The UpdateF1 team view

Welcome to a slightly delayed review of the Monaco Grand Prix, and it has to be said that while the race was far from the most exciting so far, we were still left with plenty to talk about. Contributions this week come from Lita, Dylan, Braden, James and me, Steve, and there are certainly some controversial comments to be had! Let’s see what the UpdateF1 team made of the events from the Monaco Grand Prix:

Steve: Welcome all. We will begin with the obvious talking point, the Mclaren ‘team orders’ shenanigans! Now that the furore has died down, with the benefit of hindsight, what did we make of it all?

Dylan: What do you expect? The rate Hamilton caught Alonso I expected him to fly past to be honest, or at least try. I’m sure Ron merely suggested that they hold station so as not to risk neither of them finishing.

Lita: I found it annoying that the commentators were all of a sudden trying to hype up the ‘upcoming battle' between Alonso and Hamilton when the rookie was closing in on the champion. We all knew nothing was going to happen because it's Monaco so what was the point?

Steve: Certainly, the whole row was created by some factions of the press who appear to hold somewhat limited knowledge of the sport. Add in the ‘Monaco Effect’ – i.e. a distinct lack of overtaking and close proximity to walls – and we got exactly what we should have expected. It was certainly a fine team performance by McLaren.

James: I don't think that even if Kimi had started
from the sharp end we would have seen the result being any different. If the rest of the season has power shifts between the McLaren and Ferrari camps this is going to be a season to cherish!

Braden: One thing that did surprise me was the difference in race trim between the McLaren and the Ferrari. All weekend we saw that McLaren were fastest, but that’s been the case a few times this year and Ferrari have managed to come out and at least push the McLarens to the line. Ferrari should not be that far behind anyone on any circuit, even if this circuit does narrow the gaps a little, they have been the best car all year and they go to a car that is 70 seconds off the lead.

Dylan: It may be Monaco and have the stigma of not being able to overtake, but we have seen enough in the last 2 years there to know that this isn’t the case. Quite simply none of the drivers, other then the 2 piloting the McLaren cars, and Scott Speed, had the balls to be out there. The fact that there were 18 finishers shows how soft they were all being.

Steve: You expected more action, so to speak?

Dylan: Yes. In the confines of Monaco, if the drivers were committed you would expect 2 or 3 incidents of drivers scraping the walls, or trying to force their way past.

Lita: The race was boring from start to finish. The only excitement being Liuzzi and Sutil hitting the barriers. I thought those incidents might have upped the excitement with a few safety cars but no unfortunately. The McLaren performance was impressive, though.

James: I thoroughly enjoyed the race, Lewis really pushed and pushed all the way through and really showed his class.

Steve: What of Ferrari, then? Raikkonens accident on Saturday was an unnecessary one, but I thought he did all he could in the race. Massa, however, just seemed to blend in to the background.

Braden: He was rather pathetic that weekend and seemed to have no confidence in the car whatsoever compared to Kimi.

Dylan: The story of Massa complaining about being stuck behind Davidson for 10 laps because there were no blue flags confuses me; forget the blue flags, if you really wanted to get past him, you could have! Stop being soft and conservative and grow some balls.

Braden: I get the feeling that on a drivers track, Massa is clearly not a great driver, but a good driver being carried by a good car.

Steve: I tend to agree if truth be told. Drive of the race – Alonso?

James: Scott Speed. He did extremely well in the STR to fight his way through the field as he did and should have been rewarded with a bonus point!

Dylan: Considering I slept for half of it I’d have to give it to Alonso, although it’s hard to look bad when you have no pressure on you. Scott Speed did an awesome job to finish just outside the points and in front of the two Honda drivers and his Red Bull stable mate Coulthard. Lackluster performance goes to the rest of the field other then Lewis Hamilton.

Braden: Alonso for sure. He was the quickest man out there and equal with Hamilton, but when Hamilton put some pressure on, Alonso remained calm and showed who is boss by pumping in fast lap times when it counted.

Steve: I got the impression that Alonso was more at ease this race, while Hamilton often looked like an accident waiting to happen. Scott Speed seems to have come alive all of a sudden, so maybe the stories that Berger has told him he has to fight for the drive are true.

Lita: I thought Trulli would have been punished for holding up Alonso theway he did. He took around 4 seconds from his advantage over Hamilton so I thought that would have been the makings for a drive-through penalty. Toyota's overall performance once again was a disaster and it continues to make me very unhappy after a race.

Steve: I was expecting more from Toyota after Jarno Trulli’s stunning practice time on Thursday, but they seemed to fade away as the weekend wore on, actually becoming slower! Ralf Schumacher continues to baffle me this season – I may not be his greatest fan, but he is quicker than he is looking at the moment.

Braden: The worst driver of the weekend would have to go to Ralf, for the one millionth time. The guy almost looks out of his depth now with the young stars and he is going to lose his job soon unless he snaps out of his incredible slump. A mention to Adrian Sutil who is surely impressing everyone in the paddock and pushing for a higher drive.

Steve: Sutil was astonishing in that wet practice. I see his name has cropped up in a very probably false rumour as a replacement for Ralf!

Braden: He could end up in a Renault next year if Fisi doesn’t show his worth.

Steve: I think Fisichella is driving out of his skin this season. Kovalainen, on the other hand, has yet to do anything other than bang in a few fast laps at the last race when he had next to no fuel. I’m beginning to think of him as another Jan Magnussen – quick, but simply not with it in F1 – time will tell. Final words on what was, after all, a rather dull Monaco Grand Prix - Lita?

Lita: I believe they should drop the Monaco GP from the calendar. The lack of overtaking means it provides no entertainment at all. The only thing that alleviates the boredom is when collisions happen, but we didn't even have that.

Braden: The race was very boring as unlike previous years there were no safety car periods to liven up a race. Safety cars can often bring in mixed strategies and cause chaos in the order and lead to a different winner, but with only two cars into the barrier it wasn’t to be.

Dylan: All in all, the race was over after the first corner, which was obvious from the very beginning. No one challenged anywhere that I could see at all through the field. All passing was done in the pits, which quite frankly, was the pits!

Steve: And on that note, all that remains is for me to say thank you to the contributors for this week, and I look forward to talking to you all post-Canada!


Now we arrive at the highlight of the week, the most talked about post-race feature in F1 circles; courtesy of the one and only Braden Earl, I bring you the very controversial and almost certainly annoying BRADES GRADES.

Brades Grades

Driver grades

Fernando Alonso – A++
Alonso was dominant all weekend on what is typically known as a drivers track. He showed that he is clearly the best driver in the field and was able to put in the quick lap times when it mattered. Best performance by a driver all year.

Lewis Hamilton – A+
A great drive from the rookie. Although he does know the track very well from previous races, he was adapting to the track in a new car and showed how good he was. While Alonso was dominating, Hamilton was cruising with him, but just not good enough to finish on the top step this time.

Felipe Massa – C
Monaco was an awful drive from Massa. Throughout the race he looked completely disinterested and never put up a fight, just cruising around in third. There is no way a team could go from 20 seconds in front to 70 seconds behind without a poor effort from a driver.

Giancarlo Fisichella – A-
Fisi had his best race of the year at Monaco and was good enough to stay in front of the impressive BMW’s. He completely outshone his team mate in the race and qualifying and showed that Renault has made some forward progress.

Robert Kubica – A-
A very solid drive from Kubica last weekend at Monaco saw him get a well deserved fifth place, who is finally starting to come into his own as a driver and shone in qualifying like usual before having a slow segment three. During the race he struggled early on the heavy fuel load of a one stopper, but was able to make good headway towards the front of the pack.

Nick Heidfeld – B+
Nick was similar to Kubica over the entirety of the weekend and replicated the performance of his younger team mate. However his grade was put down by the fact that he started in front of Kubica, yet ended up behind. Being beaten by his team mate would have hurt him badly and he will be looking to rectify that come Montreal.

Alexander Wurz – A-
One of the drives of the day from this field as Wurz managed to fight a heavy fuel load and a tonne of traffic to grab a well deserved two points and his first of the season. The only bad point about his weekend would be missing the final shootout where his team mate managed to grab fifth position.

Kimi Raikkonen – C-
Monaco was a poor weekend by the illustrious standards that Kimi has set for himself over the past few seasons. The mistake he made in qualifying set his chances of anything in the race back completely as he had to start from sixteenth. His drive in the race though was a cool headed one and he did very well to grab a point, considering the possibility of passing at Monaco.

Scott Speed – A+
Speed thoroughly deserved a point at Monaco and will be shattered that he came so close to grabbing one in what might be one of only a few chances in this tight season. Starting from so far down on the grid after technical problems, he drove a fantastic race to get up above drivers who started much higher. I have criticised him in the past, but he has started to show how much talent he has underneath that helmet.

Rubens Barrichello – B
Being in a Honda has not helped Rubens career so far, as he is struggling to break into the top ten, let alone get a point this year. He did very well to progress up the ladder to tenth after some retirements in front of him, which is an improvement for Honda. However this improvement is due to the nature of the Monaco track rather than Honda developing it.

Jenson Button – B-
Once again this year Jenson has been outclassed by his team mate. Now that Rubens has settled into the team, he has shown Jenson how good he can be and that Button still has a long way to go before he is the number one. However this was an improved effort by Button and will go a long way to helping his confidence improve.

Nico Rosberg – B
For Nico and Williams this was an improved effort on the performances this year, which saw him grab a deserved fifth place in qualifying. However he was too cautious at the start of the race while trying to prevent a crash. This lost him valuable places and in the end he got stuck behind some heavy cars and since he was on a two stopper, it effectively ended his race.

Heikki Kovalainen – C+
This was yet another disappointing weekend for Renault boss Flavio Briatore and his hopeful star in Kovalainen. He struggled for any pace in the race after behind stuck behind one stoppers and never showed a true indication of pace in practice. This was not helped by being held up by DC in the second segment of qualifying.

David Coulthard – C-
DC did not have a good weekend at his home track of Monaco after having a first lap tangle with Liuzzi. This tangle knocked part of his front wing off and cost him with understeer for the rest of the race and as such he had no pace whatsoever. This was the second bad part of his weekend as he and his team cost themselves a top ten qualifying by not letting Kovalainen through on his flying lap in segment two of qualifying.

Jarno Trulli – C+
Monaco turned into a disappointing weekend for Jarno after he set a stunning lap in one of the practice sessions. One consolation for the Italian would be his dominance of Ralf Schumacher in all sessions throughout the weekend; however his Monaco skills were not up to the job of giving Toyota any points.

Ralf Schumacher – D-
Ralf is showing everyone that he could be the worst driver in Formula One this year. He has been soundly beaten at almost every race by Jarno and in the last few weekends he has done an awful job in qualifying and race trim. Monaco was no different as he qualified in a lowly twentieth position, ahead of one of the Spykers and a Super Aguri, and finished in sixteenth position, ahead of four retirements.

Takuma Sato – D
Although Taku was setting some fast laps earlier in the weekend, he had nothing to run with in qualifying and the race. His job was as bad as Ralf’s in the fact that he qualified twenty first and finished in seventeenth. Taku will be hoping for a better weekend in Montreal like many of the other drivers.

Anthony Davidson – C
Davidson will be another driver hoping for a better weekend at Montreal, but he will be hoping for luck more than most others. Davidson had a good qualifying session but was swamped at the start. He was then caught behind the typical Monaco-Trulli train and given a drive through for ignoring blue flags. Had this not happened, there is no doubt he would have finished above Trulli.

Christijan Albers – D+
Monaco was yet another disappointing performance from Albers. Not only was he soundly beaten by Sutil in qualifying, but he was beaten easily in practice in the wet, showing a small class difference in the one team. Albers will certainly have to pick up his game if he wants a seat in any of the bigger teams.

Adrian Sutil – B+
Sutil was one of the unsung stars of the weekend. His performance in qualifying was fantastic, especially to out qualify a Super Aguri and a Toyota. To add to this, he was the fastest in a rain soaked session on Saturday as he became the first Spyker driver to finish atop the standings in a session. However his praise was limited by his mistake in the race where he dropped the car into the barrier near Casino Square.

Mark Webber – B+
Webber unfortunately is clearly the unluckiest driver on the grid. Monaco was the third DNF for Webber in as many races after yet another fantastic qualifying performance. Twice he had to pull out blinder final laps to make it into the next segment and twice he did it. The next thing for him to do is get a reliable car to take him to the finish as he can achieve a podium in the future with Red Bull.

Vitantonio Liuzzi – B
Liuzzi had one of his best qualifying efforts in his short Formula One career at Monaco, but he threw all that away at the start when he somehow went sideways into the barrier. The current theory on this was due to DC’s small hit from behind which broke something on the back of the car. Such a shame after he started to show his true talent.



Team Grades

McLaren – A++
This race was by far the best team performance in any race all year. McLaren not only went 1-2 again, they also lapped everyone but themselves and the Ferrari of Felipe Massa. Hopefully this improvement carries on into the next race so that we have a great title fight on our hands.

Ferrari – B-
The Ferrari grade was severely hampered by the actions of both drivers. Massa was driving like he was asleep and Raikkonen hit the wall. The team however must take some responsibility for the lack of pace as they lost around 90 seconds of pace over the total race distance to McLaren.

Renault – B+
Renault would be over the moon with the result that Fisichella gave them after their poor start to the year, but they would be really unhappy at the performance that Kovalainen turned in once again. Having seen the pace Fisichella achieved there was the ability for them to have two cars inside the top 5, but that did no eventuate.

BMW – B
The practice and qualifying pace exists for the BMW team, but they seem to struggle with race pace until the end when it does not seem to matter. One problem with the team is that they give their cars way too much fuel for the final qualifying segment as they go over conservative. This really hurts the results and this could be seen last weekend at Monaco.

Williams – A-
A very much improved performance by Williams last weekend and it was good to see the old guard head back towards the front. Both drivers could have and should have qualified inside the top ten, while both drivers should have finished inside the top ten on race day but a poor start by Nico saw that chance disappear.

STR – B+
Another team that improved from Spain to Monaco was STR as they had a driver finish inside the top ten, as well as a driver qualifying in a high position for the first time in a while. They will be disappointed though that their sister team knocked their first car out of contention early on as Liuzzi had great potential for a point.

Honda – C+
Hondas overall lack of pace was completely masked by the tight confines of the Monaco street circuit and they will be glad that it did, so that they lose some of the pressure building on them. Both drivers did a commendable job, but they are still lagging behind most of the competition and will be looking to improve.

Red Bull – D-
This was the worst weekend in a long time for Red Bull as they had both drivers suffer issues during the race. The biggest issue they had was another gearbox problem but this time it was for Aussie favourite Mark Webber. Not only did they have problems during the race, but they also had the problem of telling DC that Kovalainen was on his out lap in qualifying, when Kovalainen was on his flying lap. This cost DC a shot in the top ten of qualifying and any chance in the race.

Toyota – D
Usually the tight confines of a street circuit like Monaco mask some of the aero deficiencies of teams, but this was not the case for Toyota as they struggled for anything respectable. Having Ralf drive one of their cars is not really helping, but they are not helping themselves and will surely perform better at the new race.

Super Aguri – C-
While they did not improve like most other teams, Aguri kept on its current pace with the mid pack during qualifying and the race. However the result for Aguri was hampered by Sato’s poor qualifying performance and then the penalty for Davidson which sent him tumbling down the order. Hopefully the minnow will make some gains for the next race.

Spyker – C-
Monaco was yet another race in which the Spyker team struggled for reliability and this time it was Dutchman Albers who suffered with a driveshaft problem. They won’t be happy with this or the fact that Sutil crashed a perfectly good car, but they will take some pleasure out of Sutil topping the time sheets for them on Saturday.
















Written by Steve, Lita, James, Braden and Dylan on Sun, 03 Jun 2007 17:36:55