A team that definitely seemed to make progress and step up a gear two weeks ago was
Red Bull Racing - at least with
David Coulthard. DC really delivered for them and he now seems to have a car under him too that has some legs.
On paper at the beginning of the season we said everything should be strong there because of all the ingredients they have got and now it looks like it is all coming together. They have made a huge step. There is no way you would have said there wouldn’t be any progress - but it is a little later in the day than expected.
I think they thought the car would be better straight out of the box. They have got on top of it though and you would hope there is a little bit more to come as well. I expect the Red Bull cars to be in the mix for strong top eight or top six positions from this point onwards.
As for
Williams,
Renault and
Super Aguri, they all scored last time, finishing sixth, seventh and eighth respectively.
Renault looked like they have made a bit of an improvement and it looks like there is a bit more competitiveness between their two drivers -
Heikki Kovalainen and
Giancarlo Fisichella, in terms of pace. They will be looking to pull something out of Monaco.
Williams are still doing a great job too, especially when you consider they are a Toyota-powered outfit, but not the factory one. They are still showing
Toyota up and are doing a sterling job. I think that will continue and they will be looking to score points on a reasonable basis.
As for Super Aguri what can you say? That was a great result for those guys and
Takuma Sato. They have only just really come onto the radar of
F1 in the last 18 months and are small outfit and now they have scored their first world championship point.
Sato also beat the two works
Honda cars and that must be very satisfying for all concerned. It is not easy to score one point and it is not going to be easy for them to score any more this season either.
It will be interesting to see now what they do and if they make any more progress.
So, how will things go this weekend?
I am going to have to opt for Lewis to win from pole. He has a 100 per cent finishing record so far and a win for him would definitely be nice.
Then maybe Massa and Alonso in second and third followed by Raikkonen, Button and Kovalainen to round off the top six.
Enjoy the race...
MB
