quoteFP1 - Hamilton leads, Verstappen stars in Monte Carlo
MONACO MERCEDES LEWIS HAMILTON 21 May 2015
Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton topped Thursday morning’s opening practice for the Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco 2015, lapping the famous street circuit just 0.149s faster than Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen, who is competing here for the very first time.
PRACTICE 1 RESULTS
POS. DRIVER TIME GAP LAPS 1 LEWIS HAMILTON 1:18.750 49 2 MAX VERSTAPPEN 1:18.899 +0.149 42 3 DANIEL RICCIARDO 1:19.086 +0.336 27 4 SEBASTIAN VETTEL 1:19.134 +0.384 31 5 CARLOS SAINZ 1:19.245 +0.495 40 6 PASTOR MALDONADO 1:19.454 +0.704 35 7 DANIIL KVYAT 1:19.520 +0.770 33 8 KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN 1:19.679 +0.929 31 9 NICO ROSBERG 1:19.762 +1.012 47 10 FELIPE MASSA 1:19.766 +1.016 32
In a closely contested session which saw the track improve significantly towards the end, Daniel Ricciardo was third for Red Bull ahead of the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel. Carlos Sainz was fifth for Toro Rosso, followed by the Lotus of Pastor Maldonado and the second Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat.
Kimi Raikkonen finished up eighth for Ferrari, with last year’s winner Nico Rosberg ninth for Mercedes and the Williams of Felipe Massa completing the top ten, all of who were covered by little more than a second.
Things, however, were not quite as they seemed. The session was all about maintaining tyre and brake temperatures, and the timing of your runs - and Verstappen's fabulous effort of 1m 18.899s was one of several that came late in the session, on a track that improved all the way through the 90 minutes.
Hamilton's 1m 18.750s, in contrast, was set earlier on and proved good enough to keep him at the top for the remainder of the session, albeit by increasingly small margins.
The Briton was in mighty form throughout. He got down to a 1m 22s early on, at a time when others were exercising caution - and were all more than six seconds slower - on a track that was still drying following earlier downpours.
That confidence continued and when Nico Rosberg edged briefly ahead by 0.002s mid-way through, Hamilton's response was to go half a second faster; later he went a second quicker.
Mercedes' main rival this afternoon will likely be Vettel, who was second on 1m 19.134s before the rash of late improvements.
Ricciardo took his Red Bull to third with 1m 19.086s, while behind Vettel the order changed several times before Sainz eventually claimed fifth in the second Toro Rosso on 1m 19.245s, ahead of Maldonado on 1m 19.454s and Kvyat on 1m 19.520s.
Raikkonen, eighth on 1m 19.679s, had chased Hamilton and Vettel before Ferrari's programme called for other things rather than fast laps when others were making them, and the same held true for Rosberg, ninth on 1m 19.762s.
quoteFP2 - Hamilton tops rain-disrupted Monaco session
MONACO MERCEDES LEWIS HAMILTON 21 May 2015
The weather was the dominant factor in Thursday’s second practice in Monte Carlo. Rain arrived around 20 minutes into the session - just after Marussia’s Roberto Merhi had crashed exiting the tunnel, briefly bringing out the red flags - and rendered subsequent lap time improvements all but impossible.
PRACTICE 2 RESULTS
POS. DRIVER TIME GAP LAPS 1 LEWIS HAMILTON 1:17.192 12 2 NICO ROSBERG 1:17.932 +0.740 16 3 SEBASTIAN VETTEL 1:18.295 +1.103 14 4 KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN 1:18.543 +1.351 15 5 DANIIL KVYAT 1:18.548 +1.356 16 6 CARLOS SAINZ 1:18.659 +1.467 14 7 MAX VERSTAPPEN 1:18.782 +1.590 12 8 FERNANDO ALONSO 1:18.906 +1.714 18 9 NICO HULKENBERG 1:19.151 +1.959 13 10 ROMAIN GROSJEAN 1:19.266 +2.074 13
A few drivers ventured back out on a damp track in the final ten minutes, but it meant Lewis Hamilton was left sitting pretty atop the timesheet, seven-tenths clear of Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg and over a second ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.
Team mate Kimi Raikkonen backed Vettel up in fourth, followed by Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat, and the Toro Rossos of Carlos Sainz and FP1 star Max Verstappen. McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Lotus’s Romain Grosjean completed the top ten.
All drivers set their quickest times on the soft rubber. Only Pastor Maldonado got as far as switching to the supersoft tyre, but the Lotus driver did so just as the heavens opened and was lucky to make it back to the pits without incident, such was the obvious lack of grip.
The conditions made it difficult to read too much into the timesheets. Hamilton's quickest lap was a 1m 17.192s, but his advantage of 0.740s to Rosberg - who posted 1m 17.932s - and to Vettel, on 1m 18.295s, owed much to the fact neither had the chance or time to reply to the Briton's flyer.
The same held true for the rest of the field. Raikkonen was fourth on 1m 18.543s, confirming Ferrari's position, with Kvyat a very close fifth with 1m 18.548s in the leading Red Bull. The Russian also looked quick in the wet conditions, although they are not expected to be repeated over the rest of the weekend.
Kimi Raikkonen: “The feeling with the car today was pretty ok, obviously there are some small issues but they are more related to the tyres: it’s difficult to make them warm up, especially the front tyres, but overall it’s not too bad. In order to get the tyres working, it would have been nice to see how the Supersofts work, anyway I think they are much easier. Due to the rain we couldn’t learn as much I wanted, but it was the same for everybody. We did the most that we could in these conditions. For Saturday we have to see how the weather will be, we still have some work to do on the car and make sure the tyres work well, then we’ll go from there and do the best in qualifying and in the race.”
quote Sebastian Vettel: “When it rains it’s the same for everyone, you don’t tend to run. Today the car felt ok, we wanted to test a couple more things but time went out. We have to wait and see until Saturday to understand more and we’ll only find out on Sunday how close we are to Mercedes..."
I think Vettel is spending way to much time with Kimi
quotePre-Monaco analysis - Ferrari primed to cash in at Monte Carlo FERRARI MONACO 21 May 2015
Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen hope that the wild card nature of Monaco will give their Ferrari SF15-Ts the chance to shine here in the Principality this weekend.
They will retain the dramatic aerodynamic upgrade introduced in Spain, even though it was disappointing there, as the team believe that it was more of an underlying problem with mechanical grip and traction that made them underperform in Barcelona, and the cars have also had further, Monaco-specific, updates to maximise downforce.
“We have to go into the weekend and see how it goes tomorrow,” Raikkonen said on Thursday, “and go from there. But I expect us to be as good as we’ve been this year at least, and then obviously whatever happens over the weekends we will see. But I think it’s a pretty normal race weekend for us, even though it’s always a special place.
“Obviously we think that they [the upgrades] are good parts; otherwise they would not be on the car at all. There were certain things we wanted to learn and I was prepared to take the chance and work for the long future for all of us [by running the old configuration so that they could effectively do a back-to-back comparison in Barcelona]. I think we learned things and I’m sure that we will get them working 100 percent in the future. Maybe here I think they should be fine. You know, every circuit, every condition is different. It was a bit of a tricky weekend for us but I’m sure we’ll be better here and in upcoming races. Like I said, it wasn’t ideal for us but the aim is to improve. We have come still a long way from last year and we want to improve and improve and we have to keep working.”
Both Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton yesterday stressed the importance of qualifying here. While the McLaren driver said that his victory here in 2009 was special he also said that qualifying the previous day had given him the most satisfying pole of his career. And Hamilton said: “It’s just not possible to overtake here. I know, because I tried everything to do that with Nico last year and couldn’t do it.”
Raikkonen, whose qualifying performances recently haven’t been great, thinks things might be okay here for him and Ferrari.
“Obviously it’s not been ideal. If you think it’s not going to be ideal, it’s probably going to be better than expected. It’s always the important race, but every race is simple in qualifying. This might be a bit more but these days it’s not the easiest thing to overtake. We do our best, try and get things right all weekend long and be up there.”
Hamilton said that he expects the red cars to be strong here.
“They should be closer. There are fewer straights here and fewer issues with harvesting power from the ERS systems, so I think they could be strong. It would be nice to have a good battle.”
Interestingly, he says he isn’t expecting any problems with team mate Rosberg’s tactics in qualifying this year, and may have the advantage that, should he choose to do so, this week it’s his turn to run first in Q3.
“I do have the choice this year, which is good. It’s lucky that I get that in the sense that at the first race we tossed a coin, I guess Nico perhaps won in the first race and chose to go second and from race to race, there’s pros and cons to being the first car or wanting to be one of the latter cars in qualifying, and naturally here, yellow flags and all those kind of things are an issue. To be honest you could get it wrong either way. If you decided to go first and then on your lap there happens to be yellow flags... I don’t know.
“I think we’ll play to be as a team, me and my engineers decide. I’m confident that last year’s episode will not recur and so I don’t feel pressured either way. I’m just going with the mindset of trying to be even better than I was last year and do a better lap.”
Sounding as relaxed as you’d expect after finally signing a new three-year contract with the team, he added: “I’ve given a lot of thought recently to how I can improve here. I won here in 2008 but that wasn’t spectacular, so I can improve, and potentially we have the car to win.
“This race is a fresh start and I feel good coming into this weekend, mentally and physically, I really, really do. How it all comes out we’ll see as the weekend goes on. Qualifying is everything here.”
If Rosberg wins again he will join Monaco masters Graham Hill and Ayrton Senna among the circuit’s hat-trick victors, but Hamilton admitted: “To me that’s irrelevant. I want the world championship. Life won’t end if I don’t win this weekend. It’s not that I don’t want to win, but I want that world championship way more than I want to win this race.”
only short, we are . FP1 was busy, FP2 was very wet and not very busy At one point we go under the grandstand and don´t go back. We go to a bar that is near were the drivers need to walk. So I made this pictures
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This is from "Old-Monaco" to "New-Monaco" (nor sure this term is correct....). Great view!!!
We had another great day. We have now autographs from Kimi, Seb and Mr. Arrivabene (and me from Jenson). There were much people in the pitlane, so we managed not to see other drivers (but who cares ) Here 3 of my pictures from today (not more, sorry, slow internet )
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Seb Concentrated to give his signature (And yes, I know, no good picture Sonny )
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Kimi was maybe 15 minutes for the autograph session. After this it seems he go to the Iceman and stayed there. We saw him in the evening as he got with Robin on his arm of a little boot, together with Minttu, nanny and others (brought him maybe back to the hotel). Toni was also there, he go back to the paddock after this.