Monaco GP Discussion

[TomWazzleshaw]

Welcome to the official F1 Rejects discussion thread of the 2009 Monaco Grand Prix held at Monte Carlo.
So far 2 practice sessions have been run and we know 2 things from them:
1. Toyota and BMW Sauber are going to be slow... and I mean SLOW
2. This is going to be the most interesting Monaco GP in a long time.

[eytl]

I have finished moving house today and Kuwashima and I are waiting with baited breath for qualifying ...

Our main interest is that Force India appears to be well and truly in the midfield this time around ...

[TomWazzleshaw]

Anyone know when Qualifying starts on OneHD? Tv Guide says it's 8:55pm-10:05pm but from memory qualifying doesn't start till um... 10pm AEST?
And yes the Force is genuinly competitive this weekend.
Interesting to note that both RBR and STR are stuck in the midfield quagmire while Toyota and Beamer are still nowhere near a competitive pace.
All of a sudden I see Sutil making Q3

[Captain Hammer]

Red Bull with their much-hyped double diffuser are rather disappointing.

I'm curious to know how light te likes of Alonso, Hamilton and Kovalainen are in comparison to Button and Barrichello.

[Valrys]

All of a sudden I see Sutil making Q3

Don't jinx it! :p
And it was a pleasent surprise to see Force India banging on the door of the top 10 in final practice, really looking forward to the race now

[TomWazzleshaw]

WARNING: SPOILER BELOW!
Qualifying is over and Jenson Button claims the pole just over 2 hundreths of a second faster than Raikkonen. Hamilton crashed in NQ1 and will start 16th while both BMW and Toyota are having a weekend from hell.

[Klon]

2. This is going to be the most interesting Monaco GP in a long time.

No, it won't. Button will win once more and anyone who could challenge him in the race will once again f*** up their strategies or some crap like that. Why should I even bother watching this "race" tomorrow?

[LukeB]

Because it's not a Ferrari or McLaren boring us all to death for once.

[Debaser]

Button doesn't generally start well and the Ferrari does start well. If Kimi leads after turn 1 the race will be very exciting. Webber's looking good, another podium is possible if he's fuelled as heavily as I think he is.

[Niallllll]

and with both the Force India's making it through to Q2, perhaps we may see them get their first points.

[Waris]

and with both the Force India's making it through to Q2, perhaps we may see them get their first points.

I'll certainly have my fingers crossed for them, after the bad luck that struck Sutil here last year (and in China this year)!

[Irisado]

I just hope we get some incidents and unreliability, as the race will, most likely, be very boring without them.

I was actually shocked this weekend. A big turbo style engine detonation for Kubica in practice (when was the last time we had one of those), an engine failure for Vettel, spins from several drivers in qualifying which actually damaged some of the cars, and a crash from Hamilton. I felt like we were back at the turn of the century when the cars actually used to break down from time to time and drivers actually made mistakes. More please! It's refreshing to have some drama for a change instead of all the cars running flawlessly, and drivers just driving across acres of tarmac when they go off the road.

[LionZoo]

We most hold a party to celebrate Force India's success!

[Bleu]

We most hold a party to celebrate Force India's success!

Only if they don't perform enough well to escape reject status.

[sailer 99]

I think all the kers cars would fly into the first corner and they will be a big accident at the start and becuase force India are starting further up the pack they will be 1,2 after the first lap

[tristan1117]

Post-Qualifying fuel weights, Hamilton to start last because of gearbox change.

1. Jenson Button, Brawn GP, 647.5 kg
2. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 644
3. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn GP, 648
4. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 631.5
5. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 643.5
6. Nico Rosberg, Williams, 642
7. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 644
8. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 646.5
9. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 654
10. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams, 668
11. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 670
12. Nelson Piquet, Renault, 673.1
13. Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India, 693
14. Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso, 699.5
15. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 670
16. Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber, 680
17. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber, 696
18. Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 688.3
19. Timo Glock, Toyota, 700.8
20. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 645.5

Notes: Button is heavier then his rivals behind him. Hamilton is lighter then the people in front of him, he has to make some overtaking maneuvers.

[TomWazzleshaw]

Vettel ran superlight just to get any performance out of that Red Bull. Maybe Red Bull doesn't give you wings afterall
Fisichella, Kubica, Bourdais and Glock all running as heavy as Panzer tanks (Glock in particular. 700.8kg? )
Raikkonen, Kovaleinen and Massa all in the top 10 with KERS so expect some chaos down into Sainte Devote
Barichello the dangerman again running heavier than the guys around him.

[LionZoo]

Unusual amount of action for Monaco so far early into the race.

[LionZoo]

I think it's interesting that the two teams using KERS are having relatively good speed compared to in other races in the season.

[crazydude1992]

ARGH! Fisi just outside points!

[Waris]

FANTASTIC performance by Piquet!! He crashes and it's not his own fault!

[XurizManson]

FANTASTIC performance by Piquet!! He crashes and it's not his own fault!

Heehee! He said to the brazilian broadcasting: "That´s what happens when unexperienced drivers are in!!!"

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

[Paul Hayes]

Well, it could have been a worse race, I suppose... As a Button fan I am very happy about how things are looking for him, but as an F1 fan I do hope we get some closer races in Turkey and at Silverstone, or else this could very quickly become a very dull season, after it promised to much.

[Paul Hayes]

Heehee! He said to the brazilian broadcasting: "That´s what happens when unexperienced drivers are in!!!"

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

He said the same thing to the BBC, prompting a suitably sarcy comment from Legard.

[Irisado]

Piquet's comment was fatuous in view of all the errors he made in his debut season, and continues to make now.

It is often said that when you criticise others you are really highlighting your own flaws, and I feel that this was very the case with Piquet during that interview, and his own insecurity really came to the surface with the way he chose to attack Buemi.

I thought it was a pretty dull race overall, although I was relieved Raikkonen didn't win.

Both Bourdais and Fisichella drove well, and I must confess I was hoping someone in the top eight would break down towards the end, so that Fisichella could claim the last point, but in this era of absurd reliability, that was always going to be a forlorn hope.

I find the ridiculously high levels of reliability are not helpful to the racing in my view, as tracks which used to punish the cars used to spice up the races a bit, as you were never certain who would finish, but these days this just doesn't happen and I think that is bad for F1. We need more unreliability in my view.

[Captain Hammer]

Vettel ran superlight just to get any performance out of that Red Bull. Maybe Red Bull doesn't give you wings afterall

Or maybe it's just Monaco. After all, the McLarens hadn't been on-pace all year, but somehow Hamilton manged to pull something out of thin air and appear to be a genuine contender. Then he went and threw it all away by binning it in the hedge down at Mirabeau. I'm thinking that Turkey will paint a different picture because it's radically different: very fast, and where the focus on aerodynamics is very different to the role they play Monaco. Expect the Red Bulls to be back at the front - though arguably they never left given Webber's fifth - and the McLarens to go back into freefall.

[minrdi]

There have been a couploe of comments in this thread criticising some the double-diffuser gang's lack of performance at Monaco. It's important to remember that the launch of a new double-diffuser at Monaco is hardly going to be the panacea of performance gain (in Red Bull's case), and its inclusion on the car won't be of huge consequence at the Monte Carlo circuit. Adrian Newey stated on several occasions that the new diffuser on the RB5 won't show its potential until they reach a proper aero circuit like Turkey.

Being a high-downforce, low-grip circuit, it relies less of aero efficiency and much more on mechanical grip and being able to work (but no over-work) the tyres to generate enough heat and grip while being able to last a decent number of laps. Vettel drives the car much harder than Webber - and probably didn't set up his car as well as Webber - and overcooked his tyres in no time. The performance drop-off was staggering.

The Toyotas and BMWs were a case in point this weekend, and both were clearly found wanting when it came to generating enough mechanical grip in the slow corners which are prevalent on the streets of Monaco. Double diffuser or not, Toyota clearly had a problem in this area this weekend. BMW too, struggled with generating enough heat in their tyres, and in spite of all solutions they looked at (e.g. softer suspension and spring settings to put more heat in the tyres), they couldn't make any headway - clearly their problems lie in several parts of the chassis, if not the entire car...

McLaren's performance (apart from their drivers binning their cars in the Armco) also support this theory. Their car has a clear problem maintaining its grip in long high-speed corners, but has better performance in low-speed corners. There aren't any long high-speed corners to speak of in Monaco, so the chassis deficiency doesn't come to a head and the drivers had a rare opportunity to outperform the car. We all know what happened... Unless they can launch some serious aero gains by Turkey, they are really going to struggle there...

[Alianora La Canta]

Could Nelson please tell me at what point he stopped being a "young driver"? It must be news to the people who have been using this to excuse his performances thus far. If he'd said "Please sack me" he could not have been plainer.

As a Force India and Fisichella fan, I was absolutely delighted to see Giancarlo take P9 and fend off his ex-teammate Alonso. I thought he was a little unlucky that Bourdais didn't get penalised and/or get damage after either of his excursions across the Swimming Pool chicane (same applies to Massa, except that he was too far ahead for a penalty to grant Fisi a point), but I was well impressed by Giancarlo's race. Pity Vijay was in South Africa watching his previously-unfancied cricket team make the IPL final and missed the F1 fun.

[XurizManson]

[fjackdaw]

He said the same thing to the BBC, prompting a suitably sarcy comment from Legard.

"...said the old hand Nelson Piquet".

[TomWazzleshaw]

And Bruno informs us yet again with another humourous cartoon