Monaco GP 2008

[Belatti]

You can say what you want about monaco being a crap track, technically it is, meanwhile I don´t give a sh*t about glamorous idiots and sit to watch the only race of the calendar that gives the opportunity to see how a guy with a snail of a car can go to the front.

ahhh... and by the way, watching videos of Ayrton Senna driving as fast as light in there is one of the things that make me be in love with F1...

[freedom_honda]

haha yeah. love how the old gearbox keep the drivers busy all the time

[Ciro Pabón]

Well, I'm talking about the track, not about the race. About the race, I would say this:

We have down here (in Cartagena, a really old colonial city) a monument to "The Old Shoes". Why? Because of a poem by Luis López, one of our great poets.

This is the monument:



And this is the poem (it is impossible to translate a poem, I'll try anyway, but here is the spanish version for Miguel, Belatti, mx_tifosi and the rest):

Noble rincón de mis abuelos. Nada
como evocar cruzando callejuelas,
los tiempos de la cruz y de la espada,
del ahumado candil y las pajuelas,
pues ya pasó ciudad amurallada,
tu edad de folletín.Las carabelas
se fueron para siempre de tu rada
ya no viene el aceite en botijuelas.

Fuiste heroica en tus años coloniales,
cuando tus hijos águilas caudales,
no eran una caterva de vencejos.
Más hoy plena de rancio desaliño,
bien puedes inspirar este cariño
que uno le tiene a sus Zapatos Viejos.

The best I can do is this:

Noble corner of my grandparents.
Nothing like evoking, crossing back streets,
the times of the cross and of the sword,
of the smoky lamp and the candles,
because it already passed, walled city,
your melodrama age. The caravels
left your bay forever.
The oil no longer comes in pitchers.

You were heroic in your colonial years,
when your children flew like eagles,
they were not a flock of crows.
Today, full of rancid scruffiness,
you can very well inspire this affection
that one has to one's old shoes.

[Mikey_s]

Nice post Ciro (as usual!),

I think many of us share the dilemma regarding Monaco; I never fail to be amazed at how the drivers can thread their way through the circuit so precisely. It is a joy to watch their skill on such an unforgiving cicuit, BUT... it is so difficult to overtake that as a race it completely sucks. Most of the opportunities require the faster car to either await a mistake (and the drivers are all pretty good, so that can take some time), or put themselves into a "yield or crash" situation, thereby placing their race into the hands of another driver.

I don't wish to get into a 'what if', or 'if only' debate, but I enjoy rainy races; they introduce a lottery element into the mixture and that always adds a certain piquancy - and rain in Monaco always makes it the most entertaining "race" of the season - I was waiting for a team to run out of spare noses, but it didn't happen in the end .

[ben_watkins]

Well whatever you think of Monaco as a race, it is without question a special place to race cars.

It is also a special place to watch the racing and so here are some pictures I took on my little point and shoot from the balcony where I watched the race from..


I love the way Alonso looks like he's floating with no legs, whilst holding his balls in this shot!!

There are also a few little videos too, at the bottom of the collection, so check them out.. enjoy..

PS.. If anyone else was there and has pictures it'd be great to see them!

[checkered]

Adam Cooper reports that

Raikkonen (or Ferrari, rather) didn't receive the penalty he should've for not having all his wheels properly attached in due time. Rather than being ordered a drive-through, he should've started from the pits like Kovalainen did. It was a silly mistake of the marshals to make and one that is hard to put right after the fact, especially as another penalty was imposed. Hopefully this won't lead to something utterly stupid, but given prior examples the worse instincts of someone are bound to surface and there will be another pointless mess for everyone to contend with.

[WhiteBlue]

wow, that means Kimi should never have been in a position to shunt off Sutil. Ferrari should pay big money to FI!!

[waynes]

Ferrari should pay big money to FI!!

why? because Kimi drove into the back of him? he was going wide himself anyway, he was unfortunate that kimi ran into the back of him

bit soft saying Ferrari should give FI money

[WhiteBlue]

according to the post above Kimi would not have been there if the rules had been followed. FI could have protested but you don't do that with your supplier. the minimum Ferrari should do is offer compensation for the damage they did.

[donskar]

WhiteBlue, you are way over the top. Attempting to postulate WHERE Kimi would have been as the result of a different penalty is absurd. It is quite possible that changing one element of the race would have a ripple effect, thus changing several other elements.

Just IMHO, of course . . . .

[WhiteBlue]

well, nobody knows what would have happened if Kimi had started from the pitlane. that is true. and we cannot know what they talked about it. perhaps VM can easily afford it anyway.

[mx_tifoso]

An explanation of what led to the collision with Force India´s Adrian Sutil in the Monaco GP...

Kimi Raikkonen:
We had a strong car for this track; a car that was much better than the one we had last year. We gained the first row in Qualifying, which was a great result for the Team. We hoped that it would rain and that is what happened, but then everything went wrong, even before the start.

We had a problem with the right rear wheel before the start and we went over the 3-minute-limit, which triggered the penalty. After that the race it was a bit like a ride. I never had the right grip and the car was extremely nervous. Being behind the cars I could hardly see anything and the aim was to get as many points as possible. The fifths place would have been still acceptable, but then there was the accident with Sutil. On every other track I could have avoided the Force India car, but not at Monaco. After the safety car phase my brakes were cold and I braked on a small bump on the track, loosing the control of the car. There was nothing I could do.

The complete article is a recollection of Raikkonen´s weekend in Monaco.

And here are two onboard videos of Raikkonen and Massa´s laps in FP2.
F1 Monaco 2008 Raikkonen Onboard Practice 2
F1 Monaco 2008 Massa Onboard Practice 2

[bizadfar]

he isnt even pushing.

[rkn]

http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/n ... 3137.shtml

Turns out Kimi wasn't the only one who didn't drive faultlessly that day...
This is quite an interesting storyif you consider that both Mallya and Gascoigne accused Raikkonen of reckless and unprofessional driving. Kimi made a mistake under tough conditions whilst Sutil passed as many as three cars under yellow flags, which I consider a more serious error. In the videos we can see that Raikkonen almost has the car under control again before hitting Sutil. If so, he could've just driven over the escape road and continued with his race. Perhaps Sutil is the one to be blamed...?

[WhiteBlue]

and luck came into it also. Ham had a punctured tyre on the last lap. if the race had not stopped due to time up he had not won.

he also was lucky with the place of his armco banger so close to the pits and the safety car.