Grand Prix of Monaco, Final Practise

Heikki Kovalainen set the fastest time in final practice for the
Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday morning, then promptly spun and hit the
barriers.

The Finn, who had just eclipsed the time of team-mate Lewis Hamilton
with 25 minutes of the session gone and drizzle fall lightly on the
track, lost control of the McLaren on the exit of the swimming pool,
damaging the rear of the car.

The hour-long session was then stopped, apparently to clear debris from the Finn’s shunt.

The five minute break was sufficient to allow the track to get
properly damp again, having dried through the morning, and thus locked
Kovalainen’s 1:16.567 lap to the top of the timesheets.

Up until that point the session had been frantic, with seemingly the
entire field – with the exception of David Coulthard – venturing
trackside before the predicted rain stole what was left of the precious
dry track time.

The first ten minutes of the session saw Ferrari’s Felipe Massa
seize the moment as he banged in a succession of flying laps as he
gradually lowered the mark to 1:17.691, which convinced the
pace-setters from Friday, Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton, to venture
out.

Raikkonen quickly established himself at the top of the times, but
once Hamilton found himself space on the busying track – he swiftly
remedied that. Until Kovalainen emerged from the pits…

Nico Rosberg continued to show the Williams team’s strong Monaco
form with the fourth fastest time, and the German was also impressively
fast in the second, more slippery half of the session.

Robert Kubica’s BMW was fifth, ahead of Massa – who eventually dropped to sixth.

Mark Webber – always quick at Monaco – was seventh just in front of
Adrian Sutil, who once again shone in the tricky Saturday morning
conditions that allowed his stock to rise so spectacularly this time a
year ago.

Kazuki Nakajima and Jenson Button filled out the top ten, while Sebastien Bourdais was an impressive 11th.

It’s also worth mentioning that Button once again proved super quick
in the intermediate conditions, his Honda lapping more than a second
faster than anyone else could manage when the circuit was at its
wettest.

Eventually though the track began to dry and the times tumbled and
in the final moments, Kubica’s BMW broke the beam at 1:26.459, followed
by the Ferraris of Raikkonen (1:27.077) and Massa (1:27.325).

Pos  Driver        Team                     Time              Laps
 1.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:16.567          11
 2.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:17.084 + 0.517  15
 3.  Raikkonen     Ferrari             (B)  1:17.177 + 0.610  21
 4.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:17.503 + 0.936  26
 5.  Kubica        BMW Sauber          (B)  1:17.687 + 1.120  22
 6.  Massa         Ferrari             (B)  1:17.691 + 1.124  26
 7.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:17.856 + 1.289  22
 8.  Sutil         Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:17.883 + 1.316  23
 9.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:18.147 + 1.580  26
10.  Button        Honda               (B)  1:18.225 + 1.658  27
11.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:18.367 + 1.800  16
12.  Glock         Toyota              (B)  1:18.424 + 1.857  26
13.  Barrichello   Honda               (B)  1:18.455 + 1.888  19
14.  Piquet        Renault             (B)  1:18.615 + 2.048  25
15.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:18.651 + 2.084  29
16.  Alonso        Renault             (B)  1:18.795 + 2.228  24
17.  Trulli        Toyota              (B)  1:18.858 + 2.291  25
18.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber          (B)  1:19.024 + 2.457  23
19.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:19.131 + 2.564  10
20.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:20.805 + 4.238  17

Oh dear, can’t anything go right for Heikki? That’s really unfortunate, but  his car should be okay for qualifying. Hopefully he and Kimi can make Monaco an even tougher race for Lewis than he had last year. BMW have improved their pace, don’t count them out in qualifying as they will try to occupy the second row on the grid but they’ll need to do something quite spectacular to challenge the McLarens and Ferraris ahead. Kimi is looking very strong, eventhough he isn’t fastest in practise, he will be very competitive during the race. And Monaco tends to bring out a wild side in Kimi. Keep Flying!