GRAND PRIX DE MONACO 2014

[Electric-Mayhem]

I don't see how pitting before Nico would have helped Lewis as he would have re-entered in traffic.

Lewis needed Nico to pit first so he would have clear track to bang out a succession of fast laps to leap-frog Nico (who would have been stuck in traffic).

I think what Lewis was thinking was that had his engineer/team made the call to duck into the pits immediately and Nico's had kept him out there, then he could then have caught up to the Safety Car while Nico was in the pits a lap later. Evidently they were fairly close to the incident as it was happening so they could have guessed that a Safety Car was coming, but the team kept both of them out for an extra lap since it hadn't officially been called till after they went passed the pit lane entrance.

To me, if Lewis was going to rely on a team call to come in, then either way it would have been for both him and Nico and they would have stacked either way. For it to really work, Lewis would have had to make the call himself without the ok from the team. How he thought the team was just going to gift him the win with a pit stop is beyond me and makes me think he wasn't being clear headed about it at all.

I was starting to think he had changed his ways, but he acted like a grade-A asshole to the team and to his teammate the whole weekend. This, after doing an interview with Johnny Herbert a couple days before saying "I don't play mind games", which is clearly BS. Frankly, if you want your team pulling for you, how he has been acting is the about last on the list of ways to behave. No amount of BS "teamspeak" during the post race interviews can hide the fact he was acting like a twat for a lot of the race.

All that said, I hope its a learning experience and that he and Nico continue to compete well, but cleanly and with some integrity. I could do a with a bit less of Niki Lauda's meddling too if I'm honest. It almost seems like he ramps the stuff up with his "stern talks" and all that.

 

[MacGuffin]

I don't see how pitting before Nico would have helped Lewis as he would have re-entered in traffic.

Lewis needed Nico to pit first so he would have clear track to bang out a succession of fast laps to leap-frog Nico (who would have been stuck in traffic).

Ever since the cars do not refuel anymore during the race, an earlier pit stop is a clear advantage, because you have new tyres and those are immediately a lot faster than the team mate's. One lap can already produce a change in leadership, because the 2nd one in the pits had to stay longer out on the worn tyres. It was Hamilton's only realistic chance to take the lead.

Thing is, there is an unwritten rule, a gentleman's agreement if you want, that the leader has the right for the first pit stop. Violating that rule is considered unsportsmanlike. Alonso did that with Raik?nnen in Barcelona und apparently Lewis was also planning to pull something like that. Fortunately the 2nd safety car phase prevented any kind of stunt he may have planned and that's why he was going on wailing and complaining all the time during the race.

All that said, I hope its a learning experience and that he and Nico continue to compete well, but cleanly and with some integrity. I could do a with a bit less of Niki Lauda's meddling too if I'm honest. It almost seems like he ramps the stuff up with his "stern talks" and all that.

Actually Niki Lauda is the only one who can keep them apart for now, because he "speaks their language", if you want. He has his personal experience with intense rivalries inside a team (Lauda/Prost in 1984, when Lauda won the championship by half a point). But even he admits that once it is clear that nobody else can threaten Mercedes' leadership in the championship anymore, it is only a matter of time before Hamilton and Rosberg crash into each other.

Sadly it currently seems like Hamilton is unapprochable and not even willing to even talk about it with Rosberg at the moment.

 

[Electric-Mayhem]

Actually Niki Lauda is the only one who can keep them apart for now, because he "speaks their language", if you want. He has his personal experience with intense rivalries inside a team (Lauda/Prost in 1984, when Lauda won the championship by half a point). But even he admits that once it is clear that nobody else can threaten Mercedes' leadership in the championship anymore, it is only a matter of time before Hamilton and Rosberg crash into each other.

I kind of a disagree actually. Since they are both adults and should be mature enough not to pull this teenager chest puffing stuff and just keep the rivalry on the track, having Nikki Lauda there as a third party trying to teach them a lesson seems like its just adding logs to the fire. At least in my experience, it rarely works for the better when a third party tries to advocate back and forth between two rivals.

I do agree that it seems at least Hamilton isn't willing to approach this from a mature standpoint. I know Webber and Vettel didn't get a long, but at least most of the time with them they still managed to live on the team with each other. This thing with Rosberg and Hamilton just seems like its going to end with no winners (other then the other teams who benefit from Merc falling apart).

 

[bone]

Is it just me or were some of the cameraman given instructions to focus on the advertising billboards to a much greater degree? Many of the cars-going-by shots started on a billboard, panned down to the track, followed the cars, and then panned up to another billboard at the end. I don't recall the product promotion ever being quite as blatant.

didn't realy notice that, but it must be pointed out that monaco is the only track that gets to keep it's revenue of track-side advertising, all the other tracks have to hand over their income to FOM
that, as well as the fact they don't have to pay any hosting fee

 

[GraemeH]

I surely can't be the only one that thinks Monaco stopped being "glamorous" 10+ years ago?
It's just tacky and so are the residents...
I cringe when the BBC and Sky presenters try to play it up as some sort of lovely paradise. It has the layout of a third-world shanty-town and not an ounce more class.

 

[ALXBWSCREW]

Ever since the cars do not refuel anymore during the race, an earlier pit stop is a clear advantage, because you have new tyres and those are immediately a lot faster than the team mate's. One lap can already produce a change in leadership, because the 2nd one in the pits had to stay longer out on the worn tyres. It was Hamilton's only realistic chance to take the lead.

This was not valid in Monaco as the tyres came up to temperature quite slowly so the biggest strategic advantage (the undercut) would not have worked here.

 

[mpicco]

My thoughts on the race:

I suppose there has to be a conspiracy against Sebastian Vettel, because his car always breaks down and Ricciardo's isn't, right? ... RIGHT??? Oh no, wait! I've got it Red Bull has accepted they lost the title anyway, so now they are planting defective parts into Vettel's car to gloss over their conspiracy towards Mark Webber in the past years. How's that?

There's no conspiracy, the Renault power unit is just like playing dice and he spent his lifetime allocation of luck winning the 2010 and 2012 championships.

Rosberg didn't do it on purpose, there's just no fooling the telemetry. If he did, he did an exceptional job. I dont get how parking it at the exit there deserves a yellow flag anyway, just push it all the way to the end of the run off.

The race was good for Monaco, I predicted many retirements and bimbambum. So disappointed about Kimi's continuous string of mishaps. Alonso tried a push for Ricciardo and got within a couple of seconds at one point but that car needs a big upgrade right now.
Ferrari's engines are not the best performing ones but you gotta say maybe they're not pushing them to the very limit like Merc and Renault?
Maldonado, Vettel, Kvyat, Vergne, Bottas, all out with engine problems, not one Ferrari.

Is it just me or were some of the cameraman given instructions to focus on the advertising billboards to a much greater degree? Many of the cars-going-by shots started on a billboard, panned down to the track, followed the cars, and then panned up to another billboard at the end. I don't recall the product promotion ever being quite as blatant.

The camera work - but specially the camera control - was such shit!
There was a 4 car battle for 5th through 8th at one point, Raikkonen, and I think both McLarens and Hulkenberg, going on. But instead the camera control guy was fixated on Ricciardo, who was closing the gap to Hamilton but still 4 seconds away and completely uninteresting.
Before that, there were some other duels I had to follow via the live timing app on the F1 website cos the stupid control was following Rosberg lapping completely ALONE.
These guys bend over backwards to make F1 "exciting" and then refuse to show it on TV.

 

[Red_Bull]

... not one Ferrari.

Time to wind them up a bit if they have that option

 

[ALXBWSCREW]

Ferrari said they are bringing a more aggressive engine mapping software to Canada as they are now comfortable with reliability.

 

[Four Five Eight]

Ferrari said they are bringing a more aggressive engine mapping software to Canada as they are now comfortable with reliability.

Perhaps Kimi will finally score some decent points, if his performance at Monaco showed anything it's that he's at least found some race pace even though other drivers keep giving him punctures.
Alonso is in 3rd at the moment but it's a pretty decent 3rd but he's going to have to keep Riccardo and Vettel off of the Podium to keep it that way.

 

[Kiskaloo]

Ever since the cars do not refuel anymore during the race, an earlier pit stop is a clear advantage, because you have new tyres and those are immediately a lot faster than the team mate's. One lap can already produce a change in leadership, because the 2nd one in the pits had to stay longer out on the worn tyres. It was Hamilton's only realistic chance to take the lead.

That did not appear to be the case at Monaco, however, due to the coldish track temperatures requiring more time for the tires to come up to speed. So I think if Lewis had forced the issue, he'd have struggled to get his tires up to temp and would not have been able to capitalize on the new rubber compared to Nico continuing on used, but hot, tires until his later stop. Hence why I believe that the only viable strategy was for Nico to pit first so he was the one struggling to get tire temp in traffic while Lewis made maximum advantage of his current tires.

 

[lukenwolf]

Meh it's was Monaco (nearly impossible to overtake), so if I was Ham sandwich I wouldn't be too worried. If it were any other track then Ham sandwich would have easily overtaken cheatberg.

I suspect regular service (Ham domination) will resume from the next race onwards.

edit: Rofl at MacMuffin... the guy should just stop embarrassing himself.

Is it just me or do you turn especially nasty whenever a German is involved? You hate Vettel with a passion, badmouth Rosberg and Sutil. Do we scare you?

 

[That American Girl]

It'd be fantastic if whoever won Canada drove straight to parc ferme, climbed out of his car and goes to wait by the #2 sign for his teammate to drive in, then point it out and maybe give him the finger for good measure

Even with all the bitchiness, I still like Hamilton. I just hope he gets over his sulking in time to get his act together for the rest of the season.

 

[Four Five Eight]

Even with all the bitchiness, I still like Hamilton. I just hope he gets over his sulking in time to get his act together for the rest of the season.

I dunno, even when he's winning it seems he spends his whole time on the radio complaining about the car, I remember in Spain I think he came into qualifying went on the radio and said something like "We made the car worse!" he then went on to take pole position and win the race so easily that he lapped Kimi's Ferrari which was in 7th.

 

[bone]

^if they made it worse, it's worse

you should listen to button his radio messages, all he does is complain about the car, and tell everyone they should do something about it
hamilton is always asking what HE should change, how HE can adapt his driving style to get a better result

Even with all the bitchiness, I still like Hamilton. I just hope he gets over his sulking in time to get his act together for the rest of the season.

he heads over heels more interesting than vettel for instance, who can only sprout out pre-chewed PR bullshit

 

[MacGuffin]

Even with all the bitchiness, I still like Hamilton. I just hope he gets over his sulking in time to get his act together for the rest of the season.

I dunno, even when he's winning it seems he spends his whole time on the radio complaining about the car, I remember in Spain I think he came into qualifying went on the radio and said something like "We made the car worse!" he then went on to take pole position and win the race so easily that he lapped Kimi's Ferrari which was in 7th.

If I had the chance, I'd ask him: "Would you rather still be with McLaren now?"

 

[Pininfarina_]

he heads over heels more interesting than vettel for instance, who can only sprout out pre-chewed PR bullshit

Agreed. Point perfectly described when his car started failing and he blurted out "Cmon guys...." then quickly followed it with "I mean......I'm sure you're trying everything".

It's like he's worried Horner is going to spank him.

 

[Cellos88GT]

It has the layout of a third-world shanty-town and not an ounce more class.

Have you been to a third-world shanty-town?

 

[mpicco]

Have you been to a third-world shanty-town?

Of course he hasnt...

 

[Red_Bull]

Have you been to a third-world shanty-town?

He's sorta right, it's a maze of stairs and buildings randomly plastered all over what is pretty much a cliff. But there the similarities end!