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Usually during the course of a Grand Prix there are several comments that cause an emotional outburst from the Sofa. The Monaco Grand Prix was no exception. I have selected the four that caused the most dramatic reactions to share with you.

Two comments had me shouting something like "what are you talking about" at the TV, another almost caused a full scale rant but subsided to a wry smile halfway through and another made me laugh out loud. Try and guess which ones were which! Its not beyond the realms of possibility that I misunderstood the comments, but they certainly caused a reaction!


Commentator A

"This is where Schumacher went straight on yesterday into the barriers on the outside that stopped anyone doing another lap"

What? From the pre race comments I understood that if Schumacher had gone into the barriers it would have looked a bit more real.

…and then a few seconds later…

Commentator A

"It’s a tremendous scrap we've got here between the two young pretenders to Schumacher's crown, Alonso and Raikkonen"

What? I thought Alonso was already defending the crown or did I miss something?


Commentator A

"Lets just listen to this … oh lets not"

and finally

Commentator B

"Jacques Villeneuve under investigation … and not for a baggy race suit either, I don't think"

Following on from Alex's article on the vertical MON, MOY, MOT graphic. Whilst watching the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend (from the Sofa of course!!) I was finding myself deeply annoyed by this same graphic. I can appreciate the similarities it has with the old racetrack position board, which would have the car numbers on against the positions, itself not the easiest thing to understand, but on the TV though it is completely pointless!

This might just be me but as I sat there trying to refocus on the vertical bar on the top left of the screen, I felt like I was shifting my attention away from what was happening on the screen, like I was missing out on the race, spending disproportionate time trying to understand what the graphic was saying. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old codger I thought, trying to give the graphic the benefit of the doubt, but then………

Halfway thought the MON MOY MOT graphic, I guess being triggered by the cars crossing the start line, the horizontal graphic pops up at the bottom of the screen, showing the positions, the drivers full surname name in proper text and the timing gaps from the lead car and a lap count for the first position car. Far superior in ease of reading, I felt like I was still looking at the screen, watching what was happening in the race pictures and yet absorbing the on screen data, with the timing gaps, providing you with a good overall view of what is actually happening in the race. One of the advantages in watching F1 from the Sofa in fact!!!!

If there is a good reason for the MON MOY MOT graphic that’s fine, I don't have to look at it if it interrupts my viewing, but why have both on screen at the same time!!!!

I'd like to suggest the bottom graphic appearing at the start of every lap, or every other lap gives you all you want, in a place where you can read and absorb it without interrupting the race viewing, enhancing the overall experience.

Rant over for the moment!!

I would be disappointed to see Raikonnen leave McLaren but the way things have been going with his car I don't think I'd blame him for heading for a more solid Renault or Ferrari at this stage, mind you there is a long way to go in this season still and McLaren will be working very hard to get his car to hold together long enough to finish a race.

This season is still shaping up to be a good one though, despite the fact that it looks like Alonso is heading in to the sunset with a massive points haul. His form has been looking good. Not finishing below 2nd place is a cracking way to be going to secure a second championship.

I'm hoping this season will end up a bit like the 3-way fight of 2003, with 3 teams fighting down to the wire. Certainly Renault are well in there with both drivers winning races already this season, Schumacher is always in there, but I think the Ferrari is actually a good car, as we have not only seen Schumacher win a couple of races and score 5th from the a pit lane start at Monaco, but early on in the season we had both Ferrari's on the front row of the grid. McLaren are still hanging on, Montoya scoring well at Monaco albeit not really hounding Alonso. It's just frustrating to see Raikkonen sidelined with a melting car when he was and should still have been pushing Alonso hard for the win.

Webber was impressive at Monaco, and again frustrating to see him conked out on the track, unfortunately my number 2 prediction Rosberg also retired with mechanical maladies. (The collision with the wall didn't help either)

Maybe I should go back to studying the form guide, as my predictions are quite often left dangling in the realms of fantasy.

I love Michael's quote about what happened in Monaco:

“But I think everybody has black dots on their white jacket. I have been in F1 for 15 or 16 years and I think I can say there are not too many black dots on my jacket. In a way, I can live with it that people argue about these black dots.”

It sounds really nuts. I wonder if it's idiomatic in German.

The last thing that I'll say on the matter (for now at least) is this. Most of the people suggesting that it was really weird that Michael turned back to straight in the middle of the of the corner. But surely that move was what people were calling Michael's genius a few weeks before. That's what Michael always seems to do - and which none of the other drivers have seemed to have sorted out - he does it to stop his tires from flat spotting.

Out of everyone's description I thought that Jackie Stewart came closest to the truth. It was an accident that got him there but it was Michael's mind that left him there because even in that split second he knew he had an advantage.

My favourite reviews of race weekends normally come from the 'Facts & Stats' column at Autosport.com (I think Ted is your favourite, Alex?), and this week it ended with two fascinating and funny figures. Firstly:

"There's no solid evidence suggesting Midland's Tiago Monteiro is made of Teflon, but he's developed a remarkable ability to emerge unscathed from on-track incidents, and Sunday was his 24th finish in 26 races, despite having two collisions."

And secondly:

"With safety car driver Bernd Maylander celebrating his 35th birthday on Monday, he has the not-inconsiderable bragging rights of having led the F1 field for more laps this year in his AMG Mercedes (19 laps) than the McLaren-Mercedes team (15 laps)."

Great stuff.

Should Alonso be on pole? He set his fastest lap on the lap that Michael was stalled on the track. Isn't that illegal? If there are waved double-yellows you should not be going faster than you have before. We've seen this before with Alonso - Brazil a few years ago and the crash that stopped the race allowing Fisi in the Jordan to win. Alonso ignored the waved yellow flags there too.

Also, I think we should not be saying 'why did he cheat?', but 'why don't more of them cheat?'. If all of the drivers were doing crazy things like this, racing would be much more fun, and it would show how much they cared about winning. It used to be an accepted part of the sport, but has since been purified out.

But did he cheat? Why would a world champion make a mistake on a simple (or at least simplified a few years ago) corner? We're not even half-way through the season, he's not that far behind Alonso, and he would have been second or third anyway. Not that serious, really. Neither answer makes any sense. Like Webber said, only Michael knows.

At the end of qualifying yesterday Michael, whether accidentally or on purpose, ended up stopping the other people aiming for pole from being able to complete their hot laps because his car was in the way.

The reaction of many teams and drivers was that Michael had cheated and had deliberately done this to stop anyone else from bettering his time. And last night race control announced that they were stripping him of all of his qualifying times for cheating.

My immediate thought when I saw what had happened was that he'd been very lucky to stall there as it meant nobody would beat him. Which immediately led me to ask the question - "he couldn't have done this on purpose could he?"

Then the rational part of my brain took over and said the following things in quick succession:

1) Nobody - not even Michael - has completely perfect car control. There would have been a huge risk that he either crashed the car or flat spotted the tire thus compromising his race.

2) The spot is unsighted and he wouldn't know how close anyone was behind him. If the marshals hadn't been as quick as they were, or a rookie hadn't spotted them then there would have been the chance for a massive crash involving his car which would hugely compromise his race.

3) If Alonso had to momentarily lift and was therefore .3 seconds slower than Michael then he wasn't sufficiently blowing Michael away on that lap to let Michael know for sure it was worth pulling the stunt. What I mean is that if Alonso had been half a second up on him then it would have been obvious that he would have to do something drastic but it wasn't that "cut and dried".

So after all of that I decided that it was an accident. An accident that just happened to look odd, and happened to favour Michael. Which effectively demanded that it would be investigated because Michael always seems to be the centre of controversy.

The incident called into my mind the infamous Senna vs. Prost incidents where two years in a row the world championship was decided by one or other of them deliberately driving the other off of the road (eg. Senna won the championship in 1990 because he was ahead in the championship going into the last race. And to guarantee his win he made sure neither he or his only rival could complete the race). Senna when asked if he thought it was sportsmanlike conduct to deliberately crash your car off the road to win said something along the lines that, "the only thing a sportsman should concentrate on is winning - and I wanted to win".

But people don't hold up Senna and Prost as cheats and bad sportsmen. They say they were legends of the sport. And they were teammates both times!

So at this point I was pretty sure, as I said, that it couldn't have been a deliberate ploy. And I kept feeling that until I saw the reactions of the other drivers. Normally if it's a regular incident that's a bit iffy then you expect a quote from Jacques Villeneuve. If it's a bit more iffy then expect David Couthlard and Montoya to weigh in. But this was something else. There were quotes from Kimi and quotes from Mark Webber. It was the Mark Webber comment that turned me around. I know that Mark had a reason to want Schumacher out of the way (as he'll now be starting from the front row of the grid) and could therefore be seen as biased but he's normally such a benefit-of-the-doubt kind of a guy that it seems pretty damming. Here's the best quotes about the incident:

Webber

"I understand the second sector was well down, you could say he was trying very, very hard in the last sector, but it looks like there’s been two moves on the steering wheel from what I’ve heard. Obviously if it is intentional it is childish, isn’t it? It looks a bit tricky to be honest. Senna did some pretty wild things because he believed that was right. But will Michael sleep well tonight? Who knows?

"If it’s deliberate it’s absolutely rubbish, it’s massively below the belt and if that’s the case he should definitely lose all his qualifying."

Montoya

"Was it really a mistake? I’m not so sure."

Raikkonen

"I don’t believe that he really had any problems."

"He should have taken one hand off of the steering wheel and covered the camera with it".

And of course the most blunt comments from Jaques

Villeneuve

"I hope it was deliberate, because if that was a mistake he should not even have an F1 superlicence, if you can make a mistake like that, you shouldn’t drive a race car. There’s no way you could make a mistake like that. It’s the kind of thing I couldn’t dream of doing myself. I don’t know what goes through your mind when you decide to do that, when you know that the rest of the world can see. I don’t understand it, it’s stupid. He didn’t need to do that, he’s a seven-times world champion, he was on pole position. Why do that? It’s only going to make him look bad.

"This is embarrassing. Embarrassing for a world champion. It would even be embarrassing for [Yuji] Ide".

Ouch!

So Michael and Ferrari have previous which gives them a worse chance with race control. And to my mind it's 50:50 as to what exactly happened out there. So all we are left with is the question of what would Race Control do. I was convinced that they would decide that it was better to not brand Michael a cheat and that they would say that it was an accident and that it could stand. And that they would then add that any further attempts to lodge a complaint against Schumacher or briefing against Schumacher to the press would be seen as bringing the sport into disrepute. The sport can not have it's world champion seen as a cheat.

But in the end they have gone the other way, and this morning I feel that they have made the right decision. Almost whether Michael did it or not. At the end of this season if Michael had won the season there would be a group of people saying that this world championship was tainted and didn't count. And that would be bad for him (and the sport). This way removes any doubt and makes the championship run clean (although Michael and Ross Brawn might feel that they have been ganged up on and the rest of the teams are cheating I suppose). This decision leaves everyone on an even keel but…

It probably is going to be the deciding factor at the end of the season. Reliability has been really high this season and Alonso is really going to start scampering away at the front if he gets 10 points today and starting from 22 place means there's a good chance Michael will get none.

So who'll be on pole, who'll make the podium? Monaco is at once impossible to call, because of so many unknowns, but at the same time easy to predict, because of the lack of overtaking. Nonetheless, I think Alonso for pole and for the podium:

1. Montoya
2. Raikkonen
3. Alonso

I don't really know why. The McLaren's look good, and they've both won round Monaco.

On the ITV website they have a form card which they publish before each race. It has a little round up of how each driver is doing and then has a list of all of each drivers most recent results like this:

Last five race results: 1st / 2nd / 2nd / 1st / 2nd

The only problem is it's backwards. Or at least it seems to be to me. That's the record of Alonso and he won the most recent race he didn't come second. I just think when you read that you'd naturally assume that the results were going in the other order - or maybe it's just me.

I think one of the most surprising discoveries of the season is fundamental differences between the way that the cars have been designed to drive as revealed by the switch of Rubens to Honda.

It really does surprise me that there is such a huge difference between the two teams even over something as primal as acceleration. Jock Clear of the opinion that Ferrari have designed their entire car around the concept of traction control which has meant that their throttle pedal is more of an on/off switch. Whereas the Honda throttle pedal is a very delicate thing which has a wide variety of variation requiring more driver skill. But then he would say that he works for Honda.

The thing about this information is it seems constructed to make you think that one of these is bad and the other is good. And it seems constructed to make you think that the version that hasn't ever won a grand prix is good and the one that has is bad.

The thing is that the throttle acting like a switch sounds to me much closer to the karting setup that Michael has always favoured as is the twitchy handling he also loves. Michael was also the man who made breaking in F1 more like karting breaking and so on.

So perhaps a bit of karting know how at Honda, in the shape of Rubens will be able to turn things around? Rather than presenting it as a problem with Rubens it might be better to present it as an opportunity for Honda?

Much has been made this and last year of how many points Coulthard has scored, something like the 4th highest ever. He is also, for now, one of the drivers on the grid with the most wins to his name. Are these not poor consolation prizes for someone who couldn't win a championship? What does it matter if he has scored so many points if he hasn't done it in one season, consistently? Doesn't it just mean that he's been a round a lot? And the amount of wins he has is just circumstanial - we have a very young grid at the moment. Soon Alonso and Raikkonen will overtake him.

Nonetheless, like Alex, since bearded Dave moved to Red Bull I have liked him a lot more, mainly because of his humility, and I'd like him to have one more win, maybe round the twisty streets of Monaco?

Monaco is race which holds many attractions for me. It's supposed to be the most glamorous of the occasions of the calendar but that's not really the thing that I find attractive about it. The thing about it for me is much more its unadulterated feel. The glamour has protected this race from change. This is certainly a race that has a preserved feel about it. Something in the glamour and the pomp and circumstances allows it to be so dangerous and get away with it. (Actually the fact that it seems so dangerous makes it safer than other races in some ways - people have been very well behaved here for many years because of its throwback feel).

My favourite memory is from a long while ago, ten years to be precise. It is one of the races that I remember above all else. Somehow because of my age and when I came to the sport this one race at Monaco stands out. It was the grand prix of 1996 and in that race only 4 drivers finished. And Olivier Panis won in a Ligier. It was an incredible race. If anyone has it on video I would love to see it.

I'm not sure it was my favourite race ever. It was a race that I just will probably remember forever.

What's your favourite race of all time? I'll try and decide on mine too.

Max Mosley has talked again about his ideal version of Formula 1 in an effort to dispel talk that he has too much control over what's happening in F1.

His argument goes something like this: "I've wanted to do this crazy thing to Formula 1 for about 20 years and I've never been able to do it so clearly I don't have too much power. Because if I had all the power then I'd have done it by now".

So what's his crazy plan?

His plan is kind of simple in it's craziness. He doesn't want any driver to be tied to any team. He wants the teams and drivers to be split and he wants the drivers to race at every single team during the course of a season. This, he argues, would mean that you would get a true sense of the abilities of a driver. Because nobody could ever argue that the driver won only because of the best car. He would deal with the problem of their being more races than cars by simply saying that after every driver had had a race in every car the driver at the front of the championship would be able to decide which of the teams (one race each) they'd like to race with for the remaining races of the season. Then the second driver in the championship would decide and so on.

To be completely honest, when I first heard this idea I thought: "that's just so crazy it might just work". I really thought that it seemed to answer the problem that so many have tried to deal with for so many years, the problem which is that the best driver has the best car.

Other than the obvious Formula 1 enthusiasts response to this which is that Formula 1 is a team sport and the separation between drivers and constructors is artificial. I suddenly realised today what the fundamental problem with Max's idea is. I knew there was something. It had been nagging at me ever since I heard it the first time, but I'd never been able to conceptualise it. But I suddenly thought of it today.

The problem is that if the driver vs. car selection at the beginning of the season is essentially random then the problem is that the best drivers wont be racing on the circuit. The drivers will be in randomly assigned cars, what we won't see in this situation is Michael fighting Alonso fighting Kimi? Because if Kimi's in a Ferrari, Alonso's in a Toyota and Michael's in a Minardi then it's not going to be a straight fight. Sure we'll all find out who the fastest driver is. But we won't find out who the fastest driver is until the end of the season. The strength of mind to deal with a formula like that is beyond most. I myself might love the complexity, as I love the perceived complexity of qualifying this year. But I'm not sure the sport would have any mass appeal. If you need a spreadsheet to understand what's going on then it isn't really going to have broad appeal.

Why is it that so much of the media refer to Jenson Button as an "F1 ace"?

I'm not necessarily referring to TV as I don't believe I have heard the term used on ITV (even from James) and I don't see any F1 coverage on any other channel, I still can't even get Channel 5!

Many newspapers though seem to use this term quite liberally.

When I hear the word ace (referring to a person rather than a playing card or a tennis match) I immediately think of a fighter pilot. My limited understanding of such things would suggest a fighter pilot who had shot down five enemy aircraft.

Now, don't get me wrong I am quite happy for this term to be applied to a Formula 1 driver. Indeed it doesn't take many leaps of imagination to suggest a multitude of parallels between a fighter pilot and a Formula 1 driver, especially regarding beating the opposition, which is the primary aim of both (surely?)

To pursue a direct comparison though, would it not be reasonable to only use the phrase to describe a driver who had actually won some races? I'm not sure why in the fighter pilot case it would be five (if indeed it is!), and I'm not saying it should be specifically tied to a number either, but five race wins would be a good measure to prove that wins aren't just a fluke and would hopefully demonstrate some consistent form.

Here's a collection of my favourite F1 quotes from the last few weeks.

This one was from Metro, where they had had an interview with Bob Bell from Renault. The article was called:

"Bell tolls for Ferrari".

James with, "Villeneuve is looking like a cuckoo in someone else's nest".

and

"David hasn't made the top ten in qualifying let's see how Louise asks a question about it"

and from the ridiculous to the sublime. This one from Martin Brundle, "Renault are in a one horse race against a prancing horse".

As usual the worst thing you can ever hear in a race is when James says "Lets just enjoy this for a moment". At that point he just stops talking - which to be honest isn't very much like commentating.

Martin Brundle, commenting on the (allegedly) bending Ferrari rear-wing, made an interesting point last week: 'Maybe we're looking in the wrong place. Maybe they've got something underneath the car that's giving them high speed on the straights.'

Indeed they do. Just look at the fine adjustments they're making to how the air flows under the car: Autosport Spanish GP Technical Review. Perhaps all this fuss about the rear-wing is bluff by the other teams, whilst they look at the underneath? They're throwing the press off while the real battle is going on under the cars. Geoff Willis has been very secretive: 'But there is a clear picture coming, which I cannot share with you, that some teams are aware of and most are not.' Perhaps he was talking about the tyres, perhaps not.

He goes on to say: 'All the teams are going to have to adopt the same set of interpretation of rules if they are going to be competitive'. Where does an interpretation become against the rules? This has always been the genius of F1 designers: pushing the absolute limits of the rules. Honda tried last year and failed. Have Ferrari got away with it?

Qualifying has, this season, been very successful. And although certain SofaF1 correspondents (mentioning no names Nick) would like to see it stay as it is, the odd tweak to the format in the third section aside it is a great format.

(Personally I'd like to see the final section be the same length it is now, with the ability to go beyond the end of the session for the last lap, but the teams have to declare driver start fuel before they start on that session, but you go out on low fuel. That way you'd still get the mixed up complications that make it all fun but you'd get a pure lap pole.)

But that isn't really what this post is about. This post is about what might happen at the next race. There are three things we know about qualifying at Monaco from previous years:

1) It's really difficult and dangerous to deal with traffic on a fast lap.

2) The track becomes faster during qualifying more that most other race tracks.

3) It's so difficult with overtaking that it was the only track where even single lap qualifying caused difficulties with slowing traffic (Montoya and ...).

So for this race coming up qualifying is going to be insane. Everyone is going to wait as late as possible and everyone is going to b needing to be on the same track as everyone else and at least one of the big names is going to be behind everyone else.

Everyone who hasn't won is counting on this factor to win the Monaco grand prix. Jenson thinks he's a dead cert, Kimi must be odds on, I mean even David thinks he's going to win it.

My guess? Massa's first win? Why? I have no idea.

Does anyone else feel a little bit suspicious about the engine dropping on transit? It seems, to me, very much like a Mafia hit.

Whatever the truth, Villeneuve is still worried about what Fisichella might do next: "I hope there are no games going on, because it could be very dangerous, and if something like that happens, it could be massive."

One of my favorite features on the ITV website are Ted Kravitz's Notebook articles where he explains what he thinks went on behind the scenes technically.

Rather interestingly, this week, he goes slightly off his usual format right at the end to criticise the race for only having 2 overtaking maneuvers in the whole race. I'm not suggesting he's right but it's interesting to see a slightly more coherent argument than most...

Ted's Barcelona Notebook

Next year will be the most fundamental shift in the driver's market in a long time. We could see all new drivers in the top three teams - Ferrari, McLaren and Renault. It all depends on Michael. If he stays, Massa will probably stay. Raikkonen then might go to Renault. But if Michael leaves, everything is up in the air. Raikkonen will go to Ferrari, leaving Renault with no top-line driver. They'll want to get rid of Fisi, but won't have anyone to replace him with. Montoya wants to leave, but has nowhere to go, and I doubt Renault will want him. So who'll partner Raikkonen at Ferrari and Alonso at McLaren? One thing is for certain: nothing is certain. Next year's championship will be fascinating, it'll separate the good from the great: only the most stable team, and driver most capable of adapting to new circumstances will win. My money's on Alonso.

They've added a graphic for this year on a Saturday to help with the situation in qualifying where you're trying to work out who is in and who is out at the end of each of the three qualifying sessions. And the graphics there work reasonably well except there is one problem that seems to have occurred three drivers this year have remarkably similar names. It started with two but since Ide got chucked out it's gone from bad to worse. Those drivers are: Monteiro (MON), Montoya (MOY) and Montagny (MOT). The thing is that Montoya is the bigger driver but didn't get MON. He only got MOY which seems odd especially as he's so often known as JPM (for Juan PABLO Montoya - James please please try and remember that other cultures have multiple first names and that you aren't simply missing out his middle name by calling him Juan Montoya you are CALLING HIM BY THE WRONG NAME! He's either Juan Pablo, Juan Pablo Montoya or Montoya. NOT JUAN MONTOYA! Calm, Calm, try to be calm).

So they must have been doing the naming order by alphabetical order which makes Montagny so controversial. He, had he been there at the beginning of the season, would have been MON. But now he has to be MOT. It's so very sad.

Actually I think that graphic which shows how qualifying is going (the one in the top left) works very well. The scrawl is also good but I tend to use that one less. I also liked the introduction of the new graphic in Spain which showed what the top speed through a particular speed trap was of all of the cars.

One new graphic that I think would be really useful would be on which showed the number of miles raced by an engine. This would include all practice laps and from the previous race.

Anyone else out there got a suggestion for a graphic?

I have an Italian friend who runs an Italian restaurant in London. And I fell into conversation with him about Formula 1 this week while I was eating there. He and I were talking about the current state of F1 and all of the things that made formula one the way that it is right now. I asked him if he was still watching all of the grand prix this year, and he said "almost". But then he said that he felt more and more betrayed by Ferrari.

Italy and Brazil (and now Germany and Brazil) are really countries where nationality play a big part in the formula one experience. Formula 1 is very important in Italy, which is probably understating it a little bit. My friend was saying though that he felt that they had all been mis-sold the Ferrari dream by Montezemolo. He might love Ferrari, but why couldn't they put an Italian driver in the team. To his mind they had sold themselves short with Irvine and then Barrichello (I myself still have a soft spot for Rubens but he was arguing that if you wanted to find out what position Rubens was in the race you just had to ask how many of his competitors had fallen out of the race - a tad unfair but that's what he said). And now, he continued, with Massa they really are taking the piss. If they don't care how good the second driver is, which - he said - was obvious by the choice of Massa then why couldn't they bring in some crap Italian driver. And if they were going to pick an Italian driver then why not pick one of the best.

To his mind the best was Trulli. Trulli was ultra fast over a single lap and a born winner. So why wouldn't they include him, or at the very least Fisi. Surely it would be better to give him a chance?

The problem is - I think - that Ferrari can't actually employ an Italian driver ever again now. They can't do it without seeming like "they only gave it to him because he's Italian". That's why they want Rossi because he's Italian but nobody can argue that he hasn't won anything he's a massive world champion in a similar sport.

So in the end it was the same old story. Italian guy upset that Italian racer wasn't allowed to race for Italian team. But the most interesting thing for me was his driver selection. I had to push him quite hard to reveal it to me. But his choice of Trulli interested me. Trulli is rumoured to be retiring this season, but he had a logic to his choice that I thought was very interesting.

He said that he personally loved Trulli because in the complete race for speed of qualifying he'd always been able to prove himself. And that he'd been able to doubly prove himself by being able to stand up to Briatore when Flav had criticised him Jarno had just basically said "I don't need this any more I'll just go off and do my own thing". And that slight amount of extra brain toughness put Trulli ahead of Fisi. But he said that's not the reason that Ferrari should hire him, that's the reason that he would hire him, not the reason that they would. They should hire him because of the qualifying. Because somebody that good in qualifying, and that good at keeping everyone behind him in the race (except his team mate) would be the ideal second driver.

And if he just happened to be Italian - well...

Alonso said at the race this weekend after qualifying, "it doesn't make a big difference for the championship, winning here, just the difference between 10 or 8 points, but psychologically it's a big win".

The thing with this kind of statement is that it just shows how much he doesn't really think that anyone but Michael is racing against him. If you ask him a straight question then he always tries to dilute the competition by talking McClaren and Honda but this kind of answer lets you know the real truth I think. Alonso doesn't really think that there is any one else in the competition.

Is racing/playing at home an advantage?

I predicted Schumacher would win today's race, not necessarily because he had the faster car, but because I thought Alonso wouldn't be able to take the pressure. For Alonso, like I would say Barrichello, racing at home is normally a disadvantage. Nonetheless, Alonso, showing his class, managed it.

But, there's another point to be made: Montoya spins on lap 17 and stops in an extremely dangerous position. They should put out the safety car. They don't. I remember a few years ago the marshals pushing Michael back onto the track when he spun into a gravel trap in Germany. A couple of years later he did the same thing (somewhere like Australia), but no one came to push him. The home advantage isn't just the fans cheering you on, it is the marshals and the race organisers as well. If the safety car had been deployed, Alonso would have been in trouble...

He's been such a changed man ever since that happened. But... I couldn't help but laugh when he said, after he'd been knocked out of the qualifying, that he'd have to "take it on the chin".

Tomorrow's race is going to be decided by the strategists I think. Which is very much how it should be at a race where overtaking is more tricky. There are a large number of factors in a Formula 1 weekend, but each race falls into a number of categories. Is it fast or slow, does it have gradient or is it flat, is it hot or cold and can you overtake or not.

The last of these is generally the most important. And if it's the case that you can't overtake then the Ross Brawns of this world, the Pat Symonds become more important than ever!

This leads me to my first criticism of Steve Ryder. I found a comment of his from the last week very unknowing of the sport. He asked if it would be "a technical battle or more of a race".

The thing is that if you dismiss the races that don't have any overtaking on the track as "not races" then you are missing the sport and you are going to be sorely disappointed. An overtaking manoeuvre should be seen as almost the icing on the cake. Great fun and an amazing moment but not what it's all about.

So Barrichello finally out-qualified Jenson last weekend thereby proving the promise of the season, and today he's done it again. Before the season had started who can deny that it was one of the most interesting battles.

The logic goes something like this. The best way to judge a driver is by his team mate. How he drives versus his team mate is one of the most important factors. The thing is that when the other driver in your team is Michael Schumacher then it's a slightly unfair comparison. Nobody else came close for a couple of years there and Rubens was left trying to hold his own. And Rubens did well. I mean it wasn't necessarily awesome but he certainly beat Michael on a number of occasions.

And Jenson has, actually, beaten most of his team mates (in fact it may be all - I can't remember). And all of his defenders have claimed that he is a great driver but that he's just never had the right car. The problem is that we haven't been able to test this until now. Now we have a driver who has been in a Ferrari. A great car. And we wanted to know, to really know how good Jenson was. And a fight with Rubens was the only way to do that.

At the beginning of the season it looked dismal. It looked like we might have all have been wrong about Barrichello. He might have been propped up by that good car and once he was in an ordinary car have turned out to be an ordinary driver. But oh no. Now we are really seeing the true story. Now we are seeing Rubens really show what Jenson is made of.

Last week Bernie accused Alonso of not doing enough for the sport and saying that Jenson would be a good world champion. Of course that was just Bernie doing what he does best - stirring. And especially supporting the British driver to the British press. But he did have a point of a sort. Jenson does more PR and because he does more PR the media reward him with ideas above his station. If it was a driver from any other nation then we would be treating a driver like Jenson as a punchline. And yet... And yet we are being asked to consider Jenson as world championship material when...

HE HAS NEVER WON A RACE!

F1 has always been considered one of the most exacting sports in the world. But it really is coming to something if we are going to have to start measuring times in fractions of thousands of a second. Because Rubens and Ralf finished in qualifying on the exact same time. The rules had a solution which awarded Rubens the upper hand because he had secured the time earlier in the session. But it really is quite something that something so precise could be matched.

Should we be measuring the qualifying times more accurately or do the current rules have the solution? Or should we just have let Rubens and Ralf run a lap and seen who was fastest?

There's only one way to settle this... Fight!

Who do you think will win on Saturday?

A resurgent Michael has won those two and was second fastest today (only behind his team mate Massa).

While Renault have been on the back foot two races in a row, Alonso will want to do well in front of his home crowd.

And Kimi really needs to start winning some races before the season becomes a right off.

Or will Jenson... oh I can't even be bothered to pretend about Jenson.

For ages (well since it was obvious Michael wasn't going to win last year) I've been of the opinion that Michael had a master plan about last season. Once he knew he was going to loose he thought that the best thing would be to loose with grace, then come back with a vengance the next year and win, and promptly retire.

He would then be able to
a) Retire on a win (the only world champion to have ever done so - except the one who died posthumously, but that probably doesn't count)
and
b) Hold his head up to those who might argue that he retired before he'd given the young guns enough of a chance - the sport needed to see him taken down.


Now there have been rumours that Michael is going to announce in the next few weeks his decision about next year but he's in a bit of quandry about it. He really needs to decide on the Ferrari's performance.

If the car is really really fast then he can announce his retirement knowing that it's a good bet he'll win.

If the car is really really not going to win then he can announce his retirement. In many ways if Ferrari don't get it right this year (and can't even come close to winning) then they won't be able to even come close next year either.

But if it's something in the middle then he would want to sign up for an extra year or two. To make sure he wins one more time before he retires.

The problem is that he's not sure. It's difficult to tell. Which is why, I think, he's now suggesting he might not announce anything until the end of the season.

So Jaques has been given a 10 place engine penalty. Not for something on the track but for, apparently, somebody dropping his engine!

On the back of the fuel hose incident and some other issues it does seem that human error is creeping back into the sport. After a run last year of complete control from the mechanics.

With one of the most important factors of safety being fuel isn't it really surprising that there could be an accident like the one at Imola with Button?

It seems to me that the better option would be to make it so that you can't actually drive the car when the fuel hose is attached?

Or does that seem too logical?

To view my photos and live action video from the 26th April go here:

Silverstone Test

The brilliance of seeing the cars live is unparalleled. The TV reduces the sound, size and speed of them. It is if anything, I would say, like seeing a band live instead of hearing the record. Your ears buzz for days afterwards.

On approaching the track and hearing the noise my uninitiated friend turned and said 'I'm really frightened'; later she was to tell me she thought the sound would 'consume her head' it was so loud. Once she had calmed down, and seen a few of them go past, she told me 'I just didn't realise they were that fast'.

Now I just have to find £100 for the Grand Prix...