UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Alonso heads Mclaren whitewash

No contest for Mclaren

The past few days have seen the usual Monaco clichés prevail, with stories abounding of the effects of safety cars, of ran on the streets, of attrition and carnage, but the Monaco Grand Prix failed to deliver on all those counts.

Some would say it also failed to deliver the excitement anticipated by many, but that can be blamed on the dominance of the Mclaren team, who cruised to a 1-2 with a level of superiority not seen so far this season.

We expected a duel between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, the two Mclaren MP4-22 drivers having monopolised the front row, and for most of the 78 lap race we got exactly that.

A clean start saw Hamilton go defensive as the lights went out, spearing right and placing his silver car neatly behind the identical machine of Alonso, and even more neatly in front of the Ferrari F2007 of Felipe Massa.

Giancarlo Fisichella slotted his Renault in behind Massa and behind him an almighty scrabble ensued, the main beneficiary of which was a fast starting Nick Heidfeld who catapulted his BMW from eight in to fifth as the train of cars streamed into St Devote, thankfully without incident.

Nico Rosberg placed his Williams on Heidfelds tail and would stay there for many laps, while behind them came Mark Webber in the Red Bull and Robert Kubica in the second BMW.

Kimi Raikkonen, starting from 16th, fairly rocketed off his starting spot and finished the first lap in 12th behind the Honda of Jenson Button. He would stay there for most of the race, as his Ferrari proved to be handling less like a Formula One car, and more like a bus.

At the front, meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton took to feeling his way around the circuit while Alonso pulled out half a second here, a few tenths there, to eke out a five second lead over the young Englishman by lap ten. Both were dropping Massa’s Ferrari without any trouble at all, and an indication of the pace of the front pair is that by the tenth lap, the fifth placed battle of Heidfeld and Rosberg was already half a minute adrift.

By this time we had lost Tonio Liuzzi who, somewhat remarkably, was one of only two cars to crash when he picked a fight with the barrier coming out of Massenet on lap two. Towards the end of the race Adrian Sutil would do exactly the same thing in his Spyker.

On lap 18 we witnessed the now familiar sight of Mark Webber crawling into the pits to retire his Red Bull, another mechanical malady having put paid to another points scoring opportunity. For the record, the only other retirement was the second Spyker of Christijan Albers, who pulled into the garage late in the race. I remember days when four was nearer the number of finishers than it was retirements.

Back at the front and Hamilton had begun to pick up his pace, taking a few tenths out of Alonso as the leader reached traffic. Alonso, once clear, replied with a series of quick laps and the pair ran in identical times lap after lap.

The first pit stops came on lap 23 when Fisichella, from fourth, and Rosberg, from sixth came in for the first time.

Strategy was an unknown quantity here, with the threat of rain and the expected safety cars having been a worry, but it was clear that these two were on a two stop strategy. Indeed they were, but whereas Fisichella would prove to have made the right decision – the Renault continuing unabated, pitting again on lap 55, and finishing in a well deserved fourth position – Rosberg would suffer badly with tyre balance problems for the rest of the race and could manage no better than a disappointed 12th.

Alonso was the first McLaren to pit, on lap 25, and Massa made his opening stop on the same lap. Ferrari took a gamble and placed Massa on the ‘super-soft’ tyre for this stint, and the effect was immediate as Felipe found himself unable to match his previous pace in the middle stint.

Hamilton stopped on lap 28 and resumed five seconds behind Alonso and, apart from a late burst in the final stint that is the way the two stayed until the end. McLaren made the decision to ease off the pace as the laps counted down, and Alonso duly led Hamilton across the line.

Over a minute behind the McLarens – yes, over a minute – followed Felipe Massa, the Ferrari completely outclassed around the streets of Monte Carlo, and Giancarlo Fisichella finished a lapped fourth.

Behind the front four we saw a shuffling of places as Nick Heidfeld made a very early single stop that dropped him to ninth. This placed him among traffic where he lost time to those ahead, and when team mate Robert Kubica made a more conventional single stop mid-race – the Pole had started on the ‘soft’, the German on the less durable ‘super-soft’ – he emerged ahead of his team mate. The BMW pair would run in this order to the end, having advanced on their starting positions.

Alex Wurz, unlike his Williams team mate Rosberg, was on a single stop strategy and found himself running in seventh place, with Kimi Raikkonen hanging on his tail as the race entered the final stages.

This pair were gifted the late elevation to the points thanks to a strange policy by Honda that saw both Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button committed to a second pit stop very late in the race. It failed to pay off, and we were left certain that points may well have been available for the RA107’s had they fuelled to the limit at the first round of stops.

Raikkonen and Wurz remained as the only fight in the field until the end of the race, with the Austrian prevailing to finally put in a worthy finish and bag some points, while Raikkonen had to settle for a single addition to his tally with eighth position.

Scott Speed drove a sensible race to net ninth place for the Toro Rosso team, beating both the Hondas home in the process, and behind Rosbergs 12th placed Williams came a decidedly lacklustre Heikki Kovalainen, the young Finn completely overshadowed by team mate Fisichella all weekend.

David Coulthard brought the Red Bull home in a disappointing 14th position, with the Toyotas of Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher, and the Super Aguris of Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson the remaining finishers.

Dominance on this level, as already said, has not been seen for some time, and was not entirely expected prior to this race. Alonso and Hamilton now tie at the top of the points table, with the Spaniard the de facto leader thanks to his two wins, with Massa now five points behind and Kimi Raikkonen drifting further from the leaders to a full fifteen points deficit. The Constructors Cup, meanwhile, sees Mclaren a clear twenty points ahead of Ferrari.

This was one of those races that Ron Dennis loves so much, and that Mclaren-Mercedes do so well – an easy win with a superior car. The fight within the team certainly went to Alonso today, but it is far from over yet.

Next we go to Canada and the USA, two circuits that could not be more removed from the streets of Monte Carlo. UpdateSport, as usual, will bring you full coverage of practice, qualifying, and the race, and of course all the news in between.

Written: Sun, 27 May 2007 16:36:32