Hamilton reigns in Monaco

The massive grin on Lewis Hamilton’s face as he sat on the winner’s chair to field press questions after his imperious command of the Monaco Grand Prix yesterday said it all: “Don’t cha wish your driving was hot like mine?” He had stepped out of his car a few moments before to the sound of deafening screams from across the Cote d’Azur and the entire world. Among the sea of faces glowing with adulation was Pussy Cat Dolls babe Nicole Scherzinger, Lewis’s special “guest”. Life surely must have felt like it couldn’t possibly get better.

Traditionally, Monaco is won on Saturday, not Sunday. Qualifying is everything at this narrow street circuit with nary an overtaking opportunity anywhere. Once the Ferraris had locked up the front row at the end of qualifying, it was clear to everyone that we were going to see a Ferrari one-two on Sunday for the first time in a very long time at Monaco. As seasoned commentators such as former multiple World Champion and Monaco grandee, Sir Jackie Stewart, said, the question was which of the two Ferraris would receive the coveted winners trophy from Prince Albert. Somehow, Felipe Massa had conquered his Monaco gremlins and qualified ahead of his team-mate. A mist of inevitability hung over everything.

Two crucial factors changed everything on Sunday: the weather and the breathtaking class of a young Englishman with a cheeky grin. As the rain lashed down at the yachts in Monte Carlo harbour and the champagne quaffing beauties dived indoors for cover, Lewis Hamilton reached into himself and chose to teach the world a driving lesson. The lesson was straight out of Rudyard Kipling: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…you’ll be a man my son”. Having leapfrogged the world champion and got up to second place at the start, Hamilton found himself momentarily losing control on the rain drenched circuit and slamming his rear right tyre into the Armcor barriers. He suffered a puncture and an enforced early pit stop. But cometh the hour, cometh the man. This was the moment when Hamilton told himself that nothing was going to stop him winning the 2008 Monaco Grand Prix.

In a brilliant strategy change, the McLaren team took advantage of the early tyre change to fuel Lewis very long. From then on the race belonged to him. By pumping in lap after commanding lap of remarkable speed and car control, Lewis built up such a margin between himself and everyone else that he was well on the way to winning the race by a whole minute despite everything. Life at Monaco in the rain, however, is never quite so simple. Incident after incident intervened to enhance our entertainment – or, in the case of Hamilton senior, anxiety – and make for an epic race of crashes, safety cars and everything else. I sincerely believe the lad when he says that this was the most significant win of his career. "I wanted to win at Monaco more than anywhere else in the world," Hamilton said last night. “This has got to be the highlight of my career and I'm sure it will remain the highlight for the rest of my life. Even if I win here again, which I plan on doing, this will always be the best one."

One bizarre incident will haunt a young man called Adrian Sutil for the rest of his life. The German, capitalising on the crazy conditions in Monte Carlo, had managed to work his no-hoper Force India up to fourth place from eighteenth. He was probably contemplating the mother of all victory parties when - Bang! – he felt the Ferrari of world champion Kimi Raikkonen slam into the back of his car. Raikkonen had aquaplaned on the wet circuit under braking and lost control of his Ferrari. The hunched, heaving form of a disconsolate Sutil crying his eyes out in the Force India garage after his forced retirement must surely be one of the enduring memories of yesterday afternoon.

But who will ever forget Lewis Hamilton’s triumph? If he continues to hear about himself being described as “smug” or “arrogant” he has every right to drop his trousers and show the world his backside. Picture it. You have just come top at the most dramatic Monaco Grand Prix in more than a decade; you are associated with the most gorgeous babes the world has to offer and millions more are throwing their knickers at you; and you are leading the 2008 Formula One drivers’ world championship. A year ago Lewis was thrilled at the prospect of meeting the likes of P Diddy. Now, P Diddy feels honoured to be on Hamilton’s guest list. What’s not to be smug about?

Hamilton should have won the 2007 race but was cruelly prevented from doing so by curious McLaren team orders. Victory must taste that much sweeter now. Little wonder then that Lewis had a special word for his mother: “lots of love, Mum”. I am sure she is a very happy lady indeed wherever she is.

Gitau
25 May 2008

Magnificence and Monaco

Monaco is not one of those places that ordinary people go to. It is has more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the world, so is probably far too glamorous for the likes of me. Whenever I have thoughts like this, I think of the words of one of my favourite authors, W. Somerset Maugham, and feel a lot better. He famously described the Côte d'Azur principality as "a sunny place for shady people."

The closest I got to visiting Monaco was many years ago while an impoverished student in Paris. I remember it well because it was also the one and only time I have ever been mugged. I had gone to see my friend, Laurent, at his flat one evening to share a bottle of Pastis and pretend to be a Left Bank intellectual with him in the mould of Jean Paul Sartre. The pretence did not last long because we got hungry, Laurent's fridge and larder were bare and, in keeping with the best traditions of the pissed student worldwide, we were a little short of sufficient francs for a takeaway. Laurent then had the brilliant idea of phoning his sister and persuading her to bring us some food. Until then I had heard nothing whatever about any sisters in Paris, Marseille or anywhere.

There was wisdom in Laurent's reticence, though. As soon as I laid eyes on Monique I fell in love. She was a statuesque revelation; the kind of woman you only ever dream about. The food she had brought for us to eat could just as well have been ashes for all I could taste. I shovelled it into my mouth while staring at Monique like a man recently released from a lunatic asylum. Later, as we chatted, I imploringly managed to extract an address from Monique and promised to visit her. She laughed dismissively and I swore to bite my bollocks if I never saw her again.

Had I been thinking rationally, I ought to have realised from her address that Monique was no ordinary lass. She lived in easily the swankiest part of Paris. When she opened her door to let me in and I surveyed the interior of her flat, I should have known then that I did not belong anywhere near Monique. On the wall opposite where I was standing was a blown up copy of a Vogue magazine cover featuring a Helmut Newton photograph of Monique wearing not a lot. She offered me a glass of wine and I sat down on a ludicrously expensive sofa and tried making small talk. "My boyfriend is coming round to pick me up for something to eat," she said sweetly. "Maybe you can join us." This was turning into my worst nightmare.

The rest of the evening was the most disastrous of my life. I sat across from this Monégasque millionaire nuzzling up to a purring Monique and wished I was dead. Curiously, Monique's boyfriend seemed to enjoy my company - or perhaps he was just a miserable sadist. In different circumstances I would have leapt at his offer of spending a weekend with them in his flat in Monaco ("we 'ave many friends, we 'ave good time!") but I had had enough of being a gooseberry to last me a lifetime and was not exactly thrilled about life. To cap it all off I got mugged by eight Arabs in the tunnels of the Opera Metro station as I made my way home to my fleapit. In the painful melee, I lost my blazer and an almost empty wallet. Once home I spent the night drenching my pillow in tears of despair. You will fully understand then why Monaco has not been high on my list of holiday destinations since!

Even I have to swallow any prejudices I may have against overly rich and glamorous people when it comes to the Monaco Grand Prix. If Formula One is the most glamorous, biggest money sport in the world, you do not get more glamorous or bigger money than the Monaco Grand Prix. It is the showcase event of the year. A win in Monaco is extremely highly coveted by Formula One drivers. A world championship is incomplete without at least one Monaco winner's trophy listed on the driver's CV. It is not as though the race itself is super fast or heavily action packed. Hardly. It is the sheer beauty and spectacle of the place, the narrow, very tricky street circuit and the ever present possibility of a massive crash. If you are an occasional Formula One fan this is the race to watch.

Who will win it? If I knew that I would be down at the bookmakers rather than reminiscing about what might have been with Monique!

Let's start with the championship leader, Kimi Raikkonen. He knows the circuit well and won the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix quite convincingly in a McLaren. Unfortunately for him, Ferrari has a patchy record at Monaco. No Ferrari driver has won in Monaco since 2001 and last year the Ferrari chassis was way too long for the tight chicanes at the Circuit de Monaco. But Kimi appears to be on a roll, so I wouldn’t count him out yet. The worst news for Raikkonen’s opponents is that he is doing well at circuits where he has traditionally struggled. The latter half of the season has all the Kimi tracks and he is going to begin it having amassed a comfortable cushion of points. Things look good for Kimi.

I rather fancy the chances of the McLaren drivers. They had a bit of a tyre problem in Turkey – which I must admit to finding terribly mystifying – but Lewis Hamilton still drove a stormer of a race. His three stop strategy was very aggressive but he executed it with panache and managed to achieve second place. He is up against it now that he is behind on points and would dearly love to get his name up on the Monaco scoreboard while sharing a glass or two with Prince Albert. Still, he’s probably worth a flutter; perhaps a tenner…

“Incidents, dear boy, incidents” is what Monaco is about. Any one such incident and we could end up with a random fellow like Adrian Sutil or Kazuki Nakajima stealing the limelight. Monaco is always fabulous, so it goes without saying that you will,

Enjoy Monaco!

Gitau
20 May 2008

Tantalising Turkey

In recent times the award of the right to host a Grand Prix has been recognition of a couple of decades or so of worthy economic achievement. I should have foreseen this for Turkey in 1995. I was a new member of a project finance team led by a young, macho chap called James Worral. When I joined them, a few members of the team had been working for a couple of years on a large, privately financed water sanitation project for the city of Izmir in Turkey. By the time of my joining, the project was too far advanced for me to offer any meaningful assistance, so I was relegated to a subsidiary role offering minor help as and when needed. It gave me an excellent vantage point from which to learn about the Izmir project and the workings of Worral's team.

About a year before I joined him, Worral had been ensnared into matrimony by a secretary who worked at the firm and he was contemplating fatherhood while grappling with the Izmir project every late evening in the office. He had reached what is referred to in banking circles as the coyote stage of pregnancy - the stage about six months in when a man is so starved of sex that he is almost literally howling for it. This was not lost to any of us: the menacing look as anything in a skirt walked past Worral's desk, the dribbles of saliva as he stared down the blouse of any woman handing a document to him, the distracted, longing stares out of the window. All of this was clear enough and very amusing. What was not was the incessant questioning. "I'm sorry, James, but I can't work late this evening because I am taking my girlfriend to the theatre for her birthday," one would say. "I see," Worral would respond, "and what happens later? Lots of shagging I suppose. I reckon she'll give you a blow job in the theatre. Am I right? Am I right? Am I right?" If this was bad, the morning after would be even worse.

Worral did himself no favours. Save for me - and this happened by default because he thought "Gitau" was the name of an Asian babe when selecting the new members of his team from a list - every single member of Worral's team was female. They all liked him but one more than any other: an Indian girl called Pritti Patel. She was appropriately named because she was very pretty indeed. Each time Worral walked into her room, Pritti's eyes would register undying devotion. Worral noticed the interest but restrained himself; at least he did so until month seven of the pregnancy when he was going beyond the coyote stage and rapidly descending towards the raving lunatic one. Worral's desperation was such that subtly was jettisoned along with any fear of discovery. He decided that the most suitable approach was the direct one. Girding his loins, he marched into Pritti's room one evening and declared "Pritti I am madly, desperately in love with you. I need you now!" Not to put too fine a point on it, the ploy worked.

Worral would have been all right had he not suffered the torment of three nights without sleep as the Izmir project came to a close. Once all the documents were signed, he dragged Pritti to a broom cupboard in honour of the people of Izmir who would soon be enjoying delicious, clean water. Soon thereafter he got on a train and headed off to his home in Winchester. As soon as he stepped over his threshold, weariness overcame the poor fellow and he promptly passed out on the living room sofa. Worral's loving wife, notwithstanding her enormous belly, decided to half-carry her husband to his bed. As she undressed his unconscious body, there was no mistaking the smells emanating from him which invaded her nostrils. Worral was in the soup.

Still, thanks to James Worral, Izmir is now a far more modern city and, following the Worral template, Istanbul now has a world class motor racing circuit. So let us celebrate the efforts of these trailblazers this weekend as we sip ice cold glasses of Efes Pilsen from Izmir and watch our vastly overpaid friends swelter in super expensive cars in the Istanbul heat round an anticlockwise circuit with a corner designed in hell called "Turn 8".

There have only been three Turkish Grands Prix thus far. The first was won by Kimi Raikkonen in a McLaren and the next two by Felipe Massa in a Ferrari. Since the two are now team-mates it is a moot point which of them will win the race - if either will indeed get on the top step of the podium. At this highly technical circuit, there are plenty of others who feel they can and will get the better of the Ferrari boys. Chief among these has to be British golden boy Lewis Hamilton.

Perhaps golden is the wrong word to use. Being lionised in this country can be a dangerous game. The press pack who love you and want to write every word you say in flattering tones are the same chaps who will tear into you more viciously than hungry hyenas when the chips are down. Hamilton has not quite become a villain yet but he needs to deliver a win to keep the home folk interested in and, more importantly, happy with him. There have been murmurs of discontent about his lack of form this season. This is obviously unfair because all he has done to justify any ill-feeling was have one shitty race in Bahrain. But when you have built in your fan base an expectation of super human ability it is very easy to come a cropper. It does not surprise me in the slightest to be reading things like "Hamilton was only enjoying beginner's luck last season". A win in Turkey would earn the lad some precious breathing space.

A chap who is enjoying Hamilton's time in the limelight immensely is Jenson Button. Remember him? Well, at least he now has a rest away from the prying British cameras…

A word about one of the lesser teams. Bad news. Super Aguri - or what was sometimes described as Honda 2 - died this week and will take no further part in this year's championship. Their sponsorship money has run dry and there is no prospect of them raising any more. This is a shame for three reasons. First, some races - usually rainy ones - can sometimes produce freak results (remember no-hoper Olivier Panis winning Monaco in 1996?), so the more teams and drivers there are out there the better. Secondly, having an extra two back-markers gives the leading cars that extra bit of work to do to get round a circuit and makes for a more interesting race. Finally, I will miss Takuma Sato, or as I like to call him, Mister T-Bone. If you didn't watch yourself driving close to Sato-san, your car was more than likely to end up being carted off wrecked atop a lorry.

So on to Istanbul we go. This is one of the few Hermann Tilke designed circuits at which races are actually a pleasure to watch. There is plenty of overtaking and ample opportunity for a good crash or two. I expect that you will not be filled with regret for having sacrificed a couple of hours on Saturday and Sunday. It should be good and I hope that you will,

Enjoy Istanbul!

Gitau
08 May 2008