WEBBER CONQUERS MONACO
(Image taken from BBC)
Monaco. It's insane, it's technically unsafe, nearly impossible to overtake on and there aren't many F1 fans that can afford a hotel room there. Yet it has been on the motor racing calender since before F1 as we know it started up and still no fan wants to get rid of it any time soon. This time around, well there wasn't much turnaround between this and the previous race so any issues the teams had would probably have to be dealt with here as well. Due to the previously mentioned lack of overtaking, qualifying is crucial which meant that McLaren needed to get their act together in that department if Jenson was to have a hope of retaining his lead in the world championship.
Well Alonso turned out to be complete no-go for qualifying as a crash in the third practice session meant that his car was in no fit shape to go anywhere for the rest of Saturday. Hulkenburg was the biggest name to fail to make the cut in Q2 with Jenson also dodging bullets. Kubica was the first to set a time in Q3 and for a lot of the session it looked like he'd be the man to beat...untill Webber came out of nowhere to beat him and went on to claim his second pole position in a row. Kubica would start P2 after his best qualifying performance since Canada '08. Vettel P3, Massa P4, Lewis P5. Further down, Jenson finished P8, not really what he'd have had in mind.
Things didn't get much better for Jenson in the race itself. At the start he found himself slipping down to 11th. In theory an early Safety Car would have given him the chance to redeem himself. Slight problem, by that point McLaren had worked out that something got stuck in his radiators. And once that got cooked it was game over and the reigning world champion found his race ending very early. There's only one way you can describe that sort of race - a disaster. Whenever a Brit tries to defend the world championship, something always goes wrong. Will this prove to be one of those things? Too early to tell yet but it's certainly a setback.
Lewis at least tried to make up positions at the start but couldn't make anything stick and after that well, this is Monaco. Overtaking is mission impossible. OK, this is Lewis Hamilton we're talking about, surely he'd have been able to do something. Well the fact is, the only thing that allowed him to move up the grid were other people's pit-stops. Later on in the race he was ordered to preserve the tyres - a suggestion that didn't go down very well as he'd have rather gone racing. In the end, he would up having to settle for 5th. Well, it was an improvement on last time around in that it was a finish and points in the bag. Still, McLaren have a lot of work to do.
In the meantime, well there wasn't much attention of Webber after the first few laps, mainly for the reason that he wasn't really doing anything interesting other than cruising around in front and staying in front after four safety cars. The biggest move of the race probably came at the first corner when Vettel took Kubica and even after that, the top three looked pretty much settled, and to be honest I watched the last few laps just waiting for the race to finish. Not a classic by any means. Still, Webber won his 2nd race in a row with Vettel 2nd to complete the 2nd Red Bull 1-2 of the season. Kubica 3rd and Massa 4th, both solid performances.
So the championship now looks like this. Webber has surged ahead of everyone with 78 points(and two wins), Vettel has nudged into 2nd place also with 78 points(but just the one win), Alonso in 3rd with 75 points and Jenson down to 4th on 70 points. Further down, Lewis slips to 7th on 59 points.
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