Rain, Pain and Gain

With rain chasing most of the practice sessions and the Sunday morning support races it was always going to rain in the race and a wet race at the Mecca of street races was always going to be interesting. All through practice Heikki, Nico and young Kubica had been fastest. And then Heikki stalled before the parade lap, so had to start from the pit lane. Hamilton took second from Kimmi at the beginning and Button clouts Heidfiled and Alonso got hit by Rosberg. And both the cars had new noses before the second lap was out. The rain and the narrow track conspired again and it was Hamilton this time to make the tracks acquaintance or more correctly with the barriers and picked up a puncture. But he drove valiantly thereafter and had a victory to show for it.

Monaco is always the high point of the F1 calendar. The principality always attracts the beautiful crowd and it’s always party time when F1 comes to the principality. Then again no one complains, even when the racing here is staid and plain jane. This time it was not to be so. It rained and then every one here wanted to put on a show. So next time around it was Alonso’s turn to damage his tire, the right rear wheel this time, by tangoing with the barriers at casino then the former champ car winner Sebastian tries to play tag with Coulthard and brings out the safety car. To complicate matters Raikonnen earns a drive thru for violating the three minute rule. Alonso seems to be in a hurry to prove that it is the driver and not that car that is important. And tries to drive through and over Heidfield and ends up tboning the German and the German in return drives over the Spaniard’s nose. There where other crashes and a lot of overtaking, which is not common for Monaco but then again it was different this time. The one big regret of this year would for young Adrian Sutil and Force India team as he was clouted out of a good fourth place finish and more by Raikonnen who collided with him and took him out of the race. It is not to take away any thing from Hamilton who put possibly one of his finest performances to date of his short F1 career and too victory and the lead in the championship standings, Kubica took second, showing that the BMW and the pole are fast maturing into potential contenders to Ferrari and Mclaren who have dominated to sport one time or the other over the past two decades. May be the next race will be his maiden victory who knows.