Yeah it may be good for drivers but the only real spectacle there is usually the crashes. Not a racing course.
yeah Monaco is often a snooze fest as the cars cant really follow each other to close most of the time, and the track really isnt wide enough for a pair of cars side by side so its ballsy dives down the inside or pit lane shenanigans to get past most people
I'll say it again... Make Monaco a time trial... fastest lap/laps wins... it more or less already is, fastest qualy lap invariably wins... F1 still gets its PR exercise... Driver still get to thread a needle round monaco... We finally drop the laughable notion that you can race/overtake there... Or make it the end-of season showcase/awards ceremony... rather than handing out the trophies in ab drab.
They can even pretend to have a race there at the end of the season, two hours of parade laps behind the safety car in the european november rain so all the sponsors get plenty of Monaco camera time while the fans don't have to care any more because the championship was decided several races prior.
I watched the opening 2 laps, no one crashed, so I stuck Sky Go on a 2nd browser and did some work with the audio on. Thats how dull it was. Bring on Canada - probably my fav track to watch.
I expect Haas to go well in Canada provided Grosjean keeps it out of the wall of Champions. Speaking of which, Vettel hit it in 2011 during free practice, Maldonardo in 2012 during Qualifying and Kobayashi hit it in 2010 (along with a few others who survived). It's been a while since the wall has claimed someone during a race.
I call Verstappen... or Hartley... Neither Williams is liable to be going fast enoguh to smear itself along the wall in the appropriate manner...
Verstappen's never been a champion in any series, so he's perfectly safe on that corner. Hartley and RoGro are both at risk however, being WEC and GP2 champions...
FFS, people are talking it up as a wide open three-way battle for the championship now. What a load of crap. It was great to see DR take a second win, and he's arguably the most exciting driver on the grid, but Red Bull are not in the same fight as Ferrari and Mercedes across the whole season.
But he wants to be, which means he needs to end up in that wall at some point. Plus he's not gone a single race weekend this season [so far] without hitting something. Grosjean will just blame it on Ericsson.
Sky gotta talk it up to sell subscriptions. It really looks like Vettels championship to loose with that Ferrari with Hamilton sniffing around with an outside chance when things go wrong. If Vettel looses it it's because Raikkonen not taking points when needed. Not that he's a bad driver, just unluckly or on a compromised strategy during races that he was needed to take points off Hamilton. I can see a Williams spinning into one of the many other walls. High speed, followed by slow corners in a car where the floor randomly stalls......
On medium to fast corners that Mercedes is obscenely good, in Aus they messed up the safety car, in Bahrain they took a gearbox penalty, started 9th and still came steaming up behind Vettel, in China they messed up on tyres and in Spain they got everything right and stomped all over the field. Baku and Monaco are weird races but they still won Baku and came third/fith in Monaco. The next four tracks are Montreal, Paul Ricard, Spielberg and Silverstone, I really don't see anyone beating Merc at those.
Ferrari had the pace in China and Bahrain. Vettel got lucky with Ferrari's indecisiveness in Bahrain. China the safety car call came too late for Vettel to react but Raikkonen was compromised and the safety car brought him back into it. Even then the damage had been done. Barcelona was a weird one as the Ferrari had problems with he tyres and just couldn't get them work. Silverstone and Paul Ricard I do expect Merc to challenge and possibly be favourites but Montreal is a power circuit and as the straight in China showed, Ferrari will win that battle. Depending on track temp and what compounds are brought they could have a better time getting the tyres to work. Spielberg can go either way and race temp will again play a factor. I can see merc being stuck behind the Ferrari not able to get close enough to pass and chewing its tyres so Hamilton can't pass Vettel on the brakes. The last deciding factor will be reliability. All power circuits and I do think Merc have reliability on their side
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/formula1/lewis-monaco-needs-to-change/ar-AAxSAHu?ocid=spartanntp Hamilton complaining about Monaco track
Yeah, it's not is it. Red Bull was looking good for the Monaco track but Merc and Ferr are designed to deal with a whole range of tracks, not just one or two.
Forgot we had Paul Ricard to, It's Bernies own track Bleugh anyway Montreal will be fun Merc dishing out the new PU's as will Ferrari and Honda, Renault should have their updated MGUK finally too. so should prove interesting.
