A Turvy-Topsy Race Day

I'd look crumpled too.

I’d look crumpled too.

We were loving the Monaco Grand Prix until the final ridiculous ten minutes. Lewis Hamilton had won the pole and never looked back. With 12 laps to go he had a 19 second lead. Which in Grand Prix racing is an eternity. All that remained was the spraying of champagne on the podium.

But then the Furies struck. A 17 year old rookie tried an ill advised pass and plowed into the barrier. Caution laps followed. Inexplicably Mercedes Benz called Hamilton in for new tires. When he emerged from the pit he was in third place. And somehow, miraculously, the German marque’s German driver was suddenly the winner of his third straight Monaco Grand Prix.

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Next up? The Indy 500. (Ya know, the two most fabled car races in existence on the same day?! C’mon.) Topsy time. So we don’t know much about Indy racing except that women aren’t very good at it. Which bit one Juan Pablo Montoya in the ass. One of the female racers rear-ended him under a caution flag. After they repaired the damage, he was dead last in the field, in 30th, three others having already retired. So he won.

A relentless man.

A relentless man.

He won. But not before a titanic five, six, and sometimes eight way battle for the lead transpired. No one, it seemed, could hold the lead for more than a lap or two. The whole last half of the race was some of the best driving, best racing, I have ever seen. On the penultimate lap, the beleaguered Montoya passed both the second and first place cars and pulled away for the win. To my mind the greatest Indy ever.

And the worst Monaco. Mercedes Benz has officially apologized to Lewis Hamilton. Like that will do any good.