We kind of like this one. Simple but effective - and when you're as rich as Monaco, you don't need to faff about.
* Lots to talk about, and yet technically not a race, as Britney Rosberg wins by default with none of the front four wanting to push their tyres. Great little story with this being the 30th anniversary of Keke Rosberg's barnstorming win in the tank-like Saudia-sponsored Williams. It's a real shame that Nico could not be less like his father, who was one of the great characters of the sport.
Keke Rosberg won the 1982 world drivers' championship with only a single race win. That was at the Swiss Grand Prix - which was in France, as racing was banned in Switzerland at the time. Here's a quick rundown of that bizarre season for you: a political split led to some teams boycotting races, Renault were in the ascendancy with Arnoux and Prost, Piquet chinned a guy for crashing in to him, almost every race was in America for some reason and 43 drivers competed for 17 teams.
More tragically, Gilles Villeneuve was killed and his Ferrari teammate Didier Pironi horrendously injured, leading to the oft-overlooked return of Mario freakin' Andretti, who oddly was on his SECOND comeback of the year after filling in at Williams when Carlos Reutemann abruptly retired, which was something Jochen Mass also did. Niki Lauda was also on a comeback, as if I hadn't already casually mentioned all the legendary drivers that were active that year.
Truly this was a season where everything that could have gone strangely did, and the stoic Finn with his stunning moustache rode out the chaos and barely hung on to write his name in Grand Prix history. Which is a bit different from qualifying first at Monaco and winning because no-one can bothered racing against you, but hey - you work with what you have, we guess.
* Someone who IS more like Keke Rosberg, however, is Kimi Raikonnen, fast becoming the most popular man in Formula One to outsiders and casual fans. But wait - we're getting ahead of ourselves. First, we go here...
* Engine Blood is on record as having done a 180 degree turn on our opinion of - and respect for - Jenson Button, who moved very quickly from unmotivated gadabout to responsible world champion, and we salute him for this on a regular basis. It is, however, impossible to contain a smirk when Sergio Perez goes screaming past him at a rate of knots. Sergio has learned the great lesson of F1 very quickly - the first person you must beat is your teammate.
He also seemed to shoulder the burden of entertaining everyone on a shoddy day at the races, butchering an off-colour Alonso with a similar move, but trying his luck with Raikonnen led to him being unceremoniously introduced to Madame Armco. Kimi later implied that a punch in the face might be educational for Perez; nice to see someone's keeping the spirit of '82 alive...
* Vettel couldn't help blasting in a lap about twenty seconds faster than anyone else towards the end, for which he was immediately admonished by his team. That's a sad, sad state of affairs right there. His comeback might be this year's equivalent of Kimi's giggle-tastic "I know what I'm doing" - and there we are saying drivers have no personality these days.
* WHERE IS PAUL DI RESTA FROM THIS WEEK?
Hard to say; his lower-echelon points finish didn't propel him far enough up the order in the BBC's race report to give him a description beyond "Force India's Paul Di Resta". Therefore we default to there being no change, aaaaaand...
Paul Di Resta is still SCOTTISH.
(I wonder if anyone will notice I just lifted this verbatim from an earlier entry?)
* And finally: DID Rosberg win that race, or will the result be revised after the protest about Tyresgate? We at Engine Blood don't think any action of that kind will be taken, but it does seem a little off that they'll have had their hands on the new tyres before anyone else. We know they have easy access to old cars - Michael Schumacher drove one at a demonstration just the other day - but if anything a financial penalty would be more likely to be levied. Still, we shall be interested to see, especially since disqualifications were in vogue in, you guessed it, the year nineteen eighty-two...
And THAT's all the blood that's fit to drain!
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