Juan Pablo Gets His Second F1 Win
Grand Prix of Monaco, June 1, 2003

By Erik Nielsen

It's been two decades since a Williams took the top step at the Monaco Grand Prix and, watching his teammate get pole, Juan Pablo brought his blue and white car home first. While it might make BMW fans everywhere happy that their team appears back in the hunt, the race was even less exciting that the typical NASCAR race.

Monaco has always been rated as the flashy race of the season, with glitz, glamour and money oozing out of every corner. This is where the crowd is always more interesting to watch than the race. Even the FIA helped the crowd watch the crowd and not miss a thing. Not a single racing pass occurred during the entire race. The race was decided by pit strategy, qualifying results and one safety car.

The strategy that won the race was simple. Fuel the car like you would run a three stop race. Qualify as fast as possible (Ferrari’s mistake was showing their two stop strategy hand too soon). Change to a two stop strategy after the safety car came out. Then keep it out of the Armco until the race is over. You didn’t have to have Ross Brawn’s notebook to figure this one out.

The only thing that was different about this year’s race was the fact that 13 cars actually finished. As opposed to other years were as little as 3 cars crossed the line for the final time. A look at the non-finishers shows the press’ favorite target list: Jacques when-the-hell-will-they-finally-fire-me Villeneuve, the “just happy to be here” Minardis, and the when-in-the-hell-will-Ford’s-money-run-out Jaguars.

So, with hotel, airfare, tickets, yacht parties, and the occasional trip to the casino, it’s easy to drop 10 grand during the week. Per person. Is it worth it? For those that will do anything to think they’re in or want to be seen with the “in crowd”, it is only the cost of admission. For the rest of us, my couch is always more comfortable than another transatlantic segment, even in first class. The next race is in my home town of Montreal. Just as exotic as Monaco, but with less high nosed crap.

Le Mans is the same weekend, so the average velocetoday.com reader WILL be able to see real racing in two weeks...