Off to a good start in Monaco

Monaco may be the most glamorous race of the year, but for the teams the event is always a massive headache. Things have improved since the new pits were built, and now the cars are at least housed in proper pit garages.

However, they are much smaller than those at a normal race, and the trucks are still parked separately in the paddock along the quayside. In fact, some of them are even further away. Only one of the MF1 trucks is allowed into the actual paddock, and the others are stationed on the new harbour wall. It’s still better than the old days, when all but the top few teams had to spend the weekend in a multi-storey car park.

"It has improved, and the plusses outweigh the minuses now," says MF1’s team manager, Andy Stevenson. "It’s still a pain logistically, but it’s much better with the new garages. One of the biggest problems is getting out of here on Sunday night. It’s always impossible. The other thing is that two of the trucks are on the main harbour wall, and we think it’s about a mile and a half from the pits."
There’s also the problem of the daily commute. Monaco hotels are ridiculously expensive, so the team stays out of town.

"Most of us are staying in Menton, which used to be a real pain, but now we’ve discovered the train. If you want to drive it, it’s about 45 minutes, but by train it’s about 8 minutes and it costs a Euro and a half!"

The good news is that the guys in the garage have not had any unexpected repair work thus far, as Tiago Monteiro, Christijan Albers and third driver Giorgio Mondini all kept out of trouble on Thursday. It’s all too easy to do some damage on this narrow, twisting circuit, as a couple of drivers have already discovered.

Even better, Tiago set a very good time in the afternoon to place himself 12th overall (or ninth, if the third drivers are left out of the equation). Among those behind him were Rubens Barrichello, Michael Schumacher, Ralf Schumacher and both Williams and BMW drivers, so it was a very good effort. Even better, Giorgio was only just behind Tiago, although Christijan was hampered by a few gremlins. There’s a long way to go, but it was a good start to the weekend.

"It was a good first day, definitely," said Tiago Monteiro after the session. "It’s always tricky to get back into the rhythm here. You have to build some confidence, and find the right set-up. It’s so easy to make mistakes here. I must say we took it easy, and we went slowly but surely. And every time there was something wrong my engineer and I were able to correct it, and do even better after that.

"We stayed on the same set of tyres all day, apart from the last run, and it was obviously a big gain on the tyres. But the set-up was good. I was able to push, and I took some risks. On the high-speed stuff there was still a big margin, because I didn’t know how hard I could push with the new set of tyres. But I’m very happy with my car, and my engineers and mechanics did a good job."

There’s no question that new tyres gave Tiago a boost, and a lot of other drivers stayed on one set all day. Nevertheless, it was a good time. Perhaps the most significant statistic was the gap to Alex Wurz, who topped the time sheets. He had access to several sets of new tyres, and was only 1.5s ahead of Tiago. The quickest of the race drivers, Juan Pablo Montoya, was just 1.3s in front.

"Obviously, I don’t know who else used new tyres, but we do know that the guys at the front are pushing anyway. They’re not sleeping, they’re trying, so it’s a good sign. We had some updates here, little things, and they’re obviously doing the job. We need to keep cool and calm. It’s only Thursday, and we have a lot to do on Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon, but it’s good to start like that."
Tiago is hopeful that he and Christijan can make it through the first qualifying round, something they’ve come tantalisingly close to doing in previous races. With traffic and yellow flags likely to make things difficult for the top runners, anything can happen.

"This is the kind of the track where, if you feel confident and if you like the track, you can make the difference. I hope we can, but again we need to keep it cool, because there’s still a long way to go."

The track is not the only place to see some serious competition this weekend, and we’re delighted to report that Midland is doing pretty well in another event. Over the last two race weekends, the girls working in the paddock have been busy voting for the paddock’s ‘prince charmings’ in Red Bull’s Formula Uno contest. An initial shortlist was whittled down to just 10 after some frantic voting on the internet, and the lucky winners are invited to Ladies' Night at the Amber Lounge, the top Monaco night spot on race weekend.

And would you believe it, Midland has secured three of the top five places, with Team Manager Andy Stevenson on top, Sporting Relations Manager Johnny Herbert second, and Marketing Manager Chris Leat fifth! Of the other teams, only Renault, McLaren and BMW got even one candidate into the top 10, with the rest coming from other areas of the paddock.

Altogether, a pretty good showing by the boys of MF1 Racing. Let’s hope the strategy used in the race is as successful as that employed in the voting!