Formula 1 | seasonal f1 moan

My lifetime passion

Monaco

Saturday, 23 May 2009 ‡ 14:14

With the threat of limiting the teams to $40m budget furious discussions have taken place without any real outcome. It would be a shame if Ferrari and Renault bailed on F1.

Hamilton's mistake disallowed him to continue in the session leaving him 15th with both BMW's and Toyota's out in the first session. The second session continues with the usual suspects at the front, with an impressive Nakajima managing to stay in for the final session. Battling out at the front, pole sitters switching from Rosberg, Vettel, Massa, Barrichello and in the final seconds, Button takes in his Senna like style.

Amazingly the first corner and even the first lap was incident free, expecting cars to be flying over each other. The Brawn's stretch out a lead with a hard charging Massa trying to take Vettel, but manages to brake too late for the chicane coming out the tunnel and cutting across in front of Vettel. Massa forced to yield his position back to Vettel, also allowed Rosberg through too, in a very close wheel to wheel slice around the swimming pool complex. Vettel later losing traction due to worn rears and pitting, to which soon afterwards he later smacks his car into retirement.

Rubens settled for 2nd as he was more agressive on his tyres, allowing Jenson to maintain a slight lead. Kimi managed his first podium this season, driving a solid race, keeping out of trouble to finish 3rd, with the other two ex-World Champions, Alonso finishing 7th and Lewis finishing 12th. Massa brings home the other Ferrari behind Kimi, Webber with a solid 5th and Rosberg managing 6th.

Labels: monaco, senna

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Spain

Saturday, 9 May 2009 ‡ 15:01

An exciting finish to the end of the qualifying session with Button just managing to start his final flying lap 2 seconds before the end - securing another pole position start this season. Vettel just lost out to Button and so did Barrichello. An amazing set of laps with less than 1 second separating the top 8 starters. Again Ferrari have such a relaxed attitude with Kimi (probably) sucking on ice lollies when he decided that his 1m21.2 would easily take him into the next qualifying session and didn't. Absolutely pathetic decision from whoever made it and worse decision from Stefano Domenicali allow it. If Ferrari and Kimi have decided to give up the fact that they have no chance this season of winning the WDC title, they may as well not attend any races this season, save money, work on developing next year's car and come back in March 2010.

The first corner was like a ten pin bowling alley, with Sutil and Trulli coming together on the track after both had left it for different reasons, causing both Toro Rosso's to collide. Debris all over the track we had a 5 lap safety car stint with Barrichello leading from Button, Massa, Vettel and Webber.

As the race began on lap 6 Rubens continued with the formation behind him unchanged until the first set of pit stops. Kimi having hydraulic problems with his Ferrari was out on lap 17. Apart from a close encounter with Alonso coming out of the pits, Hamilton drove a lonely race to finish just out of the points. With Buttons fourth win and finishing comfortably over 13s ahead of team mate Rubens in second and Webber in third, he must feel he has a chance to win the 2009 drivers championship. McLaren having trouble and Ferrari's not really on the ball, Buttons nearest rival, apart from his team mate is Vettel 18 points adrift.

Rubens i feel does not have the aggression to challenge Button, he's too nice. Vettel and Webber will be chasing Button hard but i think the Brawn will have the advantage on most tracks. It has been good to see different cars up front and i think Button is showing that he does have what it takes to be champion.

Labels: brawn, button, ferrari, mclaren, vettel

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