[image=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2511/3940393525_6141341a26_o.jpg]
Formula 1 - 2011 Monaco Grand Prix
Grand Prix---------Winning Driver-------Winning Constructor
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/200983541/p1/?18]Australian Grand Prix[/link] - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/201397620/p1/?16]Malaysian Grand Prix[/link] - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/201584480/p1/?10]Chinese Grand Prix[/link]- Lewis Hamilton - Mclaren-Mercedez
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/202174432/p1/?10]Turkish Grand Prix[/link] - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/202527780/p1/?11]Spanish Grand Prix[/link] - - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
Driver Standings
1 S. Vettel 118.0
2 L. Hamilton 77.0
3 M. Webber 67.0
4 J. Button 61.0
5 F. Alonso 51.0
6 N. Rosberg 26.0
7 N. Heidfeld 25.0
8 F. Massa 24.0
9 V. Petrov 21.0
10 M. Schumacher 14.0
11 K. Kobayashi 9.0
12 S. Buemi 6.0
13 A. Sutil 2.0
14 P. di Resta 2.0
15 S. Perez 2.0
16 R. Barrichello 0.0
17 N. Karthikeyan 0.0
18 J. Trulli 0.0
19 R. Kubica 0.0
20 J. d'Ambrosio 0.0
21 P. Maldonado 0.0
22 J. Alguersuari 0.0
23 H. Kovalainen 0.0
24 T. Glock 0.0
25 V. Liuzzi 0.0
Constructors
1Red Bull 185.0
2McLaren 138.0
3Ferrari 75.0
4Renault 46.0
5Mercedes GP 40.0
6Sauber 11.0
7Toro Rosso 6.0
8Force India 4.0
9Williams 0.0
10Team Lotus 0.0
11Hispania Racing 0.0
12Virgin Racing 0.0
The Monaco Grand Prix can be one of the greatest races on the calendar when F1 cars have variable traction. It's difficult enough when it's constant.
The place has got everything going for it. A superb location with a dazzling amphitheater harbor; an unforgiving circuit that punishes the mildest of indiscretions; a sense of history - look at a car at any point on the circuit and you know where it is (there's none of the "Is that Turn 4 or Turn 13...?") And its corners have names.
And then there's all the money. The Monaco GP oozes money - tax-dodging money, money from the swanky hotels and hospitality packages, money paying for the multi-million pound yachts of the sheiks and the oligarchs. F1 entertains its sponsors big style in Monaco so it's important not to put in too shabby a performance for the people who are bankrolling the operation.
The cruel irony of Monaco for the teams is that the one place they really do need the palatial motorhomes, they can't fit them in. Still, it's better than the old days when everything was stuffed into a pitlane garage the size of a Portakabin and the rest was in a multi-story car park.
The person most under most pressure to put in a good performance in Monaco is Mark Webber. Last year's winner could really do with a win right now to get his season started. Or at least for Vettel to do something stupid, like Spa 2010. That doesn't look very likely.
He'll be hard pressed at a track that doesn't favour aero efficiency but does reward cars with bagfuls of traction, which the McLaren seems to have lots of right now (although not off the line, eh, lads). Both Button and Hamilton have won in Monaco and like racing there, even if Hamilton did have an unfortunate qualifying accident going into Massenet one year. And in 2010 Jenson's engineers left a baffle in his radiator.
Ferrari won't be in the best mental state as they rock up to Monte Carlo having just sacked their technical director Also Costa. In Spain Alonso either hit problems or was running his engine on too much fuel for too long. Istanbul seems to have been a false dawn with the leading Ferrari finishing over a lap down on the winner, on pure pace.
Last year in Monaco Michael Schumacher proved what you can do with a variable bit of traction by sprinting past Alonso up the hill to Anthony Nogues. We could get a lot more of that this year with the varying tyre wear and different strategies.
Schumi himself needs to brush off the background chatter of is he/isn't he going to retire. He doesn't look happy. Only Rosberg's ailing car prevented him from finishing behind his team-mate again in Spain. Michael's not a quitter, though, and wouldn't want to be thought as one. My Guess is he'll grit his teeth and carry on, but it's not going to be easy.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Monaco race will be the role that backmarkers have to play in proceedings. Pirelli are bringing the soft and supersoft tyres and they are likely to degrade quicker than a Premiership footballer's reputation on Twitter.
This is going to create a hell of a lot of marbles and with the track being the narrowest in F1, with only one slender racing line, it's not going to be much fun going off line to overtake an HRT or a Virgin. There could be some serious problems late on in the race when the carpet of rubber has been put down waiting to trap the unwary driver.
Will backmarkers be instructed to go off line to let faster drivers through?
We already know that there's going to be no DRS in the Monaco tunnel, but the rest of qualifying, particularly Q1, will be high anxiety. Obviously it depends on the difference in times between the two tyres after practice, but Lotus - without the disadvantage of having high speed corners to contend with - could be right in amongst the midfield. They have Monaco expert Jarno Trulli and Kovalainen is no slouch round the streets either.
Lotus are likely to use their supersofts early on and it might well be that everyone is forced to go for the Option tyre in Q1 just to play it safe. The combination of traffic, potential red flags brought on by accidents and the humiliation of going out early in front of the sponsors may force teams to surrender that extra set.
The Safety Car is normally busiest in Monaco and Montreal, so the number crunchers will be crunching those numbers on a bewildering set of scenarios for what happens to the race strategy if we get an SC. Or should that be 'when we get the SC'. With such a high rate of attrition and the Armco claiming many cars it will Lotus's best chance of the year for grabbing a point. It could also be one of the most mind-blowingly complicated strategic races of all time.
Oh, and the BBC are good at digging up old embarrassing footage of footballers with dodgy perms, they ought to root around in the video archive and get the tape of David Coulthard moaning about being held up by Enrique Bernoldi. One year Quagmire got stuck behind an Arrows and he felt it was the Arrows' driver's duty to get out of his way because he didn't stand a chance of winning the race abnd DC did.
Formula 1 - 2011 Monaco Grand Prix
Grand Prix---------Winning Driver-------Winning Constructor
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/200983541/p1/?18]Australian Grand Prix[/link] - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/201397620/p1/?16]Malaysian Grand Prix[/link] - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/201584480/p1/?10]Chinese Grand Prix[/link]- Lewis Hamilton - Mclaren-Mercedez
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/202174432/p1/?10]Turkish Grand Prix[/link] - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/202527780/p1/?11]Spanish Grand Prix[/link] - - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
Driver Standings
1 S. Vettel 118.0
2 L. Hamilton 77.0
3 M. Webber 67.0
4 J. Button 61.0
5 F. Alonso 51.0
6 N. Rosberg 26.0
7 N. Heidfeld 25.0
8 F. Massa 24.0
9 V. Petrov 21.0
10 M. Schumacher 14.0
11 K. Kobayashi 9.0
12 S. Buemi 6.0
13 A. Sutil 2.0
14 P. di Resta 2.0
15 S. Perez 2.0
16 R. Barrichello 0.0
17 N. Karthikeyan 0.0
18 J. Trulli 0.0
19 R. Kubica 0.0
20 J. d'Ambrosio 0.0
21 P. Maldonado 0.0
22 J. Alguersuari 0.0
23 H. Kovalainen 0.0
24 T. Glock 0.0
25 V. Liuzzi 0.0
Constructors
1Red Bull 185.0
2McLaren 138.0
3Ferrari 75.0
4Renault 46.0
5Mercedes GP 40.0
6Sauber 11.0
7Toro Rosso 6.0
8Force India 4.0
9Williams 0.0
10Team Lotus 0.0
11Hispania Racing 0.0
12Virgin Racing 0.0
The Monaco Grand Prix can be one of the greatest races on the calendar when F1 cars have variable traction. It's difficult enough when it's constant.
The place has got everything going for it. A superb location with a dazzling amphitheater harbor; an unforgiving circuit that punishes the mildest of indiscretions; a sense of history - look at a car at any point on the circuit and you know where it is (there's none of the "Is that Turn 4 or Turn 13...?") And its corners have names.
And then there's all the money. The Monaco GP oozes money - tax-dodging money, money from the swanky hotels and hospitality packages, money paying for the multi-million pound yachts of the sheiks and the oligarchs. F1 entertains its sponsors big style in Monaco so it's important not to put in too shabby a performance for the people who are bankrolling the operation.
The cruel irony of Monaco for the teams is that the one place they really do need the palatial motorhomes, they can't fit them in. Still, it's better than the old days when everything was stuffed into a pitlane garage the size of a Portakabin and the rest was in a multi-story car park.
The person most under most pressure to put in a good performance in Monaco is Mark Webber. Last year's winner could really do with a win right now to get his season started. Or at least for Vettel to do something stupid, like Spa 2010. That doesn't look very likely.
He'll be hard pressed at a track that doesn't favour aero efficiency but does reward cars with bagfuls of traction, which the McLaren seems to have lots of right now (although not off the line, eh, lads). Both Button and Hamilton have won in Monaco and like racing there, even if Hamilton did have an unfortunate qualifying accident going into Massenet one year. And in 2010 Jenson's engineers left a baffle in his radiator.
Ferrari won't be in the best mental state as they rock up to Monte Carlo having just sacked their technical director Also Costa. In Spain Alonso either hit problems or was running his engine on too much fuel for too long. Istanbul seems to have been a false dawn with the leading Ferrari finishing over a lap down on the winner, on pure pace.
Last year in Monaco Michael Schumacher proved what you can do with a variable bit of traction by sprinting past Alonso up the hill to Anthony Nogues. We could get a lot more of that this year with the varying tyre wear and different strategies.
Schumi himself needs to brush off the background chatter of is he/isn't he going to retire. He doesn't look happy. Only Rosberg's ailing car prevented him from finishing behind his team-mate again in Spain. Michael's not a quitter, though, and wouldn't want to be thought as one. My Guess is he'll grit his teeth and carry on, but it's not going to be easy.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Monaco race will be the role that backmarkers have to play in proceedings. Pirelli are bringing the soft and supersoft tyres and they are likely to degrade quicker than a Premiership footballer's reputation on Twitter.
This is going to create a hell of a lot of marbles and with the track being the narrowest in F1, with only one slender racing line, it's not going to be much fun going off line to overtake an HRT or a Virgin. There could be some serious problems late on in the race when the carpet of rubber has been put down waiting to trap the unwary driver.
Will backmarkers be instructed to go off line to let faster drivers through?
We already know that there's going to be no DRS in the Monaco tunnel, but the rest of qualifying, particularly Q1, will be high anxiety. Obviously it depends on the difference in times between the two tyres after practice, but Lotus - without the disadvantage of having high speed corners to contend with - could be right in amongst the midfield. They have Monaco expert Jarno Trulli and Kovalainen is no slouch round the streets either.
Lotus are likely to use their supersofts early on and it might well be that everyone is forced to go for the Option tyre in Q1 just to play it safe. The combination of traffic, potential red flags brought on by accidents and the humiliation of going out early in front of the sponsors may force teams to surrender that extra set.
The Safety Car is normally busiest in Monaco and Montreal, so the number crunchers will be crunching those numbers on a bewildering set of scenarios for what happens to the race strategy if we get an SC. Or should that be 'when we get the SC'. With such a high rate of attrition and the Armco claiming many cars it will Lotus's best chance of the year for grabbing a point. It could also be one of the most mind-blowingly complicated strategic races of all time.
Oh, and the BBC are good at digging up old embarrassing footage of footballers with dodgy perms, they ought to root around in the video archive and get the tape of David Coulthard moaning about being held up by Enrique Bernoldi. One year Quagmire got stuck behind an Arrows and he felt it was the Arrows' driver's duty to get out of his way because he didn't stand a chance of winning the race abnd DC did.
