2008 Monaco GP - Race 6/18

JRS · 30 May 2008 at 10:36

FrankJH said:
Alonso was there at the right time with the right engine and the team (being run by Briatore , is always geared around one main driver.

Show me a driver in recent history who has won the title in a team that:

1) Wasn't focused around him alone.
2) Didn't have one of the two best cars on the grid.

That doesn't take anything away from the achievement of winning the title. It's a necessity these days.

By the way - who here honestly thinks Heikki is going to be granted free rein to race Hamilton for a title ever?

***edit***

FrankJH said:
Actually Spygate DID cost them more than that (from a points pov) simply because the last two races where fubar'd from McLaren's side - and mainly due to the additional pressure put on the team by the whole Spygate affaiir

McLaren are all grown up now. I'm sure the prospect of getting a drivers title outweighed any depression over the constructors. As for pressure - I suspect the pressure of Kimi's end of season roll (from the start of the Hungary weekend to the end of the season, he got 58 points....that would be 17 more than Alonso and 19 more than Hamilton then) had rather more of an effect than Spygate, especially since that was what made sure the drivers crown went to Maranello rather than Woking.

FrankJH said:
Otherwise you might as well say it was quality control in the engine that cost them everything due to the problem with HAmilton's engine in Brazil costing him the WDC, several places and a huge amount of time during the race

Or Hamilton throwing his car off the road early on trying to re-pass Alonso in a move he didn't need to make. Or how about the 'Ring earlier in the year where Hamilton failed to score? I'm sure he's wondered to himself that if he'd just been allowed to win in Monaco those two extra points would have won the title for him as well.....it's just meaningless.

Skeeter · 30 May 2008 at 11:48

rpstewart said:
Yeah, there isn't a huge amount of room between Club and Abbey so removing what is in fact the original line of Abbey Curve makes a fair bit of sense. Dunno what they're going to do for the historic races, that bit of tarmac was retained to allow the chicane to be bypassed for racing where it was a) not needed and b) would cause more problems than it solved.

EDIT: Just had a quick looke on Google Earth there and yeah, there needs to be a fair bit of shuffling around of the International Circuit to fit everything in. When I looked last night the plans had disappeared off the South Northamptonshire Council website* which is a bit of a shame because I'd be interested to see where they planned pit entrance and exit are. I'd guess a straight on at Vale would be the obvious in but an exit into the second half of the Abbey chicane looks a bit on the tight side.

* Why is the planning application with South Northants when the building work is going to be in Buckinghamshire??? The county boundary runs from Bridge to the middle of Becketts.

The plans put the pit on the inside of the track, so they coould keep the old part of the track to bypass abbey, as they will only need the extra room on the inside of the circuit, so the entry into the hairpin for the short track will only need to go. Basically, the GP and historic track will remain the same.

The plans werent very detailed. They showed the redesigns for Abbey on the track overlay, but nothing about the entrance etc, they basically had a big purple box down the straight between Club and Abbey labeled (pit/padock option B). the other side of the track (currently the best enbankment spot on the whole circuit) will have new science and welcome centres built on it, most likely with grandstands on top.

sunama · 30 May 2008 at 13:49

JRS said:
By the way - who here honestly thinks Heikki is going to be granted free rein to race Hamilton for a title ever?

Hehehe.

I said last year, the moment they got rid of Alonso, from that point onwards they were going to put all their eggs in one (Hamilton's) basket, as they realised that perhaps in this day and age, its very very difficult to support 2 drivers in the WDC. What also made it clear to me was when Hamilton was speaking to the media about who his No.2 will be for 2008 - it was almost as if he was the one who was choosing the drivers - very similar to the way in which MS used to choose his No2 drivers.

Nothing wrong with this of course. McLaren are entitled to hire/fire whomever they choose.

What Hamilton needs is a No.2 driver who can finish races consistently and score points. This would enable McLaren to win the Drivers and Constructors title. The problem with Heiki is that he doesnt score enough points and is never close enough to Hamilton to defend him against the Ferraris. The Ferraris on the other hand, usually run very close to one another. This could be crucial in the WDC, should Ferrari put all their weight behind one driver and ask the other driver to be a pain the @$$ for Hamilton and try and take points away from him.

Canada in 2 days.

Alibaba99 · 30 May 2008 at 14:05

sunama said:
Hehehe.

I said last year, the moment they got rid of Alonso, from that point onwards they were going to put all their eggs in one (Hamilton's) basket, as they realised that perhaps in this day and age, its very very difficult to support 2 drivers in the WDC. What also made it clear to me was when Hamilton was speaking to the media about who his No.2 will be for 2008 - it was almost as if he was the one who was choosing the drivers - very similar to the way in which MS used to choose his No2 drivers.

Nothing wrong with this of course. McLaren are entitled to hire/fire whomever they choose.

What Hamilton needs is a No.2 driver who can finish races consistently and score points. This would enable McLaren to win the Drivers and Constructors title. The problem with Heiki is that he doesnt score enough points and is never close enough to Hamilton to defend him against the Ferraris. The Ferraris on the other hand, usually run very close to one another. This could be crucial in the WDC, should Ferrari put all their weight behind one driver and ask the other driver to be a pain the @$$ for Hamilton and try and take points away from him.

Canada in 2 days.

Don't you mean a week and 2 days?

JRS · 30 May 2008 at 14:11

While we're on the subject of good Number 2 drivers (or at least, so-called Number 2 drivers), anyone notice that the highest scoring driver in the last four races is Felipe Massa? 2 wins, a second and a third.

Hamilton doesn't need a good team-mate to win this title, he just needs Massa to start failing to finish again!

sunama said:
Canada in 2 days.

sunama · 30 May 2008 at 16:19

Alibaba99 said:
Don't you mean a week and 2 days?

Ooopsy. Got a little excited there.

JRS said:
... anyone notice that the highest scoring driver in the last four races is Felipe Massa? 2 wins, a second and a third.

Thats championship winning form.

Overlag · 30 May 2008 at 16:28

where are these silverstone plans? cant find anything?

Alibaba99 · 30 May 2008 at 16:39

sunama said:
Thats championship winning form.

Can't remember that helping Button when he was the highest scoring driver for the final half of the season.

JRS · 30 May 2008 at 16:49

Alibaba99 said:
Can't remember that helping Button when he was the highest scoring driver for the final half of the season.

That might have had something to do with him a) being in a Honda as opposed to a top car and b) only scoring 16 points in the first 11 races.

If Massa can keep his current form, he'll prove a serious title contender. That ought to wind a few of you up on here

F1 Rejects has posted the latest edition of their podcast. Probably shouldn't listen to it if you're a Lewis fan, they seem to think that Hamilton was so horrendously lucky that his performance can hardly be listed as a positive in the race.

Skeeter · 30 May 2008 at 17:43

Overlag said:
where are these silverstone plans? cant find anything?

http://www.southnorthants.gov.uk/documents/483.htm

the first PDF has an overview of the track with all the areas planned for development about 2/3s the way through. You can see the planned change to Abbey, and where they are planning all the exrtra new buildings etc.

EDIT: Page 33.

MTA99 · 30 May 2008 at 18:11

JRS said:
F1 Rejects has posted the latest edition of their podcast. Probably shouldn't listen to it if you're a Lewis fan, they seem to think that Hamilton was so horrendously lucky that his performance can hardly be listed as a positive in the race.

Probably shouldn't listen if you've got 45mins of anything else to do. You listen to this drivel after every race? :confused:

JRS · 30 May 2008 at 18:52

MTA99 said:
Probably shouldn't listen if you've got 45mins of anything else to do. You listen to this drivel after every race?

Yep

I prefer the text reviews they do on the site (less silliness in general), but the podcast is good fun. That edition wasn't the best ever, mind.

Duke · 30 May 2008 at 20:55

http://www.itv-f1.com/news_article.aspx?id=42828

Even though I'm very much a BAR/Honda/Button fan, it is getting a bit tiresome to hear the same thing every year

Although I guess with Ross and the rule changes, you never know.

JRS · 30 May 2008 at 21:23

2007 set them back that far, it's not surprising that it's taking a long time to get back even to where they were. Lets face it - they haven't had serious form since 2004, and they couldn't do anything with it then because the Ferraris were so dominant.

JRS · 31 May 2008 at 10:30

Sorry to be bumping this one again, but it is related to the Monaco weekend. DC had something to say about the gearbox regs in his Monaco column.

The team did a great job rebuilding the car ready for the race, but unfortunately because there was differential damage they had to change that and I picked up a five-place grid penalty.

It highlighted a flaw in the regulations, which I hadn’t previously noticed, which is that you are allowed to change the engine once without penalty, but there’s no reprieve if you change the gearbox.

The other thing is that the intention of these rules is to encourage teams to build reliable cars so they cost less to operate in the course of a season. An accident is totally unrelated to that purpose.

To illustrate the point, if I had lost control in qualifying and hit the back of Felipe Massa (like Kimi Raikkonen did to Adrian Sutil in the race) then any damage to his gearbox would have dropped him from pole to sixth on the grid.

I don’t think it’s in keeping with the spirit of the rule that a driver gets penalised due to an accident in which he may have been an innocent victim, an in any case if you crash the car that is already penalty enough!

I have to admit, the man has a point. Anyone know which race Sutil's gearbox was on? If there was any damage to it courtesy of the Raikkonen smash, then it'll add insult to injury.

rpstewart · 31 May 2008 at 10:58

Aren't you allowed a free change after a DNF anyway? I thought that's how Bourdais got away with the gearbox penalty for taking the new STR when Vettel had to take a 5 place penalty.

Duke · 31 May 2008 at 12:35

rpstewart said:
Aren't you allowed a free change after a DNF anyway?

Yep I thought that was ok.

JRS · 31 May 2008 at 12:50

rpstewart said:
Aren't you allowed a free change after a DNF anyway?

Great. But accidents don't just happen in the race, they happen in qually too. And it'd be a bit rough if Coulthard had hit another car during his crash and ended up damaging their gearbox.