Hamilton
Kova
Kubica
No ferraris you may ask! I know Kimi was quick in testing 'monaco spec' but they have to have a bad day once this season and the way hamilton drove here last year, i hope this might be that bad day.....(not counting Oz, they just messed that up!)
I do wonder how many safety cars we might have though, and i read over on the aurtosport forums, showers just might be forecast...
Cant wait!
the biggest problem with how Hamilton drove last year was the fact that he pushed hard the whole race, hit the walls on numerous occasions and still couldn't match Alonso's pace even when Fred was backing off. This was also the race where tensions started between fred and lewis because despite being told to back off Lewis kept pushing and ignored his teams orders. This is where I lost my interest in him as a driver, the team aswell as everyone else could see he was trying to push too hard and as evidenced by his wall collisions came close to wrecking it several times. They needed to bring both cars home safely and he could have thrown it away for no reason.
This years Mclaren has a longer wheel base and the Ferrari has a shorter wheel base, they are about the same now thus evening the advantage out in that respect. The biggest plus Mclaren has is the heating in the tyres, so they should aim to lock out the front row no matter what. Even if it means they have to pit a few laps earlier. It'll take the ferrari's at least 3 to 4 laps more than the mclarens to get their tyres up to temp, that will give mclaren 4 laps to build up the advantage they need to overcome the lack of fuel. The first stop should be used again to keep track position and keep an eye on the ferrari's. Kimi especially does his work before the second stop to pass the guy he's chasing afterwards. Mclaren should see that and as such have the guy infront of Kimi slow him down enough to allow the guy out front the chance to run off for a fairly easy victory.
That's just a personal point of view as to how I'm sure the macca guys would like it to work out in an ideal world.
I'd expect them to go harder tyres twice then softs to finish with, the ferrari's will probably go soft option twice then finish on the hard tyres.
Personally if I were the strategy guy at ferrari, I'd split the runs, soft hard then soft to keep up with the pace to begin, get the longer middle phase out the way on the harder tyres so they can push hard at the end of the stint, and then use the softs again to finish so as to keep the presure on if they are still behind that way aim to push possibly Lewis into making a mistake.
Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 2:24 am
