Qualifying: McLaren Conquer The Front Row

By Sam Cooper
May 26 2007

In the first session, we saw Lewis Hamilton claim fastest time with ease, the twenty two year old brit managing to finish ahead of everybody by 0.5 seconds, from pole sitter Fernando Alonso, Lewis looking the better of the two drivers. As the teams feared rain, all the drivers bar the Spykers went out in the first five minutes, which left the audience thrilled with the action that was taking place

At 1pm local time, the Monaco grand prix qualifying session got underway, with most of the drivers going out incase of rain in order to get a banker lap in, giving them a better chance of getting through to the second session, the teams were fooled and didn’t need to risk going out on the greasy track.

The first session also saw both McLaren drivers fighting for a really unecercerry first position, but I won’t be complaining as it brought outstanding qualifying coverage, something which defiantly isn’t bad for the sport.

One thing that worries me about the way Lewis has his car setup, from the TV coverage that we saw, I couldn’t help but notice that the rear end of his car keeps swinging out, it obviously works for him but it is nothing short from amazing to see an formula one car be devastatingly quick and be able to slide around on the circuit. Be sure to watch out for that in the race.

Kimi Räikkönen managed to get third fastest time in the first qualifying session, and looked likely to get the same in the final qualifying session, sadly for him, this would not be the case. As in the second qualifying session he controversially parked his car on the exit of the Rascass corner, at the same spot that the great Michael Schumacher parked his Ferrari in a desperate attempt that ultimately cost him the world championship, fortunately for Kimi, it didn’t stop qualifying, but it did slow down his team mate Felipe Massa.

Kimi’s mistake happened many corners earlier, the accident started at Tabbac, in which he caught his right rear wheel on the exit of the corner, which caused him to turn in too early at the second part of the swimming pool chicane, which broke his suspension and the steering arms, the Ferrari team started work on his car, but to no avail, Kimi failed to get out of the second session and therefore lines up for tomorrows grid a disappointed 15th.

Fernando managed to pip Lewis to first in the second by just one tenth of a second with the BMW of Robert Kubica in close pursuit, once again the McLaren’s trying to beat each other, possibly Ron had a word with both of his drivers as the competition between them wasn’t as fierce as before.

In the closing moments of the session, David Coulthard undoubtedly blocked Renault driver Hekki Kovalainen, which then caused the Scotsman to miss out on the third session, allowing Honda driver Jenson Button to progress through to the final qualifying session, something that he hasn’t done all this season.

Drivers came in quite early in order to get the best time, Fernando Alonso denied Lewis Hamilton his first ever pole position. Which was unfortunate for the Brit, but we suspect that Lewis is carrying more fuel than Fernando, something which may pay off for the twenty two year old.

Times will be shown below.