What a race! Wait, let me just shout that one out.

WHAT A RACE!

There was rain, there was sunshine, there was a safety car, high drama, terrifying collisions, plenty of overtaking, non-stop action and, as a whole, two hours of unbelievable entertainment. Ladies and gentleman, if you missed this past weekend’s Monaco GP, you’ve missed the race of races.

‘He was lucky and, considering the fact that every win needs its lucky moments, I still believe Hamilton fully deserved his victory’


You probably know all about the fact that Lewis Hamilton won. It has been published over and over again just how brilliant he was, although I may not necessarily agree with this. I thought Hamilton was pretty fast, but it was his team that were brilliant - he was simply lucky.

Luck came in a strange form for the Brit. He slammed his car into the wall in the early part of the race. First, he was lucky that the car suffered no damages. But, most importantly, he was lucky because this altered the team’s strategy. The incident forced an early pit stop, which allowed him to take on extra fuel. The quick laps he was able to run with a lighter car than any of the others during the middle of the race won it for him.

This piece is not meant to be all about Hamilton, though. He was lucky and, considering the fact that every win needs its lucky moments, I still believe Hamilton fully deserved his victory.

This same race, however, has also posed a strange question that has been lingering for quite a few races now. Are we even sure that Hamilton is the best young talent out there? Before you dismiss this as a silly idea, just think about it. There is only one driver who can be regarded as completely consistent, as he has finished in the top five in all the races since a season opening accident in Australia (which, by the way, was not this driver’s fault).

Who is this man? Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton? Maybe Heikki Kovalainen? None of these. Robert Kubica is making a case for himself right now. He obviously has a car that is lagging behind Ferrari and McLaren, yet he has been able to mess up that rivalry by sandwiching himself in between these guys.

Kubica was once again his brilliant self in Monaco. Whilst his team-mate Nick Heidfeld showed once again that the BMW car is not as powerful as we may believe it to be. Kubica was going for the win and it was only the sheer difference in cars which meant he had no choice but to settle for second place - but he is certainly closing in on his inaugural victory.

Nelsinho Piquet was another fixture of the weekend. He has been in the papers because Renault have lost their patience with him but I believe he showed that he belongs in F1.

It’s not the result that he got (he slipped out during the race when his team opted to risk dry-weather tyres when the track was still wet), it’s the performance. He was able to hold position with the extreme wet tyres when the conditions were not exactly suitable for that tyre selection. I know it’s hard to overtake in Monaco, but numerous much more experienced drivers were unable to do what young Piquet achieved.

Thus we have reached the most dramatic story of this F1 race. I cannot even remember the last time I saw an F1 driver cry in the pits following a race. This is what happened to Adrian Sutil on Sunday, though.

Force India’s young driver was having the race of his life. Following the safety car round-up near the end of the race he was sitting pretty in fourth place with Raikkonen behind him. It is not as if Sutil was in that position due to luck. He drove brilliantly and kept pace with the top cars. He was challenging the lap times of Hamilton and Massa.

Alas, once the safety car brought all of the racers together it was feared that Raikkonen would feast on Sutil and easily take his place. How wrong that assumption turned out to be.

As these two drivers were coming out of the tunnel into the sharp left-right S-curve, Raikkonen lost control whilst applying the brakes just a tad too late. He managed to hold the car on the track despite the front wheels bobbling left and right a few times. Unfortunately, Sutil was too close to him and, as the Ferrari lost traction and brake power, it simply smashed into Sutil’s Force India car.

Throughout the race Sutil won our hearts with his great display of driving skills. It was a classic case of the underdog beating the odds. How sad it was then that a most unfortunate accident denied him a grand finish on the biggest stage there is in Formula 1.