Red Bull went into the Monaco GP as the team to beat and they ended up thoroughly dominating the street circuit with Webber winning his 2nd race of the reason with teammate Vettel coming in 2nd. Despite the safety car playing its part through the race, Webber was in a different world with hi totally dominating the race. A few weeks back there was talk of Webber being replaced but now there are even talks of Webber going to Ferrari and such has been the meteoritic rise of his stock in the last 10 days. Now Red Bull leads both the championships with both Webber and Vettel equal in the driver’s standings.
Renault and Kubica continued their upswing with Kubica getting his 2nd podium of the season with a well deserved 3rd place finish. No one gave this team a chance before this season but both Renault and Kubica proved everyone wrong by once again pulling off a very solid performance. Not only are they with the top 4 teams but well ahead of all the teams. If Renault continues this, Kubica may be the surprise package of this season and team could even knock off a top 4 team at the season ending championships. Another reason to celebrate is that all the cars on podium at Monaco were Renault powered cars.
Ferrari were looking good going towards the weekend but despite Alonso starting from the pit stop they did have a very good race with Massa coming in 4th while Alonso putting one of his best drives ever coming in 7th. Though Alonso should be disappointed that Schumacher overtook him at the least corner when the safety car just going him costing him a place. But both Alonso and Massa should go to Turkey with momentum but then can they catch up RBR will be the big question.
Mercedes had a solid race with Schumacher showing old signs of pace and attitude should be happy for his 6th place finish while Rosberg was back in form but then now Schumacher is slowly looking like the lead driver and Rosberg needs more than a 8th place finish to shift the momentum back in his favour. Though since the start it looked like it will be Rosberg who will win the 1st race for Mercedes GP but now Schumacher seems more likely to do it.
McLaren overall once again had a disappointing weekend with losing lead in both the championships and also getting only one of its car on points. This time Hamilton came 5th and though he did show some spirit it was just not enough and in the end he looked like he was more than just happy to finish the line while Button retired due to an error by one of the mechanics. If the team has to realistically compete against Red Bulls and be ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes, it needs to show more consistency and ensure goof ups like these do not happen again.
Force India for the very 1st time got both their cars on points and there should be a wild party tonight for the team. The team has been very consistent throughout the season and now it is definitely ahead of both Williams and Toro Rosso. The future is looking good for the team and if they continue in this direction they can relive the glory days of Jordan GP.
STR despite getting both its car to finish the race just missed out on the points and the team now has to work hard to catch up with Force India and also ensure that it is ahead of Williams. It will be tough for the team to score points from now on as the six teams at the top are very solid but then in F1 all things are possible and if the team does race consistently it can score a few points here and there.
Williams must be wondering what went wrong this season as they started the season with a totally redesigned car and despite all the hype behind it, it is one team which has remained the same since the start of the season. STR has a better car as of now and if its drivers continue to drive the same way, Williams could be fighting it out with Sauber and the new teams.
Sauber is the only old team yet to score points and though the team looked like it has improved at Barcelona, it was 2 steps backward here and the team needs some drastic showing in the next few races if it has to survive this season. None of the new teams finished the race but Lotus despite showing all the promise is not really catching up with Sauber while both HRT and Virgin have managed to tag along with Lotus.
It was a very good Monaco GP and Webber who after a slow start to the season looks a totally different driver and if he continues this form, we can once again see an Australian World Champion in F1.
No comments:
Post a Comment