May 24, 2014

Monaco GP qualifying: Stay hungry.

In the end, qualifying for the Monaco GP came down to these 10 seconds.  

On the final run Rosberg is long at Mirabeau and has to take to the escape road.   Yellows come out and Hamilton cannot, by the rules, better his time through the whole of sector 2, the one that had been his best.

Hamilton is not happy.

Very happy are all the conspiracionistas of broadcast and internet.  It took exactly 24 seconds for someone to trot out Schumacher in 2006 and accuse Rosberg of a low blow.

Hey, maybe it was he who was hungrier after all.

Stewards are investigating

UPDATE: Rosberg's pole stands and Hamilton threatened to pull a Senna!

"I don't know if Senna and Prost talked about it but I quite liked the way Senna dealt with that so I'll take a page out of his book," Hamilton has said to Jennie Gow of BBC 5Live

Pos Driver                Team                  Time       Gap    
 1. Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m15.989s         
 2. Lewis Hamilton        Mercedes              1m16.048s  +0.059s
 3. Daniel Ricciardo      Red Bull-Renault      1m16.384s  +0.395s
 4. Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m16.547s  +0.558s
 5. Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m16.686s  +0.697s
 6. Kimi Raikkonen        Ferrari               1m17.389s  +1.400s
 7. Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Renault    1m17.540s  +1.551s
 8. Kevin Magnussen       McLaren-Mercedes      1m17.555s  +1.566s
 9. Daniil Kvyat          Toro Rosso-Renault    1m18.090s  +2.101s
10. Sergio Perez          Force India-Mercedes  1m18.327s  +2.338s
                          Q3 cut-off time:      1m17.755s  **     
11. Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m17.846s  +1.492s
12. Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m17.988s  +1.634s
13. Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault      1m18.082s  +1.728s
14. Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m18.196s  +1.842s
15. Pastor Maldonado      Lotus-Renault         1m18.356s  +2.002s
16. Felipe Massa          Williams-Renault                        
                          Q2 cut-off time:      1m18.616s*        
17. Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber-Ferrari        1m18.741s  +1.184s
18. Adrian Sutil          Sauber-Ferrari        1m18.745s  +1.188s
19. Jules Bianchi         Marussia-Cosworth     1m19.332s  +1.775s
20. Max Chilton           Marussia-Cosworth     1m19.928s  +2.371s
21. Kamui Kobayashi       Caterham-Renault      1m20.133s  +2.576s
22. Marcus Ericsson       Caterham-Renault      1m21.732s  +4.175s
107 per cent time: 1m22.985s                                      
* Gap to fastest in Q1                                            
** Gap to fastest in Q2          


  1. If I had to ascribe guilt based on Nico's face during the press conference, he was guilty as shit but seemed to to grow a little contrite, especially after the "you screwed your teammate, how does that feel" question.

  2. Say Nico was good enough to fake that, then he deserves the pole! Obviously his taking to the escape road was deliberate but no way the lock up was intentional.

  3. Nico definitely improved on Schumi tactics. Well deserved pole.

  4. Cheap move. Nico drives without error the majority of the time so one can only suspect it was intentional. I'd like the see the brake pressure mapping over a standard lap. Remember Nelson Piquet Jr's spin in Singapore? The throttle mapping saw a huge spike in pressure, where a normal driver would lift if he was spinning the rears.

  5. He made a mistake, braked less than perfectly, shuffled the wheel released brakes and got back locking up. If it was on purpose, he deserves an oscar. As for Lewis, as soon as I saw his face in the press conference I knew he was gonna gun it tomorrow into T1. Nico either gets a better start and gets away, or he'll have to give him room into T1 or they are going to crash. Hard.

  6. " ... so I'll take a page out of his book,"

    What the hell does that even mean? You're going to act like a petulant child and ram the guy because of some perceived slight against you?

    I'd like the guy a lot more if he'd stop with the constant insipid whining. Seriously Lou, get the sand out of your damn tutu, shut up and drive.

  7. Damn. Am I the only one, or is anyone else out there disappointed Seb got out qualified again? Anyone? Anyone? :o(

    I understand Hamilton's frustration, but he shouldn't display it so outwardly. He owns Nico and Nico knows it. So little Nico has his day in the sun in bright sunny Monaco. Lewis is gonna be taking home the trophy in November anyway. In the end, thats all that matters.

    Its good to see Jean-Eric Vergne qualifying nicely.

  8. How do you know the lock up was not intentional? Without the lockup to make the incident look spectacular and the strange steering inputs, no one would believe for an instant Nico was innocent. But we'll never know the truth. So, for the same reasons skeptics can't speak in absolutes and claim Nico was deliberate, you also can't speak in absolutes and claim nothing was intentional.

    I know you're hoping Nico or anyone but Hamilton wins the race tomorrow. Sorry to tell you this, but you're going to be disappointed at the end of the race. We all know LH excels at dog fights. And on top of that, Nico no longer gets teammate courtesy. Its going be as if they race for different teams. And if they crash, its NR's loss. NR made his bed and tomorrow will lie in it. So far LH has beat NC at his stronger tracks. If Nico loses tomorrow, he's in trouble because we are moving into tracks where LH is stronger( Canada, Spa etc.)

  9. Wow!

    "And then... HE PUTS THE CAR IN REVERSE, RATHER THAN JUST STAYING PUT, knowing this move will cause the yellows to come out."
    If he stays put, the yellow flag comes out. He's in a runoff area. Rosburg is nowhere near as cerebral as Schumacher, he was trying to get out of the way so the yellow flags would go away.

    "It doesn't take an Oscar-winning performance to pull off what Nico Rosberg did today."
    You actually still believe Rosburg did this on purpose? Why? Rosburg was faster in Q2 and once again not that cerebral to tank it.

    "Those people ..." blah blah blah and "Those are the same, tired, and too often racist claims ..." blah dee blah blah blah.
    Go take your 'those people" crap and racist claims to "those people", not to these people here who are not "those people"!

    Geez, get a life.

  10. Hurray for vergne!

  11. If you look at this clip you can see how Rosberg was losing the rear, which is why you see those steering inputs. Then you clearly see he tried to turn in before giving up and taking to the escape area …

  12. Yellow flags would have been out the moment he went up that escape area.

  13. look at the video on the top comment

  14. I don't think for a minute that it was premeditated. But equally can imagine that split second when Rosberg simply (mentally) shrugged when forced to take the escape road bringing out the yellow. "Oh well, over-cooked it, pole anyway. Cool!"

    And too be honest the main emotion I'm cultivating, while rubbing my hands with anticipation, is that at least with the rivalry we have some excitement for the season.

    Another great Ricciardo effort. Both Torro Rosso's doing well, some Force India's to run long and upset others strategies.

    Oh, and it might rain.

    Love Monaco. Love F1.

  15. I saw that video and we can all clearly see the rear end is not coming out at all! The car is going straight and he's yanking the wheel left and right to unsettle a car that is already stable.

    He's going into a right hand turn. So which is it? Did he overcook the entry and therefore had to jump on the brakes and locked up the front or did he overcook the entry-turned in-rear came out- then...etc.

    It is very unlikely that he was going into the corner and experiencing oversteer and understeer WITHOUT EVEN ACTUALLY ENTERING THE CORNER?

    How does one have understeer and oversteer at corner entry? I would understand understeer at the entry of a corner and then oversteer at mid-corner or corner exit. Experiencing both at corner entry seems bizarre.

  16. Agree with your analisis of their history and his behavior. It was very weird, running in the pit lane and all that... Still think he deserves an Oscar

  17. I don't know how you can watch that video and come to those conclusions. Do you do any track driving? Because it's very common, when you're braking at the limit, for the rear of the car to become unbalanced requiring steering correction.

  18. The stewards did see the telemetry....

  19. Yes, I do multiple track days a month. Most of the times in my GT3. And I drive it flat out. Because I am race car driver with tremendous talent. So don't question my driving abilities, sir! I have perfected my driving style by hiring the best instructors in the world. Next week I will fly to Spa for a private school session with one of the worlds top motorsports instructors.

  20. HE WAS FASTER IN Q2 the peanuts from the gallery continue to scream. I'll type it again, perhaps you'll take the time to actually think about how easy it is to make that "faster" up" F I V E-O N E-H U N D R E T H S of a second. You can't blink that fast - idiot.

    Talk about getting a life...

  21. Axis AC- You do this blog because you love F1. By now, you should also know F1. Now, if you can't see the groove where ALL cars set up to turn into Mirabeau and you can't see that Rosberg is no where near in that groove (only the left half of his car is in the car-width groove), you need to write about another topic.

  22. Lol. Yeah, on 2nd thought I agree with your Oscar assessment because he sure put one over on everybody to the point where they totally eschew Rosberg's and Hamilton's racing past plus why Hamilton was hired to believe this cooked-up "mistake" nonsense.

  23. Why theorize??????? would have, should have, might have... THEY WEREN"T! They did not immediately come out. Just listen to the telecasters at any station describe the moment. There's Rosberg going off track. There's wondering if yellows will fly. There's locating Hamilton ------ THEN the yellows come out. And when you watch the replay, the yellows don't come out until Rosberg began to go in reverse.

  24. The crazy thing is, this isn't rocket science; it never is, unless that's what it is. In this case we have video, audio and post-reaction from Rosberg. NONE of it adds up to "accident." Not not iota of it. Then she you place the incident in context with the two men involved, I mean, damn, it pretty apparent Rosberg's fed up with being 2nd fiddle, but that's because he's not the driver Hamilton is --- period. THEY HAVE SIXTEEN YEARS of racing against each other to prove it! Fuck, what is it that that people defending this guy get?!

  25. Then don't be one of "this people" and address what I wrote rather than try to tell me what a racist you're not.

  26. If he's good enough to make it so his telemetry satisfied the FIA delegates then, I would argue, he deserves the pole! :) No, I'm right. and BTW there is no more glove there, they repaved and took that famous banked gully our.

  27. In other words, you drive "Flat out"? :)


  29. What part of Tony's post that you replied to has anything to do with race? If you believe that the stewards based their decision on skin color, than you are a lunatic!

  30. Five hundredths slower is still slower.

    Talk about getting a life, a 1,500 word diatribe tells the world that you don't have a life. You probably don't have many friends either.

  31. play nice now kids... :)

  32. BINGO! You figured out who I was trying to impersonate lol

  33. Calm down AC. It was intentional. You a joke
    I know how you are with Hamilton. I should probably ignore you at this point. If the FIA came out today and said "Hamilton must receive a 5 place grid penalty every GP for the rest of his F1 career" I bet you'd be all for it.

  34. Its like how to "Cheat qualifying in Monaco Version 2.0" Rosberg ironed out the bugs and left the FIA no way to "legally" prove malice and punish him. Well played Nico...well played.

  35. make it 10 and you got a deal! :)


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