8 seconds slower so far in the qualies than Hamiltons record just goes to show how wary they are being in this one. Rain just don't happen in MC - but then again..............

Hamilton testing out a set of options for Q2.
Hope that doesn't end in tears.

Come on Hamilton! The accelerator is the pedal of the right.

Hmmm, very thoughtful strategy from Merc/Hamilton there.

Seems they've had him running on the used options to get used to them with the plan to do a final run either on the "safe" inter's or the new options that he'll be used to.

Grosjean bites it in Q2.

Funny how, despite the apparent chaos, everything's still just going as you'd expect with no big upsets.

I'd like to see Monaco when the GP isn't there. I wonder how much stuff they leave and what they take away and how long the whole job takes.

Muhaha!

All Merc' front row.

Gonna be fun tomorrow.

Late night for the guys who plan the pitstops.

Go nuts.

Here we're just before turn 1.

Excellent pole for Rosberg. Really happy for him.

Is it me or does Hamilton seem to be 2 tenths behind the car, as if he's unsure of where the cars limits are? Either way, he doesn't seem to be extracting as much performance as Rosberg.

I suppose that's where a greater understanding of the team helps.

I mean, I guess that Rosberg is still in a position where he's better able to ask for a specific thing in order to to solve a specific problem whereas Hamilton might be trying to apply solutions that worked at McLaren but which might not be the way Merc' do things.

For example, if the car lacks turn-in, the McLaren solution might have been to twiddle the front wing whereas the Merc' solution might be to adjust the camber so Hamilton will be asking for adjustments to the front wing whereas Rosberg will know that adjusting the camber gives a better result.

Still a bit dubious of Rosberg as well, TBH.
I mean, are we to assume that if Schuey was in this year's Merc' he'd be getting pole's as well or has Hamilton's arrival at Merc' caused Rosberg to raise his game as well?

I suppose. He just doesn't look natural or comfortable in the car. Some of his steering inputs look very awkward indeed.

Rosberg has had more than the measure of Lewis in the first five races. I'm not sure whether it's a case of Lewis not being on form or whether it's the car.

Deeeeeeeeeer! Now why didn't I think of that?

Thanks!

I'm sure when the drivers raced those little vintage tinpot cars around the streets of Monaco it was all very exciting, but for all its glamour, the speed of modern F1 cars and tightness of the circuit makes this race a very expensive procession these days.

It's annoying the race won't be on a proper channel so more people can see it, rather than a few thousand!! I thought the BBC were showing all the European gp's?

I'll end up knowing the result before I can see the highlights, unless I can find a free streaming site to watch it.

Well done to the Caterham for getting into the second part of Qual

Does anyone know if it is going to be a dry or a wet race tomorrow because that will shale thing up if wet

A proper channel? Are you crazy? Sky Sports is a 'proper channel and I can guarantee you more than just a few thousand have it.

Most sports fans in the UK have sky sports now, so stop complaining and being tight!

If DS is anything to go by, you're very wrong about that.

This thread, for example, gets MUCH more traffic during the FTA races than it does during the Sky-only races.

Trouble is that a lot of the billionaires that bankroll F1 like to hang out in places like Monaco so that's why F1 goes there.

I'm thinking that if a circuit like Monaco could be replicated on the glamorous streets of, say, Bradford, F1 wouldn't be visiting every year.

Still, the drivers do seem to like it even if, as Nelson Piquet once said, it's like trying to ride a bicycle in your living room.

Or perhaps Rosberg is just very quick and capable of beating Hamilton!

Some people have bought into the Hamilton hype machine a little too much.

Nothing beats a good controversy breaking on race day...

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/107671

I'm not sure if Mercedes have done anything wrong (rules wise anyway). It makes sense to use the Mercedes to test the tyres as it is the worst on the tyres.

Does seem a bit unfair on the other teams though.

If it's within the rules, it's within the rules.

None of the other teams would be complaining if they'd been the one chosen!

It's always the one to watch for sure, and which driver who raced cars wouldn't want to hurtle round a city's streets? The sense of speed must be magnified ten fold in comparison to open air race circuits.

There's just not much racing, unless you count pit strategies.

It's not within the rules -- in-season testing is banned. It seems a special exception was made here. Very unfair, but I don't see what the other teams can do since it was sanctioned.

Hmmm,

It's certainly going to look a bit fishy if Mercedes have suddenly "solved" their tyre issues now.

Course, I suppose that Merc's view is that they simply supplied a car to be used as a test-bed for Pirelli to use to test out their tyres so it doesn't actually count as a "test" for them.

To be honest, I can see why Merc' are doing stuff like getting stroppy about the Concord agreement and getting involved in this.
For years, Ferrari have trotted out the "We're the only factory team in F1 so we're speshul!!!" line as a means of getting special treatment and now Merc's in the same position they probably feel like they're entitled to the same sort of privileges.

I think it's undeniable that this years tyres are a step too far and I guess that they've decided that a car that's hard on the tyres is the best way to generate the sort of conditions that have led to the various failures so I guess that gives Merc' the dubious honour of being the logical choice to participate in the revisions.

Beyond that, I think it's just the typical situation where whenever one team is doing something unique, every other team lodges a complaint about it.

Yea, I don't think most sports fans have Sky by a long way.. the audiences for live F1 Sky exclusive races are much lower, (about 25% of, in the small sample size I looked at) than the BBC ones from 2010.