but all this talk of getting rid of him has started, on the FIRST WEEKEND of this season that he's caused incidents.

Let's not forget 2012, though. If we're talking early race incidents from that season, RoGro only had three before Belgium - and two of those, he was the only victim in it.

Yes, it's unfortunate that this side appeared this weekend, but let's not all jump on the "get rid of him" bandwagon for the sake of it.

My concern is more for the stewarding and how illogical it's been - Jonny Cecotto twice purposely swpies at drivers in GP2 - gets a ten place grid penalty for the one in Malaysia, gets away with nothing in Spain - and then gets banned from the second Monaco event for making a driver error in turn 1, which is all it was.

Then in F1, Grosjean gets a grid penalty for his collision with Ricciardo but Chilton only gets a drive through for an incredibly dangerous move which is lucky it didn't injure Maldonado - Max didn't even look in his mirrors when he moved back. In my opinion, that's race ban worthy.

Let's end on a good note though - glad to see Sutil do as well as he did. Through almost no fault of his own with the incidents since Australia he seemed a little bit anonymous, but great to see him delivering again in 5th (especially with the moves on Button and Alonso - neither an easy guy to pass). 

I think RoGro really does need to have a think to himself, Kimi is fighting the championship in that car yet he is falling back very quickly.

That Lotus seat will look very nice for David Valsecchi or another driver very soon if he does not pull his weight and buck his ideas up.

Something the Sky commentators picked up on is the fact that Lotus' team principal Eric Boullier is also the agent/manager for Grosjean creating quite a conflict of interest. As team principal it would have made sense to get rid of him at the end of last season, but as an agent/manager he would effectively be booting his driver out of F1 and so earn no commission on any deals made.

To be fair, Grosjean has certainly had a better season so far than his reputation of last year, but it only takes one bad weekend for everyone to remember.

I hope Grosjean has a good race in Canada and this can be put behind us. If he finishes ahead of Kimi I think that would do him the world of good.

As for Chilton, I agree with Redders. What makes it worse is that he skipped the chicane and then tried to block Maldonaldo who he technically should have yielded to given he would have lost the place had he not cut the corner. I know it is tough at the back but that move was kind of a poor decision. However it is the first I have seen and he did a good job in beating Van De Garde (given the race restart essentially reset the field and how far apart they were when Van De Garde had to make unscheduled stops at the start of the race).

However, I feel like this was a good race weekend, nobody got hurt and we had plenty of action and events to talk about. So much for Monaco being a dull race eh?

It's unfortunate for Grosjean - he did have an irregularly high amount of crashes for one weekend - four - but three of those only affected himself (if we're not counting the semi-swipe with Lewis). Yes, the penalty is deserved but all this talk of getting rid of him has started, on the FIRST WEEKEND of this season that he's caused incidents.

Let's not forget 2012, though. If we're talking early race incidents from that season, RoGro only had three before Belgium - and two of those, he was the only victim in it.

Yes, it's unfortunate that this side appeared this weekend, but let's not all jump on the "get rid of him" bandwagon for the sake of it.

Redders1989

Well first of all his crash in FP3 affected everyone since the session was ended early so how you can say 3 only affected himself??

Then secondly I'm not jumping on any bandwagon - I'm saying Grosjean is either slow ( relative to Kimi ) or "out of control" and therefore it has to be possible that Lotus are thinking about dumping him now! Like someone else mentioned in this thread I think having your manager as team principle for the team you drive for is a massive conflict of interests and I am very surprised Lotus allow it!  

My concern is more for the stewarding and how illogical it's been - Jonny Cecotto twice purposely swpies at drivers in GP2 - gets a ten place grid penalty for the one in Malaysia, gets away with nothing in Spain - and then gets banned from the second Monaco event for making a driver error in turn 1, which is all it was.

Redders1989

Cummulative affect I think. I also think the stewards are more lennient in the lower formulas ( smaller audiences, younger drivers, decisiosn less likely to be scrutinised in the media )

 

Then in F1, Grosjean gets a grid penalty for his collision with Ricciardo but Chilton only gets a drive through for an incredibly dangerous move which is lucky it didn't injure Maldonado - Max didn't even look in his mirrors when he moved back. In my opinion, that's race ban worthy.

Redders1989

As far as Grosjean is concerned another slightly "cummulative affect" decision but also Grosjean blatantly ran into Ricciardo - not like Ricciardo was weaving or doing anything unexpected - Grosjean just "got it wrong".

Then in Chilton's case whether he looked or not the fact is he was moving naturally onto the line for the corner, was in the lead and Maldonado shouldn't have been there. Everyone is saying Alonso was a bit too "meek" in giving away his place to Perez but his only other option was to bump him like Chilton bumped Maldonado?? So which is it - should "bully boy - move or we crash" tactics be condoned therefore Alonso was right and Chilton was wrong - or should the driver in front stand up to that sort of intimidaiton and therefore Perez and Maldonado were in the wrong. End of the day Pastor had no chance of getting past him unless he "moved over" for him.

That's my take on it all anyway - did take away from the boredom of an otherwise very processional race :D 

Cummulative affect I think. I also think the stewards are more lennient in the lower formulas ( smaller audiences, younger drivers, decisiosn less likely to be scrutinised in the media )

SadPSPAddict

That is really unfortunate if that's the case. How can they expect these drivers to race more respectfully in Formula One, or anywhere else for that matter, when they let them get anyway with such Kindergarden crap? These aren't kids horsing around in the playground, these are young men driving 600+ HP open-wheel car at racing speed.

[QUOTE="SadPSPAddict"]

Cummulative affect I think. I also think the stewards are more lennient in the lower formulas ( smaller audiences, younger drivers, decisiosn less likely to be scrutinised in the media )

Rayrota

That is really unfortunate if that's the case. How can they expect these drivers to race more respectfully in Formula One, or anywhere else for that matter, when they let them get anyway with such Kindergarden crap? These aren't kids horsing around in the playground, these are young men driving 600+ HP open-wheel car at racing speed.

I agree completely but I have my fears :(