Difference between revisions of "2014 F2RWRS Monaco Grand Prix"

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2014 Monaco Grand Prix

Race 2 of 15 in the 2014 F2RWRS season
Date	11 May, 2014
Official Name	Monaco Grand Prix
Location	Circuit de Monaco, Monaco
Course	Permanent Track 3.340 km (2.075 mi)
Distance	60 Laps, 200.4 km
Weather	Dry
Pole Position
Driver	Wouter Lamberigts	Gillet
Time	1:19.798
Fastest Lap
Driver	Tanner Jason	Rising Ashes
Time	1:19.693
Podium
First	Mitchell Macklin	MRT
Second	Alberto Cara	Beirao
Third	Tanner Jason	Rising Ashes

The 2014 F2RWRS Monaco Grand Prix was the second race of the 2014 F2RWRS season. It was once again won by Mitchell Macklin who estabilished a 6 point lead at the top of the leaderboard from Alberto Cara.

Report

Qualifying

With watchmakers Rolex jumping on to sponsor both the F1RWRS and F2RWRS races, the prize for the podium finishers in both categories would be top of the range Rolex Watches in addition to the prize money and trophies. Two drivers who didn't race in Turkey that could win the watches was Brit Terry Hawkin and Australian Micko Glotch, replacing Laurent Seron and Andrej Kremnicky respectively. With overtaking incredibly difficult as it is at Monte Carlo, qualifying is vital and for the second race in a row it was Lamberigts sitting on the pole from Mitchell Macklin. Terry Hawkin put in an incredible job for his first time in the car to qualify 5th around the difficult Monaco streets while Dave Anderson probably put in the performance of the day to put himself a brilliant 6th on the grid ahead of the likes of Marie Simon and Marco Bizzarri.

Race

With the riviera sunshine beaming down on the grid the race got underway. Wouter Lamberigts kept the lead but Alberto Cara got the jump on Mitchell Macklin heading into turn 1. Further back and there was a lot of aggravation in the first lap but there was not much more than paint being swapped and a few egos bruised. However, the ones that weren't bruised ended up going off the Richter scale but not before Dave Anderson's electronics decided they could do no more and forced the American out of the race after his impressive qualifying performance.

On the very next lap George Liquor felt that he had to make a bid for Reject of the Race which he did by first tapping Catarina Lopes into a half-spin at the Nouvelle Chicane before also tapping debutant Micko Glotch into a spin at the exit of the chicane. The recovering Lopes was then stuck with nowhere to go and ended up taking the unfortunate Dutchman out of the race and forcing her in for a new front wing. At the back of the field, Du Lei's BMW powerplant sprung an oil leak and her day was over at that point.

Lap 8 and Cara finally had enough of sitting behind Lamberigts and sold one down the inside into the chicane, taking Macklin with him. Rosco Vantini couldn't follow suit into Tabac and with Terry Hawkin unable to do anything about either the Italian or his teammate, that was as far as the win was concerned as Cara and Macklin started clearing away at over a second a lap. Not that Marie Simon got to know about it as a few laps later the transmission in her MRT gave way and forced her to park the car. She was crawling all over the back of Hawkins at the time as she, Hansuke Shioya, Niko Bellic and Marco Bizzarri had been released by Tommy Nash having to pit with an electrical gremlin of some description.

Lamberigts was the next to go when on lap 23, a wheel worked itself loose on his car, finally releasing the train of cars that had built up behind him but the damage was already done. Cara and Macklin were both half a minute up the road and seemingly untouchable. This was also around the time for the first pit-stop for the two stoppers and during that phase, Tanner Jason made his case for a potential podium finish, vaulting himself from nowhere up to 4th behind Cara, Macklin and the one-stopping Vantini. Hawkins became the 7th retirement of the race when he clipped the inside wall at the Nouvelle chicane and destroying the front left corner of the car whilst pressuring Tommy Nash, who had made his way back into the points after his early stop for a new steering wheel.

In the middle portion of the race, the only things of note were that Macklin piling on the pressure on Cara who, while being known to crack under pressure, looked unfazed on the grandest stage of them all, Monte Carlo, and in front of all the F1RWRS drivers and team owners who would be looking at this group of young men and women as the future of the F1RWRS, and Tanner Jason absolutely going hell for leather to try and make enough of a gap to remain ahead of Vantini when the American would make his second stop.

When the second stops came around Jason did manage to do just that but, and more importantly as far as MRT was concerned, Macklin had gotten ahead of Cara by the barest of margins as the Australian emerged from his second stop. Vantini was now 4th and defending heavily from Johannes Rueckert as the German took a fondness of the nature of the circuit. Macklin had pulled out a gap of about 3 seconds to Cara before he encountered lapped traffic. And lots of it as Nash was desperately holding on to 6th place and had a train of cars squabbling behind him which basically went all the way down to Marco Bizzari in 13th place. Cara closed to within a second and a half of Macklin at one point whilst the pair were negotiating the traffic but neither of them could afford to make a mistake as Jason in clear air was catching them at over 2 seconds a lap.

Once Jason caught the lapped cars of Lopes and Liquor however, his charge was as good as over and once Macklin cleared the traffic the race for the win was effectively over. Marco Bizzarri had a scary moment near the end as his race nearly ended in the wall at Massenet but he held on for his 13th place finish. Behind Macklin, the podium finishers remained unchanged with Rosco Vantini holding off Rueckert off for 4th. Nash finished 6th after clawing his way back from the electrical issue with Anton Bosevic finishing 7th and Hansuke Shioya holding off Alessandro Marchesi and Niko Bellic for the final point in 8th.

Classification

Qualifying

Race

Source