Formula 1 Grand Prix De Monaco 2010 (Monte Carlo)
The 2010 Monaco Grand Prix was yet another classic. Mark Webber led every lap of the race and took Red Bull to a 1-2 victory in the principality. As found normal at Monaco, the race was interrupted by four safety car periods after a series of crashes, but Webber stayed cool and re-built his lead every time. He survived a late scare, as two backmarkers collided right in front of him, which brought out the safety car. The race thus ended under the safety car. The starting grid did not have the now-familiar Red Bull 1-2 look to it, as Pole Robert Kubica spit the pair of RB6′s. Mark Webber beat Kubica by three tenths of a second, and Vettel had Felipe Massa’s Ferrari for company on second row. The Ferrari had looked extremely competitive, but Fernando Alonso crashed in practice and could not start qualifying. He was to start the race from last place. On lap 1, Nico Hülkenberg crashed his Williams inside the tunnel, and out came the safety car. This was the opportunity that Alonso was looking for to have his mandatroy pit stop out of the way. He swapped his super-soft tyres for mediums, and then ran the whole race on those set of tyres to clinch 6th place – a laudable effort definitely, but it was damage limitation at best. He had ruined his race when he crashed in practice, and such mistakes are not acceptable from a double world champion, who is arguably one of the best drivers on the grid right now.
At the start, Vettel took the second place back from Kubica and made it two BB6′s at the head of the order during the
first stint for the safety car. Former championship leader Jenson Button retired on the second lap with overheating. It emerged that a cover had been left over one radiator on his way to the pits, causing high engine temperatures. After the restart, Fernando Alonso started moving up the order. His progress was so significant that the front runners had to make early pit stops to make sure that they could still have the Spaniard behind when they come out of the pits. The next introduction of the safety car was also for a Williams car, which had crashed into the barrier – Reubens Barichello. After the restart, the safety car was summoned very soon once again, this time for a loose drain cover.
Thus, it was a real test for Webber who would open up a lead at a restart, only to see all his good work undone when a safety car is called-up, as all the cars would again bunch-up. The fourth and final introduction of the safety car, which had gone back in at the final lap for the cars to finish the race, saw some controversy and also exposed one of the many flawed rules in the FIA rule-book. This season, cars are allowed to race once they cross the so-called safety car line, once the SC has gone into the pits. But, the rules also say that if the safety car is still deployed for the final lap, the cars would finish the race in the same order, and would not race each other. This is a clear contradiction, and as it turned out, we needed Michael Schumacher and Fernanfo Alonso to expose this error. Schumacher passed Alonso, who was on extremely worn tyres, and was later slapped with a 20 second penalty – a decision which is rather too harsh. Positively though, the FIA has cleared the confusion in the rules and modified it to say that there would be no racing till the chequered flag in the event that the safety car would come-in during the last lap.
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