Speed Is The New Black. Season 2 Ep1. Wednesday @ 8pm - 9pm (VelocityHD) new
We're in Canada this weekend for the next round of F1 action for 2018, but Monaco was pretty interesting weekend for several reasons. RedBull Racing came into the weekend as the favorites, being the best with aero on slow corners and Monaco being the least dependent on power, of all the calendar's circuits. Ricciardo was confident and rightly so. Meanwhile, Verstappen was also quite fast, but ended up repeating the exact same accident that he had in 2016 (breaking his front suspension on turn 15 by cutting it too closely and going straight into the barrier on turn 16) at the worst of all times, late in FP3. Hamilton was quick, but not quick enough, however he was able to start in 3rd position for the GP. Ferrari was still fast and with Verstappen in the back of the field for the start of the race and out of qualy, Vettel took the runner up spot to Ricciardo's blistering record-smashing qualifying lap (1:10.810). The actual race was more of the same; the top six spots of qualifying matched the race finishing order (all the way down to Ocon in 6th), as track position is king on this circuit. Unfortunately, Alonso's Memorial Day weekend woes continued with his inability to finish another race in succession on this weekend. Last year it was the Indy500 while leading late, this year another mechanical failure on his F1 car (gearbox this time around). The silver lining of this is that this is amazingly the first DNF of the season which is head and shoulders above of last season's results. Also he got an endurance race win at the 6hrs of Spa earlier in May, which has to be some consolation. Ocon raced well, finished 6th and also played nice in the Mercedes manufacturer game by not impeding the races of Hams and Bottas during pit cycles, as this was the first race to feature the pink-walled hypersoft tires. Red Bull Racing put all their chips on this stickiest of the icky tire choice, and only had a set of ultrasofts to meet regulation during the race. Mercedes played with the ultras to see if they could be just as fast with them in Q2, but unfortunately they took too long to get up to temp so the hypersofts were also their optimum tire of the weekend. Verstappen did his best to make up for his late error to his team, by passing early and often, maxing out (no pun intended) in P9 during the race, but was able to get a few points to add onto Daniels 25. With the checkered flag dropped, Ricciardo celebrated with a shoey, Vettel sprayed the royals with champagne and the drivers standings are now as follows: Hamilton, Vettel (-14), Ricciardo (-38), Bottas (-42), Raikkonen (-50), Verstappen (-75). Canada is a power track, so Ferrari and Merc are looking to get back on track, no pun intended. Look out for the wall of champions!
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