Monaco GP Race Report

I don’t know what it is about Monaco, but there’s something about the race/place/atmosphere that makes you (or at least me) love this Grand Prix more than any other circuit. It’s not the glamour – I’ve never been attracted by it. It’s not the beauty of the babes either – I watch the sport for other reasons. But there’s something about the ominous shade of barriers, about the proximity with which the cars pass them, almost touching them, gliding on them, that makes you stick to the TV motionless.

In recent years, Monaco has always delivered a procession, but what a procession it’s been! Just look at the Grand Hotel Hairpin – the slowest place in the whole F1 calendar.  It should be the worst place on Planet F1, after all F1 is all about speed and this point is everything but speed. Yet, I still love its shots with cars slowing down immensely, almost causing traffic jams: will they touch? will they make it through? This place is like a denial of everything F1 stands for and yet I find it so amusing (not that I would like the whole Monaco GP to be like this – no way!). 

 

And then there’s the podium ceremony – they don’t even have a proper podium, but just a few steps with a red carpet on them... more – yesterday they made the drivers leave the steps for the champagne (in order not to sprinkle the Prince’s Majesty?). All in all – everything is upside down in Monaco. I LOVE IT!

It didn’t start well. Trouble was in the air for quite a long time with drivers calling for the DRS ban in the tunnel for security reasons. FIA listened and disabled the moveable rear wing in the tunnel. But it didn’t prevent misfortunes – Liuzzi crashed there during one of the FPs, Rosberg did the same on Saturday morning – both at the chicane after the tunnel. Mercedes engineers did a great job and rebuilt the damaged Rosberg’s car so that he could start in qualifying. But bad luck didn’t leave Monte Carlo. Sergio Pérez was the next victim – the Mexican crashed in the dying stages of Q3 (yes – at the chicane after the tunnel) and was transported to the hospital with a concussion and a bruised thigh, which excluded him from the race. It was a touching view to see Sergio’s empty car in the garage with a little Speedy Gonzales toy on it on Sunday early afternoon.

However, this crash had a bigger impact than only Pérez’s health – it stopped qualifying for some time and as the red flag was gone, the top drivers were unable to improve their times. It was particularly painful for Lewis Hamilton (7^th at the time of the accident), who left new option tyres till the end of Q3 with the aim of fighting for pole. He didn’t improve his time when the session was restarted and was further deprived of his P7, when the stewards saw that he cut the chicane on his only flying lap, thus sending him to P10 (which turned into P9, when it became clear that Pérez would not make it to the grid).

It started as always with Sebastian Vettel leading the field undisturbed from P1 and Mark Webber losing his position (to Fernando Alonso again). Three World Champions (Vettel, Button, Alonso) were now leading the pack, while the forth (Hamilton) lost his (already not too good) P9 to find himself in P10 – behind the fifth (and last) World Champion on the grid – Michael Schumacher. Hamilton was now going out of his senses to get in front of Schumie and he finally made it with a bold move on lap 11. Schumacher was visibly struggling and he soon found himself also behind Rubens Barrichello. The other Mercedes driver wasn’t having  a smooth race at that point either as he was pursued by apparently irritated Felipe Massa. After a small touch, Massa lost a few parts from his front wing, but finally nailed the overtaking and found himself in front of Rosberg with Pastor Maldonado following in his footsteps very soon.

Button was the first of the leaders to head for the pit lane as he changed his tyres on lap 15 for another set of super softs. The British World Champion once again chose a strategy different than the rest, opting to pit 3 times in comparison with more popular 2-stops strategy. This aggressive approach might have paid off for him if not for the red flag in the latter part of the race. One lap later we saw an unfamiliar view – Red Bull Racing, who were one of the fastest teams in the pit lane, made 2 mistakes in a row. First, Sebastian Vettel was forced to spend more time than expected in his box as the engineers had problems with one of the wheels. Unaware of the situation Mark Webber was due to pit right after Vettel, but as the German’s stop was delayed, the crew wasn’t prepared to fix Webber’s wheels straight away. This unfortunate progress of events saw Sebastian Vettel losing his P1 to Jenson Button after the first dose of pit stops and sent Mark Webber even further down the order – as far as P14. Button was now leading with super soft tyres aiming at building a sufficient gap over Vettel and Alonso, both on softs.

The situation seemed stable for only a moment. Soon, Schumacher tried an opportunistic move on his team mate right after the tunnel, when the Mercedes duo were about to lap Timo Glock. The Virgin driver escaped the hustle by cutting the chicane, while Schumacher nearly crashed into Rosberg’s rear. Meanwhile, guys in the pit lane didn’t have a calm time either – Lewis Hamilton entered the lane only to find his engineers totally unprepared for his pit stop hectically running around to get his tyres on time. One could only ask hopelessly at that time: what is going on today in this pit lane? Has everyone gone mad?

As it turned out, the omnipresent chaos didn’t restrict itself to the lane only. Paul di Resta was the next driver crashing into the car in front as he tried a move on Jaime Alguersuari on the Grand Hotel Hairpin. He didn’t gain much with this manoeuvre and ended up with a damaged front wing and a drive-through penalty.

While Button, Vettel and Alonso were driving their own race for victory, their respective team mates engaged in some more fights as Massa left the pit lane between Webber and Hamilton. The feisty Briton was trying so hard to make up for the places lost in qualifying that he almost crashed into the Brazilian on the Grand Hotel Hairpin (apparently one of the two most popular crashes places in Monaco last Sunday). Both drivers survived coming together but not for long. Hamilton made another attempt on the inside of the tunnel. Massa went wide and slid along the barrier to crash totally on the exit of the tunnel. This brought out the first safety car of the season. Fernando Alonso used the situation to pit for the second time and ducked to the pit lane passing Michael Schumacher’s broken car parked in the pit lane entrance. As Button had pitted not long before, the leading trio were now in the order: Vettel, Button, Alonso.

Lewis Hamilton couldn’t enjoy the places he gained by his aggressive moves for too long being handed a drive-through penalty for collision with Massa on the hairpin. He rejoined the track in P9. The ill-fated hairpin wasn’t lucky for Paul di Resta yet again when the Scot crashed into Jérôme D’Ambrosio there. While the midfield was all in turmoil, Jenson Button was informed that he needed to overtake Vettel on track in order to win, as he would not leapfrog the German in the pits. The 2009 World Champion had yet to pit once more for prime tyres as he was still on the options aiming at gaining an advantage over drivers who used slower prime tyres for a longer time. Button went for his last pit stop on lap 49 and emerged in P3 behind Vettel and Alonso. Until that time, Sebastian Vettel had pitted only once on lap 16, so it was obvious that his prime tyres were in a pretty bad shape. Soon, Alonso and Button caught the reigning Champ and the viewers could only wait for one of the most exciting Monaco finishes in history with 3 great drivers fighting for the win. However, it wasn’t to happen as lap 70 saw a huge crash between Jaime Alguersuari, Lewis Hamilton and Vitaly Petrov. This brought another safety car which was later changed into red flag on lap 72, when an ambulance was sent to collect Petrov complaining about aching legs. The break enabled all the drivers to change tyres for free and deprived the viewers of a thrilling finish. Lewis Hamilton also took the opportunity to repair his broken rear wing (result of the crash).

 

Thus, the restart 6 laps from the end didn’t bring any changes to the leading order, but it wasn’t the end of surprises. Pastor Maldonado was going as high as P6 and was about to take the best result of the year for Williams (and first points for the team this year), but it never happened. Only 4 laps before the chequered flag, Lewis Hamilton tried one of his many feisty moves and collected the Venezuelan in the process. The British World Champion gained a position and was handed a 20-second penalty, but as his advantage over 7^th Adrian Sutil was already huge, he didn’t lose his place. One lap from the end Mark Webber overtook Kamui Kobayashi to take P4 and the exciting race was over after more than 2 hours of wonderful driving. Phew... finally some rest for my thudding heart. Or rather my dicky ticker as the 'Allo 'Allo charming Monsieur Alphonse would say it.

Aided by the red flag, Sebastian Vettel sealed his first Monaco victory and could drink champagne accompanied by Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, before heading to the team’s swimming pool for their party.

It’s been only 6 races out of 19 (potentially 20) this season, but the WDC seems to be already decided with Sebastian Vettel winning as many as 5 races and scoring 1 second place. He has 143 points (out of 150 possible), while his closest rival – Lewis Hamilton has gathered only 85 so far. Mark Webber is on 79, Jenson Button – 76 and Fernando Alonso – 69. Then there’s another pretty big gap in the points with Nico Rosberg following the top 5 drivers with 26 points.

Red Bull Racing has got already 222 points – over twice as many as third Ferrari (93 pts). Their gap over the second McLaren seems to be safe as well as the Woking-based team gathered 161 pts so far.

Full race results here.