Can Midland F1 be united heading into the BGP?

By Huw Alban
June 5 2006

Much has been said about the incident between the two Midland F1 drivers at the start of the Monaco Grand Prix. Regular visitors will already be familiar with the arguments. For those that are not please check out the Main Forum and select a suitably entitled thread.

I'm not going to bother giving any airtime to any sides of the discussion. Sufficed to say that the were some very strong feelings from both sides of the driver fan camp, and a fair amount of disagreement too.

Whatever the argument, all fans agree that both drivers need to work together for the benefit of the team as a whole and where-ever the fault lies that just didn't happen at the Monaco Grand Prix. There have been calls for public apologise, penalties, statements from the team management, you name it; it's been asked for.

In under a weeks time the team will take to the race track again at Silverstone and what I want to know is whether my team will be driving as a team, putting what happened at Monaco behind them?

I had a conversation with our sources at Midland F1 early last week discussing what had taken place. "Sure, it compromised our race strategy and probably cost us our best shot at a good result this year. But, that's racing," I was told with regard to the incident at the start.

"They (the two race drivers) did not come to blows or even raise their voices at each other in the garage afterward. I know, because I was there.

"Tiago didn't really want to speak to Chris at the time, but that's his prerogative. Whether Tiago and Christijan will ever be best mates is not the issue. What's important is that the team has dealt with it internally as a team should and everybody's already moved on and looking ahead to Silverstone."

So, whatever we as fans think, the team has "dealt" with the situation themselves. It is likely that we will never know the method chosen to "deal" with the incident, but then that is no different to us punters knowing the content of company board meetings for our local supermarket chain where just as important decisions are discussed and made.

One thing that is clear is that the team have dealt with the matter strongly. It was observed over the weekend that there has been no talk from the media, on other fan forums, on the radio, or on the TV across the world with regard to the driver reactions and feelings. On this incident there has been a complete lack of comment, so much so that the usually inventive newspaper media have had nothing to say about it either.

So far the only reaction has been from Tiago Monteiro, today, in the Portuguese newspaper Abola. Tiago was supporting a humanitarian event, and was asked a single question by the journalist for the paper with regard to the Monaco incident. "I haven't talked to him (personally), only by the phone, because I was really annoyed," was the reply. "But we will get along."

Up until reading this quote I was becoming more than a little concerned that a Midland garage rift would develop, which is the last thing the team needs at the moment. This quote has already been read several ways by visitors to our forum, but mine is of two professional people who have agreed to disagree but have commited to moving forward as a driver pairing. Can Midland F1 be united heading into the British GP? Yes, now I beleive they can.

I'll sum this one up with a quote from Midland F1. In my view it sums up everything that took place on Monaco race day for the team. "There's no point in dwelling on it any longer. The only casualty was a what might have been result, and there's one of those at every race."

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