I managed to watch some of the qualifying for Monaco, just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. And at the time, I commented that it was a measure of how bad the season had been up to that point that I was happy with Ferrari having the fastest time in Q2, and P2 in Q3.Now that said the whole weekend was very kind to Ferrari when it counted. Both cars got into Q3, and Raikkonen managed to be less than three hundredths of a second slower than Button's Brawn. In the race both cars ran well and although were unable to make up places on the track, ran competitively and ended up "best of the rest" behind the Brawns.
And the result can be considered more or less legitimate, too. The only real absence during the race was Hamilton's McLaren after it was bounced into the barriers during Q1, effectively ending Hamilton's weekend right there.
Because Monaco is a strange event, I am not that concerned by Toyota's miserable showing. Monaco shows who can drive and who is flattered by horsepower. Which is fine, because next time out we can be flattered by horsepower again. I firmly believe that both Red Bull and Toyota will be back at the sharp end when we go to Turkey.
The event does highlight the stranglehold that Brawn has on the 2009 season. The car just seems to work well everywhere. And while I think Button may be more Jacques Villineuve than Micheal Schumacher, he definitely knows how to get the best from the car in more circumstances than his team mate does.
