Monaco GP : Preview

The narrow streets of Monte-Carlo might seem like a daft place to host a race, but the challenge of weaving a thoroughbred racer past Casino Square, the cumbersome Loews hairpin, and through a dark tunnel section for 90 laps brings a sense of achievement to any FF1M driver who can conquer the Monaco Grand Prix.

Brickles’ Aragon Takeaways

The previous race at Aragon saw Lewis Hamilton’s win streak broken by Tornado’s Vaino Kimminen, who patiently waited until after the first round of pitstops to dominate proceedings as he built up a winning margin of over 40 seconds over polesitter Valtteri Bottas, who did well to finish 2nd after a suspected qualifying-heavy set-up. Kimminen’s maiden win also marked the first win for Firestone, and the Finn sits just four points off the championship lead. Bottas’ performance was also noteworthy as his pole position was his first, plus it was GRM’s first since Rubens Barrichello at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix. The longest pole drought now belongs to Willows Racing (in terms of races).

Once again, the 16B teams controlled much of the top eight with CBA Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen preventing total annihilation, but it was more flattering than dominant as both Shake ‘n’ Bake drivers looked good to finish in the top four before reliability issues struck both Nolan Bryant and Fernando Alonso at two thirds distance.

As Courtney Cass’ team disappeared from the race, Hamilton’s race took a nosedive after getting himself involved with Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean’s collision at the bus stop section. The Brit’s race had already been trashed after choosing the wrong fuel strategy, so his retirement only rubbed salt into the wound, but he’ll be looking to bounce back at a circuit he is remarkably yet to win at.

Paddock News

Hart have taken their first engine upgrade of the season and will have a new ICE and ERS
Mugen have taken their first engine upgrade of the season and will have a new ICE, ERS and CE
Entries for the 2018 FF1M Season are due to open on Monday. It was earlier announced that at least one spot would be open for new teams, but it seems that this number could increase with Pedersen team boss Michael Pedersen expressing his desire to step back from day to day operations at the likeable Danish team.

On to Monaco

Such is the unpredictability of Monaco that no driver has won the event more than twice, and no team has won more than four times. Of the current drivers, Alonso and Raikkonen could make it three Monaco wins if things go their way, while Gojira, Tornado, and Pedersen are striving for their fifth Monaco win with Tornado the most likely to triumph.

The most recent winner of this race is Cooper Lee, but the Australian driver has had a largely anonymous season so far with 5th at Mugello being his best result. He is therefore under pressure to perform, particularly as Mitchell now sit behind Tornado in the teams championship. If things continue in that trend, then Lee could find his seat under threat from OLM Racing’s Chuck Bucknum, who currently leads the FF2M championship.