United States Qualifying: So many let downs...

Formula One shot itself in the foot, once again, before the weekend even got underway. The first big news was that the underdogs, albeit very popular teams, Marussia and Caterham would not be taking part in Texas. Very simply put, the inequality in Formula One has pushed two of the teams out of the Championship, leaving only eighteen cars on the grid. Also, it's difficult to take a sport seriously, that, through regulations and imposed penalties, allows its reigning World Champion to be forced to start the race from the pit lane, before the qualifying session has even got underway. The mind boggles!

The biggest news of the session, in my opinion, was Sutil's fantastic performance for the struggling Sauber team. The team have had an absolutely dire season, but this was a small piece of success, which was received with clear enthusiasm and elation. It was only tenth place, but the achievement of actually making it in to the top ten shootout will be a great boost for the team.

The rest of the session was just as tedious as most of the other qualifying sessions. Pole and second place were taken by the usual suspects, although interestingly Nico Rosberg is taking the fight to Lewis Hamilton, by bagging the top spot. The promising thing about the race is that the gloves are off again, at Mercedes. The team have taken the Constructor's Championship, so all that is left is for Lewis and Nico to smash in to each other, block each other and hinder each other. I really don't know who I want to win the Driver's Championship. Hamilton is a Brit, is fair and honest, but he regularly comes across as quite soft and a moaner, which is irritating. Rosberg, on the other hand, is cerebral and smart, with an infectious personality, but he is undoubtedly a cheat. It's a difficult choice, but maybe after this weekend I can make a decision.

The Grid:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Laps
1	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:38.303	1:36.290	1:36.067	20
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:37.196	1:37.287	1:36.443	16
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:38.249	1:37.499	1:36.906	19
4	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1:37.877	1:37.347	1:37.205	20
5	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:38.814	1:37.873	1:37.244	17
6	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:38.349	1:38.010	1:37.610	16
7	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.574	1:38.024	1:37.655	17
8	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.557	1:38.047	1:37.706	16
9	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:38.669	1:38.263	1:37.804	22
10	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	1:38.855	1:38.378	1:38.810	15
11	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	1:38.608	1:38.467		16
12	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1:39.200	1:38.554		16
13	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:38.931	1:38.598		16
14	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	1:38.936	1:38.699		17
15	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	1:39.250			10
16	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:39.555			10
17	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:39.621			3
18	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:39.679			8

Monaco Grand Prix: One in the eye for Mercedes...

There were quite a few talking points during the Monaco Grand Prix, but one of the biggest ones has to be the various controversies surrounding the two Mercedes drivers. It all started in qualifying, when a suspect Nico Rosberg locked up in the final minute of Q3, preventing anybody from completing potentially faster laps. In my eyes, it was the only thing that Nico did wrong all weekend and even that incident has been interpreted in a couple of different ways. I'm going to put it out there, and many may not agree, but I think the rest of the controversy really just boiled down to childish petulance from Lewis Hamilton.

The race got underway and Rosberg had a fantastic start to pull away from an already disgruntled Hamilton. There was a safety car after only one lap, when Perez had a coming together in a very awkward area of the circuit. From then on it would prove extremely difficult for Hamilton to get close to putting a move on his teammate and, by the sixty-fifth lap, Lewis was rapidly losing time to Nico. Less than a minute later, he was heard telling his race engineer that he couldn't see out of his left eye and that he had something in it. It was an unfortunate and unusual development, that robbed us of a fight to the chequered flag. To be fair, that immediately opened up another opportunity, as Daniel Ricciardo started closing in on a one-eyed Hamilton. Unfortunately, he was unable to make any moves, mainly due to the Mercedes engine's superior straight line speed, coupled with the difficulty in finding a corner to pass on, around Monaco.

Lewis' petulant side became apparent, after the second safety car period and all of the cars had made their first pit stops. Lewis argued, over the team radio, that he should have been pitted first and earlier. To give him an advantage, he may well have been right, however he would only have been gaining an advantage over his teammate; who was in first place; and who, for that reason, was fully entitled to the more favourable and beneficial strategy.

It's so typical of Lewis Hamilton to feel and display a false sense of entitlement and then throw his toys out of the pram. It's one thing to have something unfairly taken from you, but an entirely different thing to want something you don't have a right to be gifted. His attitude on the podium steps was yet another one of the many times I've felt that a driver has not deserved to be there at all. I can't stand it when a driver is disappointed to be on the podium, whilst some other teams, fans and drivers, just hope and pray for their cars to finish.

Which brings me on to my Driver of the Day. Only this week I've not chosen only a driver, I've chosen a team. Marussia are my Team of the Day, for a wonderful effort that saw them score points for the first time in their history. Its great to see the elation of teams further down the order, when they achieve, what seems to many to be a small success. To them it is a huge accomplishment and this emphasises just how important all of the battles throughout the paddock are.

The success of Marussia all stemmed from the fact that the back of the pack was where all the fun was to be had. Amongst the Marussias, Caterhams and Saubers, there were wild lunges, in the most unlikely of places, and some hefty contact, as drivers got a little overzealous. Adrian Sutil was in the running for my Driver of the Day, as he threw his car in to the smallest of spaces, to complete a couple of fantastic overtaking moves. It was all going so well for him, until he hit the barrier coming out of the tunnel, which resulted in the second safety car period. I just hope that accident doesn't cause him to back off, because it's this kind of aggression that brings the races alive.

The 2014 Monaco Grand Prix wasn't the best we've seen and, in terms of the final result, it wasn't all that unpredictable, but it was the sort of race that kept you on the edge of your seat, with yet another explosive finale.


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The Result:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts
1	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	78	1:49:27.661	1	25
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	78	+9.2 secs	2	18
3	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	78	+9.6 secs	3	15
4	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	78	+32.4 secs	5	12
5	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	77	+1 Lap	11	10
6	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	77	+1 Lap	12	8
7	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	77	+1 Lap	16	6
8	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	77	+1 Lap	14	4
9	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	77	+1 Lap	21	2
10	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	77	+1 Lap	8	1
11	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	77	+1 Lap	22
12	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	77	+1 Lap	6
13	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	75	+3 Laps	20
14	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	75	+3 Laps	19
Ret	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	59	Accident	17
Ret	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	55	+23 Laps	13
Ret	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	50	+28 Laps	7
Ret	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	23	Accident	18
Ret	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	10	+68 Laps	9
Ret	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	5	+73 Laps	4
Ret	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	0	Accident	10
Ret	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	0	+78 Laps	15

Spanish Qualifying: Mercedes, Mercedes, Mercedes!

It was The Mercedes story again, in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix. There were high expectations for the other teams being able to catch up with the Silver Arrows, as we approached the first of the European races, but that failed to materialise. Hamilton and Rosberg were a full second faster than third place Ricciardo, in the Red Bull. We may find ourselves ignoring the Mercedes cars again, as they power away from the rest of the field, to seal the victory. Perhaps if somebody can get past them, away from the lights, then the race at the front might be a little closer.

The other teams are extremely well matched for pace, with Williams, Ferrari, McLaren and Force India all thrashing it out for the same grid positions. Out of all of those teams, Force India appeared to be the weakest, dropping out of Q2. Its a shame, because their progress has been impressive over the last few seasons, but that progress seems to have ground to a halt in the opening races of 2014. It wasn't only Force India who were struggling. It appeared that Caterham's progress at the start of this season also hit a speed bump, as they qualified twentieth and twenty-first. The only driver they out-qualified was Pastor Maldonado, who managed to throw his Lotus in to the wall, after only a couple of laps of the first session.

There were two red flag periods during qualifying. The first one was due to Maldonado's excursion in to the wall. The second came as a result of much more exciting circumstances. Reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel crawled out of the pits, near the beginning of Q1 and stopped just after the first chicane, with an electrical fault. It's the second time Vettel has had to drop out with technical difficulties and Christian Horner hit the nail on the head when he said "it's character building". Sometimes it's quite entertaining to observe the way the race engineers and drivers use the team radio to manipulate the race officials. Hamilton tenuously attempted to accuse Vettel of blocking him, which Sebastian countered with apologies directly aimed at Hamilton.

It was the second red flag that produced a good old fashioned end to Q1, with over half of the drivers leaving their final fast laps until the last couple of minutes. They fought out the final top ten positions, but there was no question of Mercedes being abe to secure the top two grid slots. Once again they look unbeatable. Williams are looking very strong and are bringing their fight closer and closer to the front runners. Perhaps they will be able to do what Red Bull have so far struggled with, and challenge the dominant Mercedes team in the coming races.


The Grid:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Laps
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:27.238	1:26.210	1:25.232	16
2	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:26.764	1:26.088	1:25.400	19
3	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:28.053	1:26.613	1:26.285	16
4	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:28.198	1:27.563	1:26.632	17
5	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:28.472	1:27.258	1:26.960	18
6	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:28.308	1:27.335	1:27.104	18
7	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:28.329	1:27.602	1:27.140	16
8	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:28.279	1:27.570	1:27.335	18
9	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1:28.061	1:27.016	1:27.402	16
10	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:27.958	1:27.052	No time	11
11	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:28.155	1:27.685		13
12	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1:28.469	1:28.002		16
13	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	1:28.074	1:28.039		12
14	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:28.374	1:28.280		12
15	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:28.389	No time		10
16	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	1:28.194	No time		6
17	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	1:28.563			9
18	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	1:29.586			6
19	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	1:30.177			6
20	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	1:30.312			8
21	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	1:30.375			6
22	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	No time			2