3.6.13

Fifteen or so years ago I was a regular viewer of the Mrs Merton chat show, where the eponymous spoof host famously asked Debbie McGee, "So, what first attracted you to the balding millionaire Paul Daniels?" Sadly, the rather better looking Wolverhampton lass Suzi Perry failed to ask Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery “So, why did you ask the team whose owners spend the most on production road car tyres to run a 1000km tyre test?” Neither (spoiler alert) did she ask Ross Brawn after the race “So, having qualified three times on pole but got your first win in Monaco, was the 1000km tyre test any help at all?”

The whole tyre testing saga was handled with an amateurism that must have had Bernie cringing. Pirelli and Mercedes thought they would escape ridicule by producing unconvincing spokesmen who looked as though they wished they were anywhere else – Damascus or Kabul perhaps. As I write, it is being decided whether the matter should be referred to the International Tribunal, presided over by Edwin Glasgow, QC, who acted for the Armed Forces in the Saville “Bloody Sunday” Enquiry, his fee over £4m. So he'll be at home in F1 circles then.

In many ways, the story of the race began in free practice. Imagine that Felipe had not had his St Devote accident and had qualified behind Fernando. Could he have been wingman while Fernando pushed? A fourth to Fernando's third in FP3 on Thursday indicated Felipe’s speed to be there.

But he started from the back of the grid, the team unable to effect repairs in time for P1. Oh for the days of T-cars.... Felipe took the blame for this one, which once again proved the fantastic safety of modern F1 as after bouncing off the barriers he headed straight into the foam barrier. Together with the Hans device, he walked away. Grosjean crashed in practice on Thursday and then again in qualifying. Perhaps there's a parallel here. It would be a brave man who didn't regard Alonso and Raikkonen as two of the most complete drivers on the grid. Different styles, but great thinkers. Yet Massa and Grosjean have been fairly close in speed this year to their team leaders. Could it be that – fast drivers though the latter pair are - they have to try just a bit too hard to keep up? In the words of the TV reality shows, are they “giving 110%”, which really means they're mentally over-revving?

Rosberg strolled through qualifying to pole, not aided at all by tyre testing, followed by Hamilton, not aided...etc etc. With Vettel and Webber on row 2, Raikkonen just (two thousandths) edged out Fernando. DiResta gave one of the most graceless interviews seen this year when he and his team messed up changing onto intermediates and so rather than a fairly easy entry to Q2 he languished in 17th. He put all the blame on the team.

The race was, I'm sorry to say, like a lot we've seen of late in this “Nascar Pretend Excitement” era of F1. There was a lot of incident, but little truly satisfying racing. Rosberg drove at sufficient speed to finish first; winning seems the wrong word. Like most, he did it with just one stop. However, it was pleasant to see somebody sincerely pleased, and with an expression that says “we did it as a team, and I was the driver”. Rosberg does come across as a personality with style, in contrast to his team-mate. However, credit does have to go to Hamilton who helped Rosberg by being wide and obstructive in the early part of the race.

To cover the rest of the top ten, it's necessary now to go to the back of the grid and our poor unfortunate Felipe. He moved up when Jules Bianchi's Marussia started from the pit lane and again when Maldonado and Van der Garde pitted after the Dutchman rode over the Williams at the hairpin. Disappointingly, he then lost a place to DiResta, in what was a very clean manoeuvre at St Devote, and after the pit stops he was two places from the back. There was then a near copy of the Saturday accident when the car went into the barriers on the way in St Devote and then into the foam protected corner barriers. This was much more severe for the driver as it was a sideways impact, where the Hans does nothing, the driver reliant on the car's “horseshoe” cockpit head restraint. Fortunately it did its job well, though Felipe looked distinctly shaken as the precautionary neck brace was fitted. The result of the accident was mass pitting. Mercedes and Hamilton got it wrong, and lost two places to Vettel and Webber.

Thereafter, the story is mainly that of Perez. He influenced the race more than most. I've heard him praised for his forceful overtaking which made the race interesting, and condemned for his excessive “GP2 style” aggression, which I think means a mid '80's Formula Ford style. This first showed with Button on lap three when he complained over the radio about Perez turning in on him at the chicane. Ironically, that one didn't look too bad, and Perez later (lap 42) passed Button into the chicane, locked up and relying on Button to give him space. The latter sportingly described it as “a great move”.

Two laps later Perez tried the same thing with Alonso who had a choice: collide or cut the chicane. Possibly thinking of the championship rather than the race, and more probably thinking of avoiding interlocking wheels and having a big accident, he chose the latter. The stewards apparently decided that avoiding an accident wasn't a good enough reason to cut the chicane and instructions were issued that Alonso must cede the place to Perez.

Perez’s next victim was Raikkkonen, on whom he tried his standard chicane manoeuvre. He had clearly become over-optimistic and they both cut the chicane, and even the Monaco stewards couldn't find a way to reward Perez. 16 laps passed and he tried it again. Raikkonen is clearly a thinker, but he's also a hard man. He held his line just long enough to make sure Perez was squeezed hard into the wall. Expensive carbon flew into the air, possibly the Finn's diffuser, but certainly some was the end of Perez's wing. The damage was too much and Perez pulled off.

Raikkonen pitted and came back out on fresh rubber and conclusively disproved the no-overtaking-at-Monaco mantra. With Hulkenberg and Bottas bravely fighting for the sole point of 10th, Raikkonen swept past Van Der Garde, Chilton, Gutierrez and then the duelling pair to capture that last point for himself. The man has not only skill but a brutal style, which came out even more so when asked about Perez: somebody should “hit him in the face”. That's the thing about Kimi, it's so hard to tell what he really thinks.

I've missed out the fifth place because in some ways Sutil was almost as impressive as Raikkonen. It looks as though around Monaco the Force India was an outstanding car, but Sutil drove beautifully. Sadly, one move was at the expense of Fernando when he very neatly drove inside him at the hairpin – you could almost hear Fernando cursing himself for leaving the door open. In another he nipped past Button, again in stealth mode, very cleanly.

Towards the end of the race the Red Bull engineers gave Vettel the go ahead to enjoy himself and he did a lap a clear two seconds quicker than anybody else. Earlier in the race fastest lap was held by Van der Garde in a Caterham. Vettel described the pace as being that of a bus tour. The evidence all points to the race being at a ridiculously slow pace, and therefore, for these drivers, dull to drive. Here, I think, we have some explanation for the incidents. Remember when Senna went off at Monaco through getting bored when he was going slowly? I suspect that some of the drivers lost concentration. Chilton and more so Grosjean with unfortunate results for others. Alonso and Button with a loss to themselves. Perhaps the dreaded Perez was trying to take advantage of this loss of concentration by his shock tactics? It seems once again that the tyres can give rise to bad racing rather than the thrilling overtaking the powers wanted.

For Ferrari, Monaco was a near disaster. In the past I've sometimes thought it could show signs of an upturn in the fortunes of Ferrari. Does this signal a downturn? I hope not. Massa seemed to attract bad luck and it all seemed to stem from the FP3 crash. Alonso, usually so near faultless in his racecraft, seemed to be not quite up to his normal standards. We do have a potential explanation in that for Alonso's level of talent this sort of race is just an insult and his brain went into a sort of “get you home” mode. This has to be a one off. Doesn't it?

Click here for FIA lap chart.

Stefano Domenicali: “We can’t be happy with this weekend, not just because of the outcome of Fernando’s race, but also because of the bad accidents that Felipe had. Fortunately, despite the violence of the impact, he is fine and has already gone home and I believe that in the space of a few days he will back in perfect shape and ready to race in Montreal. Apart from all the misfortune, it was a complicated race, conditioned by a few problems of a technical nature. Now it is important for us to understand why we were not as competitive as we were in previous races and try to react right away in Canada.”

Fernando Alonso: “Unfortunately today we didn’t manage to have a good pace, as is usually the case on Sunday and I wasn’t pessimistic about not being competitive yesterday, because so far, things have always improved in the race. That wasn’t the case today, maybe down to a lack of traction, a problem we had seen before in Bahrain. This race came at the end of a weekend that overall was difficult, starting with a qualifying that left me in the middle of a group of drivers who had nothing to lose. If I had not cut the chicane, I would not have been able to avoid colliding with Perez. As for what Sergio did, I don’t have much to say, his approach reminds me of my own in 2008 and 2009, because when you are not fighting for the Championship, you can take more risks, while for me today, it was important to finish the race and bring home as many points as possible.”

Felipe Massa: “Today my race ended on lap twenty eight after an accident at the Ste. Devote corner, just as happened yesterday morning in the third free practice session. I was taken to hospital for all the precautionary checks and luckily everything is in order. I’m alright, I’ve just got a slight pain in my neck, but nothing serious. Now I will look to get in shape and be back 100% for the Montreal race. All I want to do is put this bad weekend behind me and think about doing well in the rest of the season.”