The 2007 Monaco Grand Prix

[magdaricci]

Jay Vee Your quite right about the quote...doesn't make any sense at all and we have to wait to see what comes out of all of this speculation. I personally understand why Ron Dennis did what he did, makes total sense, but the purist in me was saddened to see the boyish enthusiastic spirit of young Lewis be dampened when he realised that the modern world of F1 isn't about driving a car better and faster than anyone else, but instead about politics. I have been an avid fan of formula 1 since 1969, I was at Stowe when Mansell made up over 30seconds and made his legendary pass on Piquet to win the British GP and came away in awe. That day I know I saw a race. I can't imagine what the British public would have felt if Frank Williams had made the call and told them to hold station and slow down to preserve their cars. But then Frank Williams wouldnt do that, he is a racing purist.

For me, it's not the destination that is important in the story of the world championship, it's the journey of how they got there. They are all heroes, they are all incredibly gifted drivers and the only gauge we have of who really is the best is to let them race each other. If Hamilton or Alonso had stuffed it in the Armco we would have known who cracked under the pressure who made the mistake. Unfortunately we will never know and the 2007 Monaco GP will never be remembered for anything of interest.

PS Jay Vee when did Hamilton crash? I saw him coming second

[Snowy]

I think Jayvee was referring to the second practice session. Lewis' second outing in a Formula One car at Monaco after significantly fewer laps than his team mate in the first and after showing again a significantly faster pace than his teammate. Which he tends to do quite often Lewis will replace Kimi at Ferrari and team up with Ross Brawn in 2008 after becoming disenchanted with Ron's inability to commit to a racing ethos!

PS: There is a great amount of woo ha about this and it is what F1 really thrives on. Had Lewis won the race F1 would have received significantly fewer column inches. F1 thrives on controversy, the adage goes "No publicity is bad publicity". It's like landing on the moon, "yeah you've done that already" It took Apollo thirteen not making it to the moon to make going to the moon interesting again. It is significant that Lewis not being allowed to win is actually more interesting than him winning and he hasn't even been allowed to win yet!

[JayVee]

Jay Vee Your quite right about the quote...doesn't make any sense at all and we have to wait to see what comes out of all of this speculation. I personally understand why Ron Dennis did what he did, makes total sense, but the purist in me was saddened to see the boyish enthusiastic spirit of young Lewis be dampened when he realised that the modern world of F1 isn't about driving a car better and faster than anyone else, but instead about politics. I have been an avid fan of formula 1 since 1969, I was at Stowe when Mansell made up over 30seconds and made his legendary pass on Piquet to win the British GP and came away in awe. That day I know I saw a race. I can't imagine what the British public would have felt if Frank Williams had made the call and told them to hold station and slow down to preserve their cars. But then Frank Williams wouldnt do that, he is a racing purist.

For me, it's not the destination that is important in the story of the world championship, it's the journey of how they got there. They are all heroes, they are all incredibly gifted drivers and the only gauge we have of who really is the best is to let them race each other. If Hamilton or Alonso had stuffed it in the Armco we would have known who cracked under the pressure who made the mistake. Unfortunately we will never know and the 2007 Monaco GP will never be remembered for anything of interest.

PS Jay Vee when did Hamilton crash? I saw him coming second

Fully agree but keep in mind it is almost impossible to pass in Monaco. Remember Senna/Mansell and more recently Coulthard/Bernoldi.
And Hamilton kept pushing until the final lap.

As Snowy said, Hamilton crashed it in practice.

Snowy, McLaren do allow their drivers to race and do allow either of their drivers to win races. Hamilton could have won in Spain and Bahrain, Alonso wasn't in front of him so no need to exagerate.
And they will race in Canada and Indy and .....

Lets not get too carried away with the spin the media is putting on this.

We are having a very intersting fight between those two, lets enjoy it.

[magdaricci]

Thats of course if you believe any of the appollo missions went to the moon! Personally I think climbing into a tin foil thick can and hurtling through space with no protection from solar radiation and seamingly no long term effects from the experience seems pretty far fetched, but hey the public are pretty dumb and get duped all the time. Most people thought they saw a race on Sunday but I didn't. Roll on Canada and lets hope the Ferraris are back on the pace and Massa and Raikonen get thrown back into the mix.

Havent you lot got jobs to do?

Later

[jacfan]

Thats of course if you believe any of the appollo missions went to the moon! Personally I think climbing into a tin foil thick can and hurtling through space with no protection from solar radiation and seamingly no long term effects from the experience seems pretty far fetched, but hey the public are pretty dumb and get duped all the time. Most people thought they saw a race on Sunday but I didn't. Roll on Canada and lets hope the Ferraris are back on the pace and Massa and Raikonen get thrown back into the mix.

Havent you lot got jobs to do?

Later

I am not sure what the Apollo mission to the moon has to do with the GP but hey you are welcome to your opinion. I am just wondering who or what you actually are. Obviously not a member of the public or that would make you "pretty dumb and get duped all the time".
Despite being a member of the public and therefore in your opinion "pretty dumb" I do know that

Personally I think climbing into a tin foil thick can and hurtling through space with no protection from solar radiation and seamingly no long term effects

that the correct spelling is "seemingly".

[GhoGho]

Here's a thought;

If Lewis was on a one stopper, and there was a safety car deployment, it would almost definitely have played right into Lewis’s hands!
He would have been able to stay out while everyone else would probably dive into the pits to take advantage of the yellow as soon as the pit lane opened.
This would have left poor Lewis with nowhere to go but the front of the field.

Even FA admits that being 0.5s a lap quicker is not enough to pass at Monaco, so even he would not have been able to pass Lewis for the win.

No wonder RD was so concerned about a potential safety car deployment.

Now , by switching Lewis to a 2 stopper, the team practically guaranteed the finishing order of their drivers would not be affected by a safety car deployment should one arise, as both drivers would have to stop, thereby ensuring the status quo.


Not really team orders, more like team manipulation

[magdaricci]

Pretty dumb I am and thanks for the spelling correction. Amazing to think I am a published author and cant even spell.

This forum seems like a good place to vent in general. Doesn't always have to be about F1 does it?

I am Human I know that much..as for who I am within that...well that would take a long time.

Back to Trivia!

[magdaricci]

By the way how many of these do I have to write before I get to be a Formula 1 racer? I havent got all day you know!

[Julian Mayo]

Pretty dumb I am and thanks for the spelling correction. Amazing to think I am a published author and cant even spell.

This forum seems like a good place to vent in general. Doesn't always have to be about F1 does it?

I am Human I know that much..as for who I am within that...well that would take a long time.

Back to Trivia!

The Forum Ghost wouldst prefer thou vent in an appropriate thread..........tis far less angstifying

[Julian Mayo]

Scott Speed had a good race

[Redhead]

Lewis could have won the race and was prevented from doing so by his team.

RD has cleverly gotten everyone to focus on the change from a one-stop to a two-stop strategy when the real crime was to bring Lewis in only three laps after sweet FA at both the first and second stops.

Lewis said before the race that he was fuelled 5 or 6 laps longer than sweet FA. He matched sweet FA in lap time with that extra fuel load therefore he should have been able to go considerably quicker once sweet FA pitted. In fact once sweet FA pitted Lewis started putting in laps nearly 2 seconds faster that what he had been doing previously. By bringing him in early the team prevented any chance of staying ahead.

In those first pit stops sweet FA took on 7 seconds worth of fuel, Lewis took on 8.5 seconds worth of fuel so again he was heavier and again the team prevented him from taking advantage of that.

To rub it in at the beginning of the third stint sweet FA puts in 3 or 4 deliberate slow laps (about a second slower) so that Lewis catches up with him and has to sit on his tail for the rest of the race.

Its not the first time this has happened to Lewis, they did it to him in Australia as well. He comfortably kept sweet FA at bay in the first pit stop and then at the second pit stop wasnt even close, "lap traffic " Lewis was told to say.

I think RD has got a real problem on his hands. Even he probably didnt expect Lewis to be so competitive, combined with sweet FA struggling (relatively speaking) to to come to terms with the switch from Michelins to Bridgstones. How long is Lewis going to put up with being treated like this

[RE30B#16]

All of this is much ado about nothing. Hambone is not a robot. He also wants to do well and acquit himself well in the process. We are not talking about Spa, we are talking about Monaco where it is tough to pass in the best of circumstances.

If it were, say, Massa in the lead, Hamilton would have been expected by his team to attempt a pass. With Alonso in the lead and Hamilton in second, McLaren controls the entire race from the front. Barring accidents, if you were Ron Dennis, you would want your guys to finish one-two, period. They just attempted and succeeded in doing so by urging Hamilton not to attempt anything risky. Believe me though, if Alonso left the door open, Hambone would've been through it!

Let's move on people!

[Redhead]

The point seems to be being missed.

This is not about Lewis trying to pass sweet FA on the track, he couldnt have, unless sweet FA made a mistake, which as we know is highly unlikely.

Lewis had the strategy and the pace to pass sweet FA in the pits, where, rightly or wrongly, most non-lapping overtaking takes place in F1 these days.

Maccas were streets ahead of anyone, Ron would have got his 1-2 without any risk whatsoever, but they manipulated the race by calling Lewis in early both times to ensure sweet FA stayed ahead.

Of course Lewis is not a robot, but he is hardly going to disregard his Engineer when he gets the call to pit.

[JayVee]

Looks like everyone thinks everyone else is missing the point!

When Alonso and Massa pitted, Hamilton took the lead and for argument sake had six more laps to go. The team thought that if the safety car comes out during that time Hamilton would lose his 15 second or so gap and will have to pit before Alonso and Massa and for longer. This would have meant at best 3rd place or even lower. This is why the team brought him in early. Sure it can be seen as what Red Head thinks however I very much disagree that Alonso would have been passed by Hamilton. He had a reasonable gap and wasn't much slower with fuel. This is my feeling and until someone shows us the lap times for each driver we won't really know.

And I wonder Red Head, you mention Australia which was very closely contested between the two but somehow ignored Spain. Why didn't those nasty boys at McLaren slow Hamilton down to get Alonso through ? It was his home race afterall.

What bias ? If Ron has any bias it would be for Hamilton as he personally looked after him since he was 10 or something (correct me Snowy here!!)but so far I have not seen any bias towards either and that is the way it should be. Despite Alonso having beaten Michael twice, he is having a tough fight with Hamilton. This is how good Hamilton is but wait, Alonso is still 90%, you just wait!!!

Ron Dennis has a fantastic pair of drivers that will entertain us all season. It is just hard for those with a red bias to see such a great pairing with the other team playing it right.

Let's talk about how reliable Ferrari is and how unreliable the McLaren is

[jacfan]

Finally got to view the race (we recorded it) and I did not get to see the end of the race as the person who set the machine up did not allow for extra time or whatever and consequently I think there was about 10 laps to go when it stopped.
Having read some the comments here though it seems there is some controversy over "team orders" at McLaren. I don't know if it happened but I would have to agree with JayVee in that if there were orders it would be (IMHO) to get both drivers home in P1 and P2 rather than risk either taking each other out and therefore handing the race to Massa. I have never seen Ron Dennis give team orders before and I believe that he lets his drivers sort it out on the track... as long as they don't jeopardise the team and the manufacturer's championship.