Hamilton and Button share McLaren misery
An unspectacular weekend in Monaco ended with McLaren only having one driver finish the race, they’ve now been knocked of the top step in the Constructors’ Championship and their driver no longer leads the Drivers’ Championship. All in all it has not been McLaren’s week.
Going into the weekend Jenson Button was leading the Drivers’ Championship but a silly mistake forced the Brit to retire on only the second lap of the grand prix. The mechanics failed to notice a piece of equipment which had been left in the car’s side point, this caused the car to overheat and cook Jenson’s engine forcing him out of the Monte Carlo grand prix.
His team mate Lewis Hamilton had a much steadier grand prix. The 2008 World Champion started the race in fifth and finished the race in fifth. Hamilton spent most of his afternoon following Felipe Massa’s Ferrari round the glamorous track. After the race Hamilton could only sum up his race with “boring”.
This result has moved both drivers down in the standings in the race for the title. Jenson Button has dropped from leading the title to eight points back in fourth place. Lewis Hamilton has dropped a place to sixth and is 19 points behind the two Red Bull drivers, so if he’d got the 18 points he deserved in Spain he would be right up their contention for the title.
McLaren have also dropped places in the Constructors’ title, moving from first place down to third behind the Ferraris and Red Bulls.
Next race in the calendar is the Turkish grand prix, where the Red Bulls are getting yet more updates, but if McLaren want to part of the title race they really need to improve to stay in contention with the leaders.
In a Monaco race which had very little overtaking Michael Schumacher found himself demoted for what I personally thought was an inspired move on Fernando Alonso, and if the sport is trying to encourage overtaking then they need to get rid of silly rules which penalise drivers for their skill.
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