IT'S THE MCLAREN SHOW IN MONACO
(Image taken from Yahoo)
Glitz, glamour, a fortune needed for a hotel room...and Lewis Hamilton, British rookie driver, Formula 1 World championship leader and unbeaten on this track in lower formulae. That was the first impression of the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix! McLaren were generally having to play catch up to Ferrari, Honda were at least on the up after Spain and DC was hosting his mates from the sport at his hotel! It's supposed to be a truest test of driver skil.
Well Schumacher was the biggest name to get toasted in round 1 of qualifying. In Q2 things got a bit more interesting though. DC qualified for the final round, but then got penalised after blocking Kovalainen on an out lap and so would only start 13th. That gave Jenson his first run in a pole position shootout this year! Hamilton grabbed the first serious provisional pole time only to lose it to Alonso at the last minute! Lewis had to settle for second, Button 10th!
DC's race turned out to be pretty uneventful. Down to 14th at the start, he wound up having a dullsville race cruising through the midfield. Webber's retirement took him back up to 13th but he was lapped not long after. DC himself went on to suffer minor front wing issues and the resulting extra pit stop didn't help him much. He went on to finish 14th. Hopefully he'll earn some more camera time in the upcoming North American races.
Jenson didn't start that well either, dropping to 11th off the grid before then having to hold off a fast starting Raikonen who'd had a bad qualifying session, and the Brit had his best moment of the season as a result, the Honda man proving to be the Finn's undoing on the day. Scratch that, it was probably Jenson's best race of the season so far as he ran in the points for the first tiime this campaign(7th) before pitting. He finished 11th, beaten by teammate Barrichello again but still his best result of '07 with more to come from Honda in Canada supposedly.
And Lewis...had another one of those races that are best described as "routine but awesome". Routine, because for the first time ever he did actually not win a motor race at Monaco and arguably didn't have that exciting a race. Awesome because he had a smooth start, never looked threatened by anyone behind him, led the race again, and not only finished on the podium again but picked up his fourth second place in a row. And yet his Dad looked dissapointed that he didn't win!
Thing is Hamilton senior, your kid has the reigning World Champion for a teammate. Make that the guy who's won the last two World Championships. Starting from pole, Alonso always looked like he had the edge over the on-fire Brit, particularly after being embarrassed by him in the last couple of races and his second win of the season looked a fait accompli a long way from the end. Some claimed McLaren have an anti-Hamilton bias after Lewis was ordered to hold station late on. Such people are completely clueless. Ron Dennis has had Lewis's back for the past decade - I can't remember the last time a rookie was in a McLaren! Alonso is on the rise again, McLaren have their second 1-2.
So the Championship looks like this. Alonso leads on 38 points(and two wins), Lewis is down to second with 38 points(but no wins). Further down, DC managed to hold position in 9th with four points(and a top five finish) with Trulli in 10th with four points(and no top five finishes).
Now for North America.
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