Felipe Massa led from the start
What another incredible effort from Lewis Hamilton, but for me the star of the race for me was Felipe Massa. He got pole, fastest lap, pulled a great move on Alonso and won the race. You can't argue with that.
Alonso seemed pissed off after the race but if you put yourself on the outside of a corner like that and the guy on the inside doesn't push you over, he's an idiot. Massa did the right thing. Alonso wouldn't have won the race anyway because Ferrari had more pace so he had to go for it. It just didn't work out for him.
I'm not too sure how much fuel Kimi had on board but he wasn't a happy bunny either after the race and the effective team number twos are beating the number ones at the minute!
Lewis was incredible again and his second place means that he now leads the championship. Yet again he's beaten a two-time world champion and he can't do any better than that. You can't expect him to win the race because the Ferrari was clearly the better car but he's performing perfectly and there's nothing you can criticise about the guy. Nobody has ever walked into a car and been as good as that at the beginning of their F1 career with that amount of talent. Schumacher has the same amount of talent, maybe more on speed but I think Lewis seems to be a more complete package than Schumacher. Schumacher's ability was pure pace and you can never compare the two because they'll never drive against each other but Michael wasn't great under pressure and Lewis seems to not know what pressure is.
"Lewis can win Monaco"
It will be interesting to see if Lewis does start to feel any pressure if people now expect him to beat Alonso regularly. Expectations will go up and that's when the pressure will go up. But Alonso's Latino temperament could be a weakness because he's more emotional. If you look at when Trulli started to get on top of him at Renault, Alonso started performing worse and that's common amongst drivers. When you're quicker than your team-mate you feel good about yourself, you drive faster, you feel faster but when your team-mate starts to get on top of you, you start thinking about it and you go slower. Alonso's got a lot to think about now.
Another great British drive came from David Coulthard and Red Bull have made great steps forward. He's never going to set the world alight, but give DC a good car and he'll do the job.
Jenson ran into the back of Rubens but these things happen. Everyone's trying to do the best for themselves and team-mates sometimes get in the way. But Jenson's got to worry now as he's not even the number one in Britain. For him to come back from his team choices is going to be very hard.
" I think Lewis seems to be a more complete package than Schumacher "
Next up it's my favourite race, Monaco. Lewis Hamilton's never lost there and I have no doubt he can win there again in Formula 1. I wouldn't bet against him. He's an amazing talent and Monaco brings out talent. He needs to qualify on the front row and get a good start.
Monaco has everything for me that Formula 1 should. Funnily enough, the glitz, glamour and girls aren't really anywhere apart from in Monaco. I loved it. It was my favourite track and my favourite race. I finished on the podium four times and always went well there. It's the perfect race and what people perceive Formula 1 to be about.
The after-parties were also great. I was a Ferrari driver and the only one that wasn't married so you can imagine I had fun! I had my boat in the harbour and my friends stayed on the boat. They had good fun during the week when I was working and on Sunday night we all had a blast.
I'll be there again this year to comment on the Monaco Grand Prix weekend from my boat, so don't forget to log on to the website to watch my Monaco video diary.
Catch you in Monaco!
Eddie Irvine.
14th May 2007
