Introduction - Free Practise 1 - Free Practise 2 - Force India Eye View
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I've been podcasting during this month (the original intention was one per day, but due to time constraints I've filled quite a lot of days with text-only entries instead). Here is my most recent podcast, concerning the practising for the Monaco Grand Prix:
[b]Introduction [0:00][/b]
- Hello everyone! This is Alianora La Canta and you're listening to La Canta Magnifico Blog Pod, 22nd May 2008 edition.
- This podcast will help you to catch up on what's been happening in Monaco this fine Thursday.
[b]Free Practise 1 [0:17][/b]
- The session started with total gibberish on the timing screen, but it didn't affect anyone's enjoyment of the session. After that, the teams went on track almost immediately, with Fisichella first to do an installation lap. Thankfully on this occasion he waited until [i]after[/i] the pit lane light turned green.
- The first cars to do real laps were the Toro Rossos. Luckily they kept their shiny new STR3s out of the walls, because the team is a little lacking in spare parts. Bourdais went much faster than Vettel, and to be honest Vettel never quite got the best out of his machinery. While Bourdais reached the dizzy heights of 13th by the end of the session (and could have been higher if the car had been less biased towards top speed), Vettel only managed 19th - last of those who set a time.
- The driver who didn't set a time was Coulthard, who had a technical problem at the Nouvelle Chicane.
- Bourdais remained at the top of the timesheets for quite some time, until Nico Rosberg joined in the fun and stuck his Williams in P1. Nakajima then went on to prove how difficult Monaco is to learn by setting a lap six seconds slower. To be fair, it's the first time he's raced an F1 car in the Principality...
- Seven minutes later, Hamilton got P1 in his McLaren while Button claimed 2nd. Raikkonen spent the rest of the session duelling with Hamilton for top spot, with the two swapping places a few times before the top spot settled upon Raikkonen's shoulders.
- Behind them, their team-mates Kovalainen and Massa fought over 3rd, with Kovalainen's McLaren eventually beating Massa's Ferrari.
- Predictably, there was a stoppage. Less predictably, the red flag was not because a driver over-cooked it into one of Monaco's unforgiving corners, but because of a problem with a drain. Given that a drain cover was responsible for Juan Pablo Montoya retiring from the 2005 Chinese Grand Prix and a considerable outcry, it is unsurprising that the Monagasque authorities wanted to avoid anything like that happening to them.
- After the red flags were withdrawn, there was a massive traffic jam as everyone wanted to use the last 21 minutes as productively as possible. Trulli and Heidfeld were both thwarted in this plan; Trulli because he hit a wall soon after the re-start and Heidfeld due to a technical problem.
- At the end of the session, everyone practised a grid start, but unfortunately the camera director chose to view people in the pit lane instead. Typical dodgy camera direction...
- At Renault, there was a huge contrast in performance. Alonso got 7th place at the end of FP1, but his rookie team-mate Piquet Jr. only managed 18th. He cut across the Swimming Pool chicane at one point, and the Renault mechanics seem strangely amused. When a driver is reduced to being a joke within his own garage, it's a sad indictment of that driver's position within the team and future prospects.
- Toyota brought an interesting slotted rear wing, but it didn't seem to help them very much. Trulli was 16th after clouting a wall at Portier while Glock was 11th. A slight improvement for the inexperienced German, but not the most exciting of starts to his Monaco weekend.
[b]Free Practise 2 [4:01][/b]
- The second practise got off to an immediate start, with teams keen to use the last of the forecast dry weather for the weekend. After all, who knows if the rain predicted for the race will dry up?
- Raikkonen was the early leader of the session, with Hamilton soon going quicker. Then both of them were defeated by an unexpected Williams driver.
- Rosberg was by far the quicker Williams at Monaco. He was at the top of the timesheets for a while in the middle of the session. Impressively, he was still 2nd by the end. Nakajima was in stark contrast to him, looking wild at the start of the session, especially round the medium-speed corners. He did improve though, claiming a creditable 9th by the end of the afternoon. He is one rookie that is getting to grips with Monaco's unique challenges.
- Massa and Raikkonen were in the process of attempting to remove Rosberg from the top spot when a bollard was removed from a corner in Sector 3 by Massa. Raikkonen promptly drove over it, though it didn't seem to hinder him any. Massa looked wild all day, even more so than Nakajima. Still, he managed to get a respectable time, if not one to defeat every single rival. He was good in Sector 2 but the twisty stuff round the rest of the track was no good for him.
- 53 minutes into the session, Hamilton got a faster time than Rosberg.
- Glock was clearly enjoying himself in Monaco, going 5th 20 minutes into the session. Halfway through the session, Trulli managed to scrape a wall. Unlike the morning, he kept going. Glock straight-lined a chicane later on, so Toyota's day could be summarised as productive but untidy.
- Renault was having a tough time of it. Piquet remained firmly nailed to the bottom of the timesheets all day and finally crashed into the wall 50 minutes into the session. His rear wing was so damaged that he had to return to the pits straight away. Quarter of an hour later, Alonso detached his rear wing from its mountings in a close encounter with the St. Devote wall. This caused a red flag.
- Although both returned to the fray at the restart, neither made much impression. Luckily, Renault have an extra day to fix their cars, figure out what went wrong and replenish their supply of rear wings.
- Hamilton nearly ran over a McLaren team staffer in the pit lane when the session re-started. Despite this distraction, he ended up in P1 at the end of the session.
- Honda couldn't decide whether to have its front wheel fairings on or off. They were on in first practise and off in second practise. Perhaps they needed to test the devices more before bringing them round - or was Paul Ricard not a close enough reflection of Monaco for it to make any difference? In any case, Button was 8th while Barrichello was 10th, indicating a decent turn of speed.
- Vettel over at Toro Rosso was not a happy bunny. 35 minutes into the second practise, he was heard to complain of being lost in terms of set-up direction. By the end, he was still calling his car a nightmare, which suggests that he won't be doing much of anything in the rest of this weekend. Especially from last.
- Meanwhile, his team-mate Bourdais was bouncing across chicanes. At the time, they were 3/10s away from Sutil, never mind any other opposition. Bourdais eventually reached the dizzy heights of 18th, though there was a clear gap between himself and Sutil behind him. If the STR3 is faster than the STR2b, then it is lucky for Toro Rosso that it's not dependent on the old car!
- That said, Webber at Red Bull was pretty unhappy too. He went straight on at the Nouvelle Chicane en route to 13th. Still, he beat team-mate Coulthard by 4/100ths of a second, so things weren't too bad for him. It was just that Red Bull probably hoped for more than 13th and 14th.
- BMW discovered that the super-soft tyres worked for only three laps. In the unlikely event that the whole race is dry, they will be using the super-soft tyres for the absolute minumum time. Kubica secured 6th while Heidfeld was 11th, indicating that there has been a change in strategy for BMW. This is much closer to BMW's usual qualifying and race pace than usual for a Friday.
- The session ended with a pit stop practise.
[b]Force India Eye View [8:56][/b]
- Over at Force India, Fisichella gradually built up the pace during first practise in Monaco, eventually rising as high as 10th. He showed all his 200 races of experience by successfully fighting Glock and Button. Sutil was 17th, which was pretty good considering he was driving the slowest car on the grid. Were it not for his team-mate, it would have looked very good, but it was pretty impressive nonetheless.
- In second practise, Fisichella was 5th for a short time before gradually sliding down to 16th due to concentrating on endurance work. This is probably where he naturally fits in during the dry - not that much dry running is expected for the rest of the weekend. Sutil lost a front wing to a wall, but kept going to claim 19th.
- Tomorrow, there will be the usual promotional stuff for the teams and a quiet day for me. Though since the May Blog Month challenge is still on, expect to find something posted at La Canta Magnifico Blog.
- That's all for this episode of La Canta Magnifico Blog Pod. Thank you for listening and have a good day :)
