Formula One ( F1 )

Benson may have been right by coincidence, but maybe he knew something from an inside track.

http://www.mclaren.com/formula1/inside-the-mtc/jenson-button-to-race-at-monaco-for-mclaren-honda/

Lucky guess.

On a side note Bahrain could be a close race if practice was anything to go by.

Plus if the teams had longer testing before the start of the season do you think they could have ironed out more of the bugs from the cars?Instead of getting to the third race and having so many reliability issues.

Or he was able to make a guess based on the fact that Jenson is their reserve driver, then state it as fact in a headline with nothing to prove the "fact".

The more well funded teams will have had more reliable cars than the less well funded teams, further increasing the imbalance in the sport. Which was the reason to cut testing in the first place.

Considering the relatively small changes in the rules this year regarding mechanical parts I can't imagine a few more days of testing would fix the issues.

Hoping for a close race, the top 3 had very similar long run pace in FP2 so should make for a good race!

Be interesting to hear about these car issues that Kimi has been experiencing.

Definitely hurting the team's WCC chances not having 2 competitive cars.

Good to see a real fight for wins, and good that its Ferrari too, as they have the biggest fan base. I think Ferrari are looking good for the year. If they are reliable, and Mercedes don't bring any significant engine upgrades, then its going to be a good year for Vettel.

North drinks were visited by Mr & Mrs Horner this evening.

That's nice. What kind of bikes were they riding?

Horner's Range Rover isn't outside Red Bull today but he is in work, so he must have rode to work rite amirite?

Practice looking like this weekend won't be such a Mercedes walkover as expected.

Were Mercedes supposed to walk over anything? Ferrari have beaten them 2 times out of 3 and are leading the standings (constructors and drivers) on merit. Mercedes turning the wick up for Qualies has been of little benefit in the race. Who thought they had the advantage? Toto himself said the Mercedes era of domination was over. I don't think it was tongue in cheek.

Power dominated track with fresh tarmac that has resulted in very low tyre wear.

I've yet to see anyone who predicted Ferrari would be stronger.

It's about time and good for the sport, no team should just dominate. Let's just hope that a couple of the other teams step up too. It would be great to have four or even five teams able to take poles and wins on race weekends.

Ferrari lock out the front row. Massa getting the better of Verstappen, and I'm loving that. Lewis looks strangely off the pace. I also think Bottas has proved that he is fast enough, that if team orders come into play, he may say, if Hamilton is fast enough he can pass. I think that would be fair. If Raikkonen gets to the first corner in the lead, it will be one helluva race.

Interesting to see Mercedes pushing so hard in Q2 with Ferrari presumably looking after the tyres for the race.

The Hamilton/Hulkenberg battle was a bit odd to see! Imagine it may have got Lewis a bit miffed and may have impacted his final time.

Pretty spectacular how much Ferrari gain on the final sector, around 3 tenths or so.

Can't imagine Alonso is feeling great about his career choices at this point.

The rumour mill has Alonso reuniting with Renault next year. However, at this rate Honda seem no closer to catching up. Its grim there. Oddly, the Honda team appear really positive, as if they're about to make the big breakthrough. Weird.

Be interesting what impact joining with Sauber will have for Honda. I guess Sauber have nothing to lose at this point.

The Renault is looking like a pretty solid car to be honest, won't be surprised if it's scrapping over 4th with Force India by the end of the season. Though I still think Palmer is neck and neck with Stroll for most useless driver so far this season.

Well done to Bottas on his first win. And Williams must be glad they chose to have Massa back. Mercedes now lead the Constructors championship by 1 point. I imagine that Mercedes will be a very tense place right now.

Nice start from Max but Red Bull does not seem to be doing all that well with brake problems and leaking engines... And clearly a huge power gap with Ferrari/Mercedes.

Race highlight, how did we end up behind Bottas?

Literally, the only highlight.

Alonso continues to show his worth...... Reaching Q3 then ending up 7th. I hear they're still way down on power, so that is some special effort.

Result for McLaren. Let's hope the Honda unit can stay together for them. Depending how much Mercedes emptied their sump into the fuel stream, uh, I mean turned the dial up for quali, Red Bull might not be far off pace either.

Looks like McLaren overheard about the Mercs emptying the sump for more power...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O64tXyAEKfA&t=17s

I didn't realise the single biggest challenge would be buying a sandwich. Fuck me.

Vettel's move on Bottas was pretty awesome there!

It's also refreshing to hear the drivers being pushed physically for a change also. Will be interesting to see how they cope with races like Hungary, Malasyia and Singapore.

Also, surely it's time for Ericsson and Palmer to be cast aside.

It's also a shame how many backmarkers manage to screw up letting the leaders by.