Michael Schumacher on receiving end of Damon Hill decision

Monaco Grand Prix:

It was almost inevitable. As soon as Damon Hill was announced last week as one of four stewards for Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix, there was perhaps always going to be a controversial decision involving his old nemesis Michael Schumacher.

Penalised: Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher was demoted to 12th place at the end of the Monaco GP after a stewards' panel decided his move on Fernando Alonso was illegal

Sure enough, 16 years after losing the 1994 championship by a single point to the German after the pair tangled in Adelaide, Hill had the opportunity to exact some small measure of revenge.

Schumacher had passed Ferrari's Fernando Alonso on the last corner of the race following the departure of a safety car and crossed the line sixth, prompting a stewards' inquiry because rule 40.13 states that "if the race ends whilst the safety car is deployed it will enter the pit-lane at the end of the last lap and the cars will take the chequered flag as normal without overtaking".

The German was confident he would escape sanction, telling reporters that he had received a message saying "Safety car in. Track clear".
"If that's given then its racing," Schumacher argued. "You can have the message 'safety car and finish under safety car rule', it's a different message."

However, the stewards found against the German, who was handed a 20-second penalty dropping him to 12th and out of the points. Mercedes are appealing against the decision.
Hill said later that his only concern had been that "the right thing" was done.

But the 1996 world champion admitted that there was a wry smile from Schumacher when he saw Hill as he entered the stewards' room.

By Tom Cary

Mark Webber cools talk of championship glory

Mark Webber says it is too early to talk about winning the world title despite going top of the standings after victory at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Webber made it two wins out of two on Sunday to lead the title race on count-back, with Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel joining him on 78 points.

"We're in a good position and we have a good foundation," he said.
"But no-one knows who is going to be in the hunt with a few races to go. I don't think it's between two guys."

The Red Bull team have been dominant this season, claiming pole position in all of the six races so far, with Webber winning in Monaco and last week in Spain while Vettel emerged victorious in Malaysia.

Vettel could also have had victories in Bahrain and Australia but was hampered by reliability problems.

Red Bull also lead the constructors' world championship by 22 points from Ferrari but when asked whether the championship will be between the team's two drivers, a cautious Webber added: "Two races ago everyone was saying someone else.

"In two races' time they might be saying someone else again.

"Obviously, Seb and I are equal on points. We've got some different venues coming up, keep in mind that engines are going to come into play in the back part of the championship.

"I'm optimistic and realistic enough to know that of course you are not going to win every race but we are looking to get as many top results as we can.

"It is a long way home. We have so many different conditions and different tracks - Montreal, Monza and Budapest - there are many exciting times ahead so I'm looking forward to it.

"There's lots of things to roll into this situation yet."

Webber hailed the victory in Monaco as an important landmark for his Red Bull team, calling it an "incredible day".

"Red Bull have not been around for long," he added. "People forget - three or four years ago they were saying we were the laughing stock.

"It's a great sports story to come in and take on great operations like McLaren and Ferrari.

"That gives us a good feeling but they will be back. They're still fighting right now, it's a good championship."

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner echoed Webber's comments, describing the success as a "brilliant team result".

"This is even sweeter than Spain," said Horner. "Mark Webber has had the week of his life. To dominate the race like that here in Monaco is incredible.
"He has found a rhythm gelled and with the car and the upgrades.
"He is in a very good place at the moment. It's all about confidence round here and you wont find a more confident man than Webber in Monaco.

"Sebastian Vettel drove a great race as well to hold off Robert Kubica.

"The team comes before everything and its testimony to everybody's effort that we got this result.

"We had brake issues coming out of Barcelona the guys have worked relentlessly and this result is a reward for all of that hard work."

Webber was untouchable in Monaco, claiming his second straight pole on Saturday before cruising to victory in the race - despite the disruption of four safety cars - to become only the second Australian to win in the principality.

"It was not a nice situation to be honest with all the safety cars," added the 33-year-old after his fourth career win.
"You do all the hard work, you get away and then you have a safety car which neutralises that and you have some fast guys back on your wheel again.
"It was very difficult when it is like that but that's part of a driver's job, to stay composed and do the job."

The first Australian to triumph in Monaco was Jack Brabham in 1959 and Webber says the three-time world champion was the reason he got into the sport.

"I would not be here without Jack Brabham," said Webber. "My father started following single-seater racing when he was very young.
"He was a huge F1 fan and when Jack was doing the winning back then it started a fire in my dad to keep me interested.
"That translated in to me as a youngster and to win here on the same streets as Jack did is an amazing thing."

Afterwards, Vettel said that he was "very happy" despite not being able to match his team-mate.
"Especially in the beginning and the re-starts I wasn't able to keep up with him," he said. "There was a big difference.
"Later on, when I finally felt the grip I wasn't too far off but by then he was already 10 seconds down the road and winning the race by five, six, seven seconds, so there was no real point to make the effort trying to catch him.

"In the end I think it was our optimum. I am very, very happy - we couldn't have gone better.
"It's a long season and it is not about what you do in one or two races."

Jenson Button delighted with Monaco win.

Jenson Button rubbed shoulders with royalty following a regal performance around the streets of Monte-Carlo.
Button realised a boyhood dream with victory in the Monaco Grand Prix, after which he lived it up at the post-race ball hosted by Prince Albert.
Tagging along were his mum, dad and girlfriend Jessica Michibata, and a right royal time was had by all because, as Button remarked, "Monaco puts on a good show".
That is what the 29-year-old certainly did in taking his fifth win in six races this year to extend his championship lead to 16 points over Brawn GP team-mate Rubens Barrichello.
The Brazilian, whose 37th birthday was on Saturday, must be fed up with finishing second as it was the third time to Button this year and the fourth occasion in his 17 races at Monaco.
With a third of the season now gone, there appears no stopping the Brawn/Button machine, although he is loathe to look too far ahead.
When it was suggested to him people are commenting he cannot lose the championship, he replied: "Yeah, I know.
"I don't know how you can make that after six races. I've won five but you are sort of putting negative energy in there and saying it is mine to lose.
"I wouldn't put it like that. I am 16 points in the lead and I have more of an advantage than others to win the championship but it is all to play for.
"It is not mine to lose for sure. I am doing the best I can and, at the moment, that is good enough. We will see what happens over the next few races.
"I am just enjoying this moment, as the whole team should be. Every win is great but, for the whole team, everyone in Formula One, you want to win in Monaco and you want to win your home grand prix.
"In a way this is both for me."
That was reference to the fact his apartment is a short walk away from the eastern edge of the circuit at Portier, allowing him to put a different perspective on his triumph.
"Before the weekend I said this grand prix doesn't mean anything different to any other grand prix but we all know the truth," added Button.
"To win here is fantastic because this circuit is very different to anything else, with the last two laps the most enjoyable laps of my career I would say.
"I could just enjoy the moment. I had a big enough lead and I could just enjoy winning Monaco.
"It is something you always dream about as a kid. You watch it on television and you think it is an amazing spectacle.
"But actually driving in it and winning it is just fantastic. I am very happy, and with a one-two finish as well, it is exceptional.
"The performance of the team this year is definitely going to go down in history. It has been staggering."

Brawn Dominates Monaco Grand Prix

After achieving pole position on Saturday, Jenson led the race from the front to secure his fifth win of the 2009 Formula One season with team-mate Rubens Barrichello taking second place for the team's third one-two finish of the year. Rubens made an excellent start from third on the grid to take second place from Kimi Raikkonen before the first corner.

"I had a really good start on the option tyre and was able to get ahead of Kimi before the first corner which put me in a great position to challenge Jenson" said Rubens.

Both starting on the softer option tyre, Jenson and Rubens drove composed two-stop strategies, using the prime tyre for their second and third stints.

"Rubens had a great start to get ahead of Raikkonen and was showing excellent pace before his first set of rear tyres began to grain heavily as a result of following Jenson so closely" confirmed Ross Brawn regarding the first stint of the race.

Rubens put up a strong fight to hold off the Ferrari of Raikkonen and maintain his second position whilst Jenson took the chequered flag at the end of the 78-lap race for his first victory around the streets of Monte Carlo, a dream come true for the British driver. "Wow! Winning the Monaco Grand Prix is something that you dream about as a child and as a racing driver and the reality of taking that victory just feels awesome.

With Rubens taking a superb second place, a one-two finish for the Brawn-Mercedes team in Monaco is fantastic. The race felt like it went on forever and you feel that the barriers are getting closer and closer as the end of the race approaches. But for the last couple of laps, I was able to relax and really enjoy the moment. It's been an unbelievable day, capped with my impromptu sprint down the pit straight to the podium. I can tell you it's a very long way but it was amazing to get such a fantastic reception from the crowd and I hope the fans enjoyed what was a great race for the team. The car felt good today but we didn't have the best of starts to the weekend so it makes this victory even more of an achievement. For the team, for Mercedes-Benz and for my family who were here in Monaco watching the race this weekend, today has to be the high-point of what has been an exceptional season.

" After six rounds of the 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship, Brawn GP leads the Constructors' Championship with 86 points with Jenson leading the Drivers' Championship with 51 points and Rubens in second place with 35 points.

"Fantastic drives from Jenson and Rubens, outstanding pit stops from the team and the performance of our Mercedes-Benz engine secured an amazing one-two victory for Brawn GP here in Monaco" declared Ross Brawn.

"The Monaco Grand Prix is an incredibly special race and to win here means so much to everyone here at the track, at the factory in Brackley and at Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines in Brixworth. Special congratulations to Mercedes-Benz for supplying an engine that has now won three Grands Prix, a modern day record in Formula One."

Monaco GP Preview

In a week when budget caps and how best to slash costs are causing all manner of political heartache in Formula 1, it is a little ironic that the championship is about to pitch up at its most ostentatious location: Monte Carlo.
A street race around a millionaires' paradise tax haven, along a harbourside lined with the super-yachts of the world's most wealthy, the Monaco Grand Prix is not just a tribute to excess - it's also arguably the most evocative and historic venue in all of motorsport.
Singapore demonstrated last year that modern street tracks could be a big hit, but it cannot compete with Monaco's incredible 80-year heritage.
Apart from additional safety features, less dust and more advertising, many parts of the course still follow the same route as the Bugattis and Maseratis did in the inaugural race in 1929.

It doesn't matter that the race is inevitably processional, for it's the challenge of threading the cars between the barriers, coping with the constantly mutating grip levels on the treacherous public roads and the unique echo of the F1 V8s screaming off the harbour walls that makes Monaco a joy to watch even if wheel-to-wheel moments are rare in the extreme.
The 2009 regulation changes will not do much to change the latter situation.
Aerodynamic turbulence is not the problem in Monaco - indeed with so many slow corners cars actually follow each other more closely here than anywhere else.
The reasons why overtaking is so scarce are purely because there isn't the space to get two cars comfortably side by side in many places, because the straights are too short to build momentum for a move, and because the track is so treacherous off the racing line.
KERS might help a bit on the brief sprints between the final and first corners, and through the tunnel towards the chicane, but neither the 'boost button' nor an adjustable wing will overcome the sheer lack of space or the dirty surface.

Tyre performance variation will not be so big a factor either, for Bridgestone has decided to temporarily halt its policy of bringing two very different compounds to each race for Monaco only, instead providing the relatively similar super softs and softs.
It will still be intriguing to see what difference this makes to the outcome, for tyre wear has contributed to some of Monaco's finest racing in recent years.
In 2002 David Coulthard did a masterful job to hold off a growing pack of challengers as his Michelins went through a graining phase that saw even the Minardis out-pacing the eventual winner for a while.
But three years later, during the season when mid-race tyre changes were temporarily banned, the Renaults plunged down the order as their Michelins wilted, losing so much grip that even Monaco's narrow confines could not protect them from being overtaken.
Strategy is always tough to call in Monte Carlo, particularly in the current era of qualifying on race fuel.
Until that system was introduced, most Monaco winners tended to make relatively late single stops.
On paper that tends to remain the fastest strategy for most, but pole position simply isn't going to happen if you're taking 40 or more laps of fuel into Q3.
The pole contenders therefore have to go light, and gamble on being able to pull away sufficiently before their first stop to ensure that they are not then stuck amongst the heavier cars - because these drivers are sure to be going much, much further before pitting, and will be almost impossible to overtake.
With so many cars so closely matched on pace, those qualifying decisions will be tougher than ever.
Logically Monaco should see a continuation of Brawn and Red Bull's ongoing battle, but Ferrari is now also a factor to consider following its big leap in Spain.
McLaren insists it will be in much better shape on the streets - where it has won for three of the last four years - as well.
Recent Williams chassis have tended to suit Monaco well, too (although converting that speed into results has proved harder), and the team could desperately do with getting back to its early-season level of competitiveness - as could Toyota after a poor Spanish GP.
Never count out double Monaco winner Fernando Alonso either, and watch out for a star performance from Force India's Adrian Sutil - who topped final practice here in 2007 and ran an amazing fourth last year until being clobbered by Kimi Raikkonen.
It would now be startling if Jenson Button didn't win the world championship, for his four out of five record so far is just too good a start to be overcome unless something bizarre happens in the remainder of the season.
But Monaco regularly delivers surprises, or trips up the otherwise dominant.
Hence Coulthard and Jarno Trulli's shock wins for McLaren and Renault in 2002 and 2004, both seasons when Michael Schumacher was looking unstoppable, or Williams turning around an anonymous start to the year to take Juan Pablo Montoya to Monaco victory in 2003.
Normally anyone who had won every dry race so far in a season could be relatively confident of success, but there are no certainties in Monte Carlo, so this will be just as nerve-wracking a weekend for Button as it will be a big opportunity for the rivals he has been summarily

dismissing on-track up till now.

Source : ITV.com

Monaco Race Preview

Monaco, November 2007

Monaco may be just one of three street circuits on this year’s revamped Formula 1 calendar, but new tracks on the block Singapore and Valencia will need to be pretty jaw-dropping to have a hope of rivalling Monte Carlo for mystique.
The gloriously ridiculous concept of racing 200mph cars around the tortuous harbourside streets of a Mediterranean tax haven will never lose its allure for fans, most of whom readily accept the near-total lack of overtaking and just revel in the spectacle of the F1 drivers jinking between the barriers, as the cacophonous screams from their V8 engines echo off the luxury apartments.

Monaco tends either to showcase the dominance of the era’s greatest driver (Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher thrived there) or produce an upset such as Jarno Trulli’s win for Renault in 2004, or Olivier Panis’s brilliant victory for Ligier from 14th on the grid in 1996 – a result that still seems unbelievable more than a decade later.
Winning at Monte Carlo isn’t necessarily a good omen for a title contender: Only three of the last 12 Monaco Grands Prix have fallen to the man who went on to clinch that year’s championship.
And teams that win as they please elsewhere can find Monaco an irritatingly difficult nut to crack.
Ferrari has only won five times there in the last 30 seasons – and not at all since 2001 – while Monte Carlo success eluded Williams throughout its halcyon years, as Sir Frank’s team failed to win in the Principality between 1983 and 2003.
McLaren has a substantially better Monaco record, with 14 wins to its credit in the last 25 years.
Last year it waltzed away with the race, Fernando Alonso leading Lewis Hamilton in an imperious McLaren demonstration run.

This time around, the title rivals cannot agree on who is favourite for the Monte Carlo win.
Kimi Raikkonen reckons McLaren was so strong there last season that Ferrari remains the underdog, whereas Hamilton believes Ferrari has cured its 2007 low-speed corner troubles so successfully that he will be hard-pressed to keep the red cars in sight.
But even if Lewis is right about Ferrari’s advantage, don’t rule him out this weekend.
Boldness and improvisation behind the wheel really do pay dividends in Monte Carlo – and Hamilton has shown an abundance of both at this track.
He was unstoppable there in both Formula 3 and GP2, and it may well have been the scene of his first F1 win had he not been blocked in qualifying and prevented from beating Alonso to pole last year.
Raikkonen certainly isn’t slow at Monaco – he won there in 2005 after all – but he has yet to show the kind of affinity for its unique challenges that Hamilton has displayed.
This is Lewis’s best chance yet to interrupt Ferrari’s winning streak and thrust himself back into the title battle, so he must capitalise on it.

Even in years when Monaco has been won by the season’s benchmark driver and team, an underdog or two has still managed to slip into the top five.
Double Monte Carlo winners Fernando Alonso and David Coulthard must have a chance to pull off season-best results on the streets, as will Trulli, Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg, Giancarlo Fisichella and Jenson Button.
All of them have shown real flair here in the past – although Trulli and Button in particular also know that even track specialists can have a miserable time at Monaco in a poor car.
As Alonso suggested this week, a driver can make a difference in Monte Carlo, but there are only so many technical shortcomings he can overcome, and Renault’s poor traction is a particular concern for the Spaniard as he heads for a circuit where getting the power down out of tight corners is crucial to lap times.
With track position so crucial, Monaco also sees the most fraught qualifying session of the year – and provides one of the trickiest strategy quandaries.
No one wants to get stuck in traffic on a circuit where passing is all-but-impossible, so running lighter for a higher grid position must be tempting.
Conversely, the fastest strategy for the track is often to run heavy and pit as late as possible – and most of the midfielders are likely to choose this option.
Drivers who plan two stops must be confident that they can pull out a sufficient gap over the fuel-laden cars before they pit, for if they emerge behind a car that might not plan to stop for another 20 or even 30 laps, their race will be ruined.
However, under modern safety car rules, pitting early is often advisable when caution periods are a strong possibility, as they are in Monaco.
With no traction control or assisted engine braking to help the drivers on this bumpy and desperately slippery course, this weekend is likely to see more incidents than recent Monaco GPs.
But the major reason for the reduction in carnage has been the gradual easing back of the barriers over the past decade.
Sainte Devote, the Swimming Pool and Rascasse are all undeniably easier to navigate now that more room has been created around them.
‘Easy’ is very much a relative term at Monaco, however, and it will take a lot more than a few barrier realignments to neuter this most evocative and demanding circuit.

Lewis to Date Dannii Minogue ??

It 's not realyy my stuff to gossip about F1 drivers, but this is one story I had to let you know...

It seems that British Formula One racing driver Lewis Hamilton has the hots for Dannii Minogue, for the sports star has arranged a secret date with the Aussie singer at the Monaco Grand Prix next month.

The two had swapped numbers following Hamilton's Australian race victory last month. Since then, Hamilton has been bombarding Dannii with texts messages.This will be the second F1 outing for Dannii, who was engaged to Jacques Villeneuve in 1999. "Lewis has been texting Dannii like mad since they met in Melbourne. He took a real shine to her," The Sun quoted a source as saying. "Lewis thought she was gorgeous and was really impressed with her knowledge of cars. He wanted to take her out for dinner that night but she had something on that she couldn't cancel.

"He's kept at it and she's finally agreed to meet him for dinner at the Monaco Grand Prix," the source added. The X Factor judge has on the other hand been full of praise for the young racing star after their meeting. "I think the guy is incredible. He is mostly perfect in every way, shape and form," she said.The source also revealed that Lewis was very excited about the whole meeting, and would be doing his best to woo the lady with his charm on May 25. "Lewis is delighted they have finally set a date," the source said. "It's the earliest time they could both do. They will certainly have a lot to talk about. Dannii is quite knowledgeable about F1 thanks to her relationship with Jacques," the source added.