Monaco GP

Last weekend saw the Monaco Grand Prix.

It was the second Grand Prix in as many weeks, but now that it's back in Europe for a while that doesn't seem quite as bad - Spain is just down the road from Monaco. And of course both aren't far from where most teams are based, in the UK.

Monaco of course is a traditionally processional race.

It's held in the narrow streets of Monte Carlo and if it were proposed as a race today it would almost certainly be rejected as being unsafe / too risky. The cars travel within millimetres of the solid barriers (the famous phrase is that you need to leave the tyres manufacturers logo behind on the barriers to know you've had a good lap) with few run of areas and nothing in the way of gravel to slow them down should they fail to make a corner.

Of course, being so twisty and turn they don't really ever get up to full speed, but there's no margin for error at all. This is one of the reasons why many of the drivers like it - it's a technical challenge and for the spectators it's more about getting really close to the cars and soaking up the atmosphere than stuff like overtaking.

I went a couple of years ago and it really is an amazing, atmospheric race and spectacle.

And this year it was almost a good race as well. To be fair it was nowhere near as some of the previous races, but compared to the dull, processional races at Monaco I've seen it was a hell of a lot better.

For some reason (slower speed maybe?) the Pirelli tyres seemed to last longer than at previous races, despite them using the super soft and soft combo for the first time. Also of course the DRS zone was a bit redundant, although there's some suggestion it helped in one or two passes.

And there were quite a few overtakes, which is quite novelty for Monaco.

Unfortunately for Lewis Hamilton in particular his weren't the best executed of overtakes.

To be frank, Lewis is my favourite driver of the current crop. I think the grid has a lot of good drivers at the moment, but I love the fact Lewis is a proper racer, never content to give half measure and always all about taking people on track. He wants to rave everybody and try to beat them fair and square.

Lewis is also a bit of a demon around Monaco, loving the challenge of the circuit.

But in the last part of qualifying there was quite a nasty accident that spoiled his only planned attempt at a qualifying lap. then, when they came out again he didn't do so well but also made an error and so was demoted to 9th. Not great considering how difficult it is to overtake, even with the current rules.

But of course he went for it and ended up having a terrible time - two of his moves ended with collisions that were, to be frank, entirely his fault. He was being way too ambitious (which, as I say, is kinda why he love him). In particular, the crash was Massa he was way off even being alongside and they got quite badly tangled.

He got penalised for both of these. Also the team called him in at one point, but they didn't have the tyres ready for him.

He was also peripherally involved in a complicated accident that saw Petrov in the barriers and the race red flagged while they took him to hospital.

So things didn't go well.

Unfortunately he also made it a bit worse by giving an interview when he was clearly still very annoyed, blaming the other drivers for basically being rubbish and the stewards for being over-sensitive. Which he then made worse by making a reference to the Ali G thing of "is it cos I is black?"

He was clearly not being serious, but it was a rather cringeworthy foot-in-mouth moment.