New F1Plus.com article: Are the F1 cars of 2014 too slow?

Photo: Octane Photography

Over at F1Plus.com in my latest article there I explore the matter that kicked off in earnest over the Spanish Grand Prix weekend - namely are the F1 cars of the 2014 spec too slow?

I explore whether the matter is all that it seems on the face of the lap times.

You can have a read by clicking on this link: http://www.f1plus.com/en/news/item/5991-are-the-f1-cars-of-2014-too-slow

Something positive to come out of Monaco

After all of the rancour of the Monaco Grand Prix weekend just passed, here's something positive to come from it. Perhaps an antidote to some extent of the various recriminations that dominated discussion and headlines.

Felipe Massa, among others, worried in advance
Photo: Octane Photography

Wind back a few days to before Monaco's Thursday practice start and a few were predicting carnage. And once again the doom-mongering was related to the new-for-2014 regulations. Around the circuit's notorious confines amid unforgiving nearby crash barriers the new power units with their greater torque would be harder to control under acceleration and the like. The revised Pirelli tyres for this year offer less grip, as do the cars generally with the new aero restrictions. All of this they said would ensure it would be much harder to keep the F1 cars away from the things to hit.

Felipe Massa for one looked ahead to the weekend with trepidation: 'I think Monaco will be a very, very difficult race,' said Massa, 'we drive with the car a lot more sideways. The torque we have from the engine is maybe double what we had last year, and the grip from the tyre is not very high, so Monaco will be a very easy race to crash. I think it will be the toughest race of the season.'

The vision thing - the importance of eyesight to a racing driver

I'll admit it. When the words crackled across the airwaves my immediate thought was 'I've heard it all now'. But it was nothing new; such is the way of F1's past parallels almost always lay therein somewhere, pretty much no matter what you encounter.

There was some mirth around when in the late laps of the Monaco Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton was heard over the TV feed complaining on his team radio of having got some dirt in his left eye which was impairing his ability to see. Lewis - while afterwards keen not to make a big deal of it - reported that it rather restricted him, to the point that he needed to close that eye on low speed corners. 'I was driving with one eye which is virtually impossible to do' he said. It showed in his lap times too as he at the same moment fell away from his team mate's pace for the first time all afternoon.

Denis Jenkinson (right) - knew the importance of vision
By Gillfoto (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

But we should have had more sympathy. The extent that your eyesight is functioning is no small matter for a racing driver.

Indeed the legendary motorsports scribe Denis Jenkinson in his book The Racing Driver - even now pushing half a century on from its first publication still considered the seminal work on analysing and categorising the attributes of a top level racing competitor - having observed many great drivers close at hand concluded that vision was the most important attribute of all. And it is the information acquired from the vision that a driver's brain transmitted to all the other faculties required for the task.

Jenks in his study noted the almost other-worldly eyesight capabilities of just about all of the top-level racing drivers that he knew. This included the ability to read small text that Jenks could only decipher with a magnifying glass, as well as Stirling Moss's superhuman skills in identifying several details of an opponent behind on the road from the tiniest speck in his rear-view mirror, when Jenks navigated for Stirling in the Mille Miglia.

Should Lewis have taken the Monaco pit call into his own hands?

One more thing on Nico vs. Lewis in Monaco. Then I promise to be quiet about it.

First off, let's go back a year-and-a-bit, to Melbourne for the opening race of the 2013 F1 season. Twenty laps in and things at the front were at an impasse seemingly. The nominal front-runners had made their first pit stops, but Sebastian Vettel, struggling with his tyres, had two Ferraris right on his tail, with Felipe Massa ahead having qualified marginally the quicker than Fernando Alonso in a wet-to-dry session. All however were stuck behind the unlikely leader of Adrian Sutil in the Force India, who'd started on the prime tyre and hadn't yet pitted. But meanwhile, Kimi Raikkonen in a Lotus known for excellent tyre life lurked menacingly behind the lot of them.

Melbourne 2013 - Alonso was in traffic
so took matters into his own hands
Credit: Alex Comerford / CC

Fernando wanted to do something about it. His team was minded to wait until a more proportional stint length was completed, and with Massa as the lead driver on track ordinarily getting first shout on when to pit, Nando took matters into his own hands and issued a fait accompli. With the minimum number of seconds' warning that his team would require to get ready to service him, and by which time he'd already be motoring down the pit lane, he announced he was pitting.

In so doing it changed everything. Vettel, Sutil and eventually Massa pitted in response, and when they emerged Alonso had cleared them all. As it was, Kimi's tyre life was such that he was able to win nevertheless, but Alonso could claim a fine second place way ahead of the rest. It was a risk for Nando, but it did the trick for him.

Digging in for trench warfare

Things change very quickly in F1. To think that earlier this season, just about right up until Monaco qualifying session indeed, many of us (including some that should know better) were talking about a new equilibrium of Lewis Hamilton. That the previous combustible nature, the capacity to find rancour, seemed shed.

The atmosphere between the two
Mercedes drivers in Monaco was obvious
Photo: Octane Photography

Well scratch a lot of that. There was plenty of rancour around, and no little combustion too, in the case of Lewis and his teammate Nico Rosberg in both Monaco's qualifying session and race just passed. Starting off with Nico's trip down the escape road at the end of Saturday's session earning him pole rather incongruously due to subsequent yellow flags requiring Lewis to slow on his own effort, and projecting itself from there. The main problem being that Lewis appears convinced that Nico did it deliberately.

Quite what makes Lewis so convinced of Nico's guilt isn't clear, what he's seen that the stewards didn't and also not apparently seen by the likes of Merc dual bosses Niki Lauda and Toto Wolff (though with those two there may be some desire to keep schtum in order to proetct Nico from penalties potentially), as well as that passed a lot of the rest of us by too. Yet even after reflection and a cooling off period Lewis remained resolute, noting on race day: 'I wish you could have seen the data. I saw something late on last night and all I could do was smile.' Others in the paddock, including some ex-drivers, took his side also.

Monaco GP Report: The same, only different

So it was just like last year. Only it could hardly have been more different.

Just like last year the Monaco Grand Prix was all about Mercedes. Just like last year Nico Rosberg led every lap and was immaculate in so doing on the way to victory. But perhaps beyond these bald facts the similarities end there. And do so rather abruptly.

This is how the Mercedes ran for much of the way
Photo: Octane Photography

Many of us had suspected it would happen at some point, but perhaps not even the greatest stirrer-of-the-pot would have predicted that it would have all kicked off this early. Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, however far they go back, and having fought at the front for a mere six races, their relationship first simmered and now as a consequence of this Monaco weekend seemingly has reached full boiling point. The events of this round had a lot of the characteristics of a watershed; a departure point.

A night to sleep on matters since qualifying and all that as well as time to review the telemetry data didn't make Lewis Hamilton any happier with what Nico had done, and he said so. And his mood didn't improve over the 78 laps of the race either. Au contraire, it deteriorated rather further.

Monaco Qualifying - Escape road to victory

One way or another this Monaco weekend has been all about Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. Talk of their relationship; talk (albeit slightly tenuous) of Lewis questioning Nico's 'hunger'; lots of perception that the previous amicability had been showing incremental strain in their head-to-head pursuit of supremacy. Some even talked of a burgeoning Senna-Prost like rivalry (not really helped by Merc reportedly getting Prost in to advise on how to handle the combustible situation).

Nico Rosberg has the pole - via some controversy
Photo: Octane Photography

But even with this no one could quite have predicted how it would all kick off in the Monaco qualifying session.

Given the adages we know about Monaco's capacity for lottery many foresaw that this would be the weekend in which the Mercs would be finally required to step down from the front. But Lewis and Nico even here continued 2014's way and were the quickest guys out there, and while as is often seen at Monaco the rest were closer this time, Daniel Ricciardo especially close, pole once again turned into a private battle between the two guys in silver.

It seems a few forgot perhaps the Principality's oldest adage of all. That even here, the quickest car remains the quickest car.

New F1 Times article: Trial of Lewis - my take on Hamilton’s talk of hunger

On Thursday you probably became aware of reports from Monaco on what Lewis Hamilton had to say on his 'hunger' and that of his team mate Nico Rosberg.

Over at The F1 Times in my latest article there published today I look at Lewis Hamilton's words, and ask if he has been harshly treated on this one.

You can have a read via this link: http://www.f1times.co.uk/news/display/08905

Monaco GP Betting Preview - Forget the rest - Nico is still the challenge to Lewis. By Andy Morgan

Round 6 of the Formula 1 2014 season takes us to Monte Carlo for the Monaco Grand Prix, a track full of history and a race full of intrigue.

Can Nico Rosberg bounce back this time?
Photo: Octane Photography

This week Red Bull rightly claimed that the power unit driving Mercedes to a 2014 Constructors' Championship is the major difference between the two teams and that its drivers will not be too far behind the Silver Arrows in Monaco. Similar prophecies were made in Barcelona however and look how that panned out.

FP1 in Monaco proved that Red Bull is close, with Daniel Ricciardo's best coming up short of the Mercs by two and a half tenths. The gap may make Mercedes sweat a touch but it won't be needing buckets; it's all about intra-team battles again this weekend.

Sergio Perez has battled back against Nico Hulkenburg and I expect him to qualify quicker than his team mate, likewise Valtteri Bottas in the Williams who has proven his one lap pace is impressive. Fernando Alonso will continue his dominance of Kimi Raikkonen, while eyes will be on Sebastian Vettel as to whether he can bounce back against Ricciardo after the latter's debut podium in Barcelona. But the main focus continues up the front.

Monaco Preview: If not now, when?

Once upon a time, wit and Formula One fan Clive James noted dryly that 'it is said these days with increasing frequency that Monaco makes a nice change from Grand Prix racing'.

What is it with the fraternity's annual visits here, and their apparent 'jewel in the crown' status? Really, there are so many reasons to dislike Grands Prix around the Principality. If you're to be critical, the Monaco round is an anachronism. If you're to be very critical, it's an absurdity.

Monaco presents a challenge all of its own
Photo: Octane Photography

Tight, narrow, bumpy, sinewy. No-one can pass here. The cars never are allowed close to their full potential either in straight line speed or cornering abilities. The F1 machine outgrew the course's swingeing confines not so much years but decades ago. Had Monaco never existed not only would there be little need to invent it (in terms of its on-track offering at least) the concept would be laughed out of town, likely holding about the same credibility as that track around the centre of London that Santander came up with as a bit of fun not so long ago.

It doesn't get much better off the track either; all cramped and claustrophobic as well as attracts various ostentatious posers who in all probability don't care much for the sport other than in that one weekend of the year.

But perhaps, conversely, what it is about Monaco lays within all of this somewhere.