The Official Monaco F1 Grand Prix 2009 Thread **SPOILERS**?

1st Practice suggests Rubens is grinding molars this weekend. The elder statesmen intends a statement! Ferrari and McLaren are surely anticipating that this is the real start of the season, on track that is.

Testy times on a testing track. I'm sick of Button smoothies. Time for this season to get more flavour. Four horny Red Bulls? Two willing Williams? Half of Renault? Maybe a couple of scurried Force India/BMWs up a yacht mast? WTF Toyota? Ah, it's only practice. Jarno for pole?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2009 11:22PM by mortal.

Deliberately watched both practice sessions this morning/noon as not to miss all the excitement. But what a disappointment, nobody had even a smallest of crashes, how dull

Massa or Rubens will be on pole unless they get held up in traffic like Massa was at the end there.

Im hoping for another Button win as mclaren and ferrari are catching up quick now.

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matt3454 Wrote:
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> Im hoping for another Button win as mclaren and
> ferrari are catching up quick now.

not sure about mclaren's progress - they seemed to take a step backwards at Barcelona. It may have been (probably like toyota) a one-off though, and this track will probably suit them more.


Anyway, i'm really hoping for webber to get a great result this weekend. He's regularly been fast here, Red Bull have their new diffuser, and Button also rates him as a strong threat, even in comparison to vettel. hopefully the lost practice time doesn't hurt too much on saturday.

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X (@ed24f1)

Difficult to predict anything, even top few cars really.

Traffic was just so awful. There will be upsets on Saturday qualifying!

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

As heard on the commentary, many big names to go out. But Ferrari are immensely quick esp. with Felipe! :D

Also, anyone hear the telemetry problem that Ferrari had at Barca. They had the fuel in the car to go all the way!

I love mcdo's intros to GP threads. I think mcdo should be the official GP thread poster.

Anyways, hard to see past Brawn, innit? I dunno if Red Bull will be quite as close as they have been, I suspect their car mightn't like Monaco as much as the faster circuits.

I'm hoping Toyota will be back and Trulli should be a man to watch round here. As a wilcard, this could be Williams chance to land some big points too.

I'm expecting this one to be between Brawn GP(quickest), RedBull(a close 2nd) and Nico's Williams, as long as he keeps it out of the barriers.
That's assuming, of course, that traffic etc. doesn't mess the natural order up.

And I'll be really surprised if any of the KERS cars manage anything impressive - in quali or the race.

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I'll say this will be another cakewalk by BGP, with Mclaren,Ferrari and Red Bull evenly matched. After those I dont know what to expect, Toyota seems to have lost their way and their wheelbase, the longest of all the teams this year wont help them much here, Williams well they are always fast on fridays but not so in the race and Renault doesnt seems to be making any ground.

This is just based on practice and I would love nothing more than to see Toyota up there but they just seem lost, they keep trying with two different front wings and now they have problems with tire degradation, Trulli will probably be in the top ten but I think the best they will do is 8-10 on the grid unfortunately. I really hope they find their way in a hurry or they will be in deep s#@t.

i really hope Toyota are sandbagging or running high fuel... otherwise this is going to be a disaster!

As an aside - is there a way to access the BBC online reruns without going via the F1 website? (I am in UK). I mite be missing Qualli or the Race, and don't want to record it on my VCR cos the picture quality is appalling, but obviously i don't want to find out the result before i watch the session!

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Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

Monza972 Wrote:
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>
> Also, anyone hear the telemetry problem that
> Ferrari had at Barca. They had the fuel in the car
> to go all the way!


hmm I thought i saw him stop and get out of the car after a few turns. If he had fuel he would carry on to the pits?

harjinator Wrote:
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> As an aside - is there a way to access the BBC
> online reruns without going via the F1 website? (I
> am in UK). I mite be missing Qualli or the Race,
> and don't want to record it on my VCR cos the
> picture quality is appalling, but obviously i
> don't want to find out the result before i watch
> the session!


maybe get someone to PM/E-Mail you a direct link after the session.

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X (@ed24f1)

bbc.co.uk/iplayer ?

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seem to remember last time i tried that i got a spoiler (which wasn't critical cos i'd seen it already) will try anyway

On with the topic! Interesting to see 2 engine failures in one day - anybody know how old the units were?

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Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

[www.bbc.co.uk]

that shouldn't give you any spoilers I wouldn't have thought.

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I wish they would do something to stop some of the drivers cutting that chicane after the swimming pool. Massa has 2 wheels over it every single time, he was doing this last year as well.

They may as well just remove it if they are not going to stop cars cutting it.

Both Brawn drivers did not seem to have to push the cars as hard as others to get the lap times they were setting.

Rubens looks like he has things under control this weekend, and has the upper hand over Button.

Massa and Lewis are pushing so hard, every time I saw them I expected them to hit a wall.

Quali is going to be good to watch.

marcl Wrote:
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> I wish they would do something to stop some of the
> drivers cutting that chicane after the swimming
> pool. Massa has 2 wheels over it every single
> time, he was doing this last year as well.

Yep. Massa even missed that chicane altogether once during the 2007 race :P
They should restore the whole swimming pool-Rascasse section to its pre-2003 layout. The modifications they made to the track that year did a lot to sanitise it and detract from the unique challenge, mainly in the percieved interests of TV. And I know these included the new pits and pitlane, which have been a big improvement, but I'm sure they could've found a way to build a new pits complex without making sanitising modifications to the old track layout. I've never been a fan of them.

> Rubens looks like he has things under control this
> weekend, and has the upper hand over Button.

Let's hope so. It's about time Rubens won one - and Monaco would be appropriate.

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practise means nothing...
just look at the last few races...



GPGSL WDC Season 4

The old Swimming Pool complex, when the barriers came out to the track, rather than small run off and kerbs that are there now, that was a mega corner.

I still got images of Alesi flashing past in the Ferrari

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions