Jamo

iTrader: (23)

what a nonce!

as if you do that and expect to get away with it.

glad to see him out of it to be honest!

billythekid

Erm - I think Monty had a fair bit to do with his crash.

Still I am glad Nigel Mansells record stands.

elgordano

How can you say that. Montoya drive into the back of him !!

tiggers

Yeah after all why should he expect the guy behind to avoid crashing into him when everyone knows that the safety car is in next lap and everyone has been warming their tyres and brakes for the best part of half a lap already and especially when you consider that the guy behind is supposed to be one of the top 20 drivers in the world

Oh and yes he is the best F1 driver in the world. I'm sure if you went up against him there'd only be one person looking like a **** and his name wouldn't be Michael Schumacher!!

Finally just for info Mansell's 5 straight wins at the start of the season have now been equalled by Schuey this season, but will not now be beaten, this season at least.

tiggers.

P.S. Another sports post in the wrong forum again - a pattern is emerging here!

weapon69

Woohoo for Montoya, i was waiting for him to push MS off the track at one of the races

Chris L

Agree with tiggers (this time! ) - it was a strange incident. What made me think was the way that MS cut back and appeared to squeeze Montoya against the wall. Maybe it was just a knee jerk reaction, but it wasn't as if JPM was going to overtake while following the safety car? Very curious, but you can't help thinking that it could have been avoided.

And yes, whatever you think about him, MS is the best F1 driver by a country mile. Look at his performance and the lap times he was putting in upto the time of the safety car. They were stunning - compare to how far off the pace Barrichello was at the same point, in an identical car. He has proved time and time again, that he stands head and shoulders above all other drivers. We would be very lucky to see another driver of his quality in the next 20 - 30 years.

Chris

SiDHEaD

May be the best driver out there, but still a ****

NACRO

Jealousy.

MooseRacer

A strange incident for which neither driver is being punished, and neither driver is being particularly vocal in their criticsm of the other's part in it.

Schumacher is undoubtably the best driver in the world. The only t.wats are the ones that cant see it.

Leslie

I have to say that he is the most capable driver of the lot, that was proved by his performance earlier in the race, quite outstanding.

I have never forgiven him for what he did to Damon Hill however so that he could win the World Championship after he had made a mistake entering a corner. Driver yes,sportsman definitely not!

Les

SiDHEaD

Er jealous of what? If it was his money i'd think they were all *****! I think it's possible to think someone is a **** without being jealous of them.

NACRO

Worse still he tried to pull the same stunt on Villeneuve in '97, didn't quite work out that time though.

He's still the best by a mile though I can't help thinking how much like a WW1 Luftwaffe pilot he looks.

tiggers

This Damon Hill thing keeps getting repeated over and over again - it's total crap. Don't believe me? Well here is the account of events at Adelaide 1994 by a motorsport writer who actually saw the whole incident unfold in front of him:

--------------------------------------------------

I speak as one who was standing, in person, at the exit of that infamous corner in Adelaide '94, with a head on view of the entire scene. I also speak as one who went home and watched his video tape of the incident a hundred times over before I was sure of my opinion. Last of all, I speak as one who is not in any particularly strong sense of the word, a Micheal fan.

So muh fokelore and fiction has grown around that corner that I can no longer restrain myself.

MS slid wide and hit the wall on the outside of the track at the exit of the previous left-hander. This broke his right steering arm and should have been the end of his race and his championship.

He rejoined the track and - after much reefing at the wheel, followed something similar to the racing line into the following right hander. Damon, clearly having sensed that something was badly awry with the Benetton, dived to the inside in the extreme. When I say extreme, if you can find the on-car footage from the Williams, you will see that Damon's front right tyre actually head-butts the leading edge of the kerb. Not even close to a racing line or a realistic passing line.

At that point, Damon's car jinks very slightly back to the left and hits the REAR of the Benetton side pod, Damon's front left hooks Michael's rear right, and launches the Benetton into the barrier at the exit, effectively taking both cars out of the race.

Last time I checked, the rule of racing thumb was that if the car coming from behind struck the leading car behind the halfway point of the car, blame was apportioned to the trailing car.

My personal, subjective observation was, and remains; Michael made a mistake that should have cost him the world title. Damon made an even bigger mistake that cost him the world title. If you want to call that cheating, fine, go right ahead.

--------------------------------------------------

If you get the chance to watch it in slow motion this is exactly what happened. Now you know this can you please stop coming up with the same tired old crap about Schumacher and Hill - after ten years we're sick of hearing about it especially as it's not true!!!!

Thank you,

tiggers.

billythekid

Exactly! Montoya was following too close and was not concentrating. If Monty did not hit him there would have been no problem.

From my experience of racing when you are on a warm up lap or behind an SC the person at the front of the pack dictates the pace - Monty should have had a bigger gap between him and Schumi and he knows that he should have which is why he apologised.

Schumi was partly to blame though, as the tunnel is not the best place to warm your brakes!

Not quite a 50:50 blame accident but I don’t think MS is in the slightest bit bothered now he has calmed down as he will be champion again, and again next year.

I think the person that needs a talking too is Ralf! That guy is dangerous and I personally think he needs a 1 race ban now.

He is the best driver in F1 today, best ever - not so sure as the cars are so different now.

ariel

Seemed a very odd place to do a brake warm up to me. He did lock up his front left and seemed to squeeze Montoya when he tried to avoid him. No way was Montoya going to try to overtake and was just holding station as far as I could see.

Dracoro

RE: The Alonso/Ralf incident.

Just before that incident, the commentators mentioned that Ralf was having problems with his gearbox and was having to miss the malfunctioning gears. If this is the case, then this would explain the tunnel incident as he wouldn't have accelerated as well as he wanted too (e.g. he was going from 3rd to 5th) and Alonso misinterpreted this 'slowing' down as a gesture to pass where in fact it wasn't. No-one at fault, well apart from the gearbox of course

Iain Young

I wonder how many more accidents Ralf has to have this year before people start thinking that perhaps he's to blame for one or two of them. I suspect this particular accident was a 50/50 blame situation. The gearbox problem "might" have led Alonso to think that Ralf was letting him past, but Ralf should have let him past at the entrance to the tunnel (like he did for the other cars later on in the race). It's not as if he hadn't been having blue flag for a few bends beforehand.

Ralf is exhibiting some extremely poor driving standards at the moment (IMHO of course )

CraigH

I remember Damon Hill at the Hungary GP trying to do the same to Villeneuve when he was driving the Arrows.......

billythekid

Disagre - he knew about the gearbox problem before he went into the tunnel so he should have let him past before the start of the tunnel.

On the apex of the tunnel there is only room for 1 car - its amazingly tight and as soon as he moved to the outside there was no way he was going to make it - I also think, looking at the footage that ralf took a fairly late apex, meaning he was firther to the left on the entry which pushed Alonso even wider.

Ralf likes to push people into mistakes if he can - I have seen him do it from track side and he is going to cause a big crash soon. I just hope the incident with Alonso has maybe made him take some thought on the situation.

davyboy

Respect to Sato though

Get out my way Shoe stacker!

farmer1

Wasn't Ralph threatening to take is team mate off the circuit if "neccessary" earlier this year.

Ralph has Michaels attitude without the talent.

Chrisgr31

Michael Schumacher was an idiot for warming up his brakes in the tunnel, after all he warmed them so much he actually locked them.

Have you ever been in the Tunnel at Monaco? Its damed dark in there as shown by how dark it was when you saw the camera shot of it from the exit.

The cars enter the tunnel from bright sunlight, it is dark so eyes take time to adjust, and even behind the safety car the cars will be doing a respectable speed.

Michael Schumacher slams on his brakes, Montoya who is trying to stay close in case he can get a jump at the start has no prior information that Micheal is braking until Michaels car actually starts to slow dramatically, no brake lights in F1.

Montoya slams on his brakes and goes to the right to try and miss Schumacher, Schumacher closes the gap (intentionally or not) and they hit.

This is not the first time this has happened although last time it was Jenson that was caught out, but at least on that occasion it was daylight.

One only has to see what happens on a busy british motorway to know what happens if someone slams on their brakes unexpectadly, and at least roadcars have brake lights.

Michael Schumacher is the worlds best driver, but on occasions he does seem to suffer from brain fade.

johnfelstead

Michael makes a habbit of hard accelerating then stamping on the brakes very hard on the last safety car lap. He caused a similar accident when Jenson Button was driving for williams, only this time Jenson crashed avoiding him. It was a stupid place to nail the brakes, the tunel is very dark, especially when you are driving with tinted visors.

Montoya did his best to avoid MS and certainly didnt attempt to do anything dodgy. The crash is MS's fault entirely in this case IMHO, he should know better than to nail his brakes at a point where no one can see properly. Pity, because it would have been fun watching him trying to make up a pitstop, because his strategy was wrong at the safety car, Trulli and Button had efectively gained a pitstop on him.

Ralf had been having problems with the car from lap1, he should have been ultra cautious in the tunel area rather than tootling through 30MPH off the pace, the tunnel corner is a lot tighter than the TV pictures make it look, Alonso had no chance with Ralf driving like a numptie.

There is enough evidence in that race for the FIA to maybe have a rethink about how often they black flag ailing cars, because its not safe at Monaco to have slow cars crawling round or engines obviously about to expire being thrashed. Other ciruits you can get away with it because of higher safety levels and room to play with.

Dream Weaver

Agree with the statements here - I have been fortunate enough to walk through the Monaco tunnel and its very dark in there.

Shuey is the best F1 driver, but I dont like his character or attitude, and he does make mistakes as proved yesterday.

Jenson is the hero this year!!

johnfelstead

or he couldnt see. MS has himself to blame for this one, its very lucky there wasnt a big pile up with other cars behind him as they wouldnt be able to see either. I bet he doesnt try that one again.

C

In my opinion, if someone drives into the back of you, regardless of what you are doing, they they are at fault.

If that happened on a motorway it would be Montoya's fault! Reason being he was too close to take avoiding action.

They all know what he is like, they all know he warms the brakes up in such a fashion, IMO Montoya is completely at fault for either being too close (not under racing circumstances) or just not concentrating properly.

As for the Schmaker cynics - maybe the journalists account will finally skip that broken record that you lot keep bringing out to play

Face it, statistics tell he is the best by a long shot, so what if he hasn't got the flair/personality of Senna, he would rip him up on track now IMO which is, at the end of the day what he is there to to...

Spoon

You seriously think JPM doesn't know this? I doubt it very much.

MS was mad to stomp on the brakes there, you can't expect JPM to second guess that, especially when he himself has a duty to those behind him and is planning his own race.

Yes Schuey can control the pack but the term sensibly should be adhered to.

Try it on the road, stay behind a mate and try and avoid him when he locks the brakes up. Even though you have the advantage of knowing he's going to do it I'd be interested in the results.
Oh and wear dark glasses at night with his brake bulbs taken out.

Spoon

Ah right, just re-read your post and the question mark threw me. It was actually rhetorical I see, apologies for forcing you to waste a rolleyes, have one of mine for your store.

The rest of the post was actually general and not aimed at you. But now you've mentioned Rotax Max you could do with learning to change gears now and moving up to gearbox.

Are you saying F1 cars do have brake lights then?

johnfelstead

F1 cars have never had brake lights.

Spoon

I know that John. Jason seems confused though.