Some F1 fans might say that making a prediction for the Monaco Grand Prix is as silly as betting your life savings on a spin of the roulette wheel. However, I’m going to stick my neck out and say that McLaren rookie Lewis Hamilton will secure his maiden grand prix win this weekend.
It goes beyond the fact that the Briton has never lost a race at Monaco, admittedly in lesser formulae. The young man has no reputation to blemish, everybody expects him to make a mistake and suffer a DNF sooner rather than later. Therefore, young Lewis can attack the kerbs of the tight street circuit, with its legendary curves and treacherous barriers, without fear of reprisal or ridicule. By contrast, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen might be more content with notching up strong finishes to stay in the hunt of the world championship title. Raikkonen would surely love to upstage Ferrari’s darling d’jour Felipe Massa at Monaco, and the race might well be won by whichever Ferrari pilot can best handle the pressure or optimize his race strategy.
However, the Côte d’Azur circuit has made heroes out of some Formula One drivers and fools out of others. Perhaps BMW might upset the two-red-car, two-silver-car formation at the front of the grid this weekend. We know that veterans David Coulthard and Giancarlo Fisichella will certainly be up for a fight; Mark Webber has driven particularly well at Monaco too; One thing that fellow F1 fans may need to consider is that there will be more rookies in the field than just Hamilton… Adrian Sutil, Heikki Kovaleinen and Anthony Davidson (okay, Anthony’s not strictly speaking a rookie, but he’s never, to my recollection, done the whole, to quote three-time world champion Nelson Piquet, “riding a bicycle in your living room”-thing yet. Could the rookies play a decisive role in the outcome of the race?
Remember how Enrique Bernoldi’s Arrows held up David Coulthard’s McLaren-Mercedes for 35 laps in the 2001 Monaco Grand Prix?
Well, Hamilton and Massa might crash into one another at Ste Devote on the first lap, leaving Raikkonen and Alonso to fight it out for the win. In that case, I’d be well off the mark.
However, I have a sneaky suspicion that the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix will herald the first “breakaway” performance of the season. One of the top four drivers is bound to rise out among the rest and a win at Monaco will be a major psychological boost in the battle for the driver’s world championship. Whom, do you think, will make the decisive move on Sunday?
