Sebastian Vettel claimed his 3rd win of the season — and Ferrari’s first at Monaco in 16 years — on the streets of Monte Carlo, leading a Ferrari 1-2 ahead of Kimi Raikkonen with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo rounding out the podium places.
Winners
Sebastian Vettel’s title hunt
With Lewis Hamilton’s struggles in qualifying, this was a great opportunity to extend his championship and took full advantage of his rival’s struggles. Ferrari helped him out by seemingly giving Vettel the optimum strategy (the overcut) to jump his teammate in the pits and from there on out there was no way he was letting victory go. Vettel’s win extended the championship lead to a race wins worth: 25 points.
This advantage now means Vettel is firmly in the driving seat for the title as both himself and Hamilton had both exchanged blows to begin the season. With that in mind, how does Vettel — and indeed Hamilton — respond in Canada?
You could say it’s Vettel’s title to lose right now but there’s a long way to go.
Daniel Ricciardo
Danny-Ric was a frustrated figure after qualifying on Saturday. He was frustrated that he wasn’t dropped in clear space for his final run and he qualified 5th as a result, behind his teammate Max Verstappen.
But Sunday held different fortunes for the ‘Honey-Badger’.
With Verstappen attempting the undercut on 3rd placed Valterri Bottas forcing Mercedes to react and pit Bottas, Ricciardo pumped in some incredible laps, trading fastest laps with Sebastian Vettel, and these lifted Ricciardo not only above his teammate into 4th but ahead of Bottas into 3rd. From there, it was rudimentary for Ricciardo and he took home the final podium place.
Unlike last year where he looked like a miserable man despite finishing in 2nd place (a race he should’ve won), Danny-Ric was very happy with his 3rd place finish.
Great drive from Danny-Ric. Amidst all the stardom that surrounds his young teammate, Max Verstappen, he’s still proving he’s still top-dog at Red Bull.
Haas
A very nifty double-points finish for Haas with Romain Grosjean having a very quiet afternoon finishing 8th and Kevin Magnussen finishing 10th.
Magnussen was unlucky he was forced to pit due to some damage to one of his tyres after his first stop but got himself back into the points after Sergio Perez’s and Daniil Kvyat’s collision boosted his position two spots.
Not much else to say here, just a nice double-points finish for Haas, who now move level with Renault on 14 points for 7th place in the constructors standings.
“It’s the first time we’ve had two cars in the top-10, so that’s really good, especially in Monaco…”
Carlos Sainz
How long will it be before Carlos Sainz is in a situation where he can fight for podiums/race wins? The guy is immensely talented and he proved it again on Sunday, holding down to the 6th place he secured in qualifying and taking his season tally to 25 points. That’s more than Felipe Massa and more than Esteban Ocon, both of whom drive faster cars.
You forget sometimes that Sainz is in a Toro Rosso, but to be fair that machine was well hooked up even in Thursday practice. Canada might be a tougher hunting ground for Sainz where the Renault engine in the back of that Toro Rosso might hamper him in comparison to the Mercedes powered engines in the back of the Force Indias and Williams’.
“What a result, what a perfect weekend! We need to enjoy this moment, because it’s not usual to achieve a faultless Grand Prix on the streets of Monaco – and this time we did! We put in good laps in practice, in yesterday’s qualifying session and, in today’s race, we were able to keep a World Champion in a faster car behind and finish P6 – it definitely feels so good! We’ve also been quicker than the rest of the midfield throughout the whole weekend and I’d like to thank the whole team for this, they gave me a very good car to drive! I really enjoyed today’s race – now it’s time to celebrate this well-deserved result with the team before starting to think about the Canadian GP, which is up next!”
— Carlos Sainz
Young drivers around Monaco
Normally the tight streets of Monaco claim the races of the younger drivers of the field due it’s ruthless nature and the sheer concentration it requires for 78 laps. Prior to this season, Max Verstappen had crashed out of both of his Monaco appearances and Jolyon Palmer crashed out last season. But this season the young drivers fared quite well in terms of not binning it in the wall.
Max Verstappen finished in 5th, Carlos Sainz finished in 6th and did a good job fending off Lewis Hamilton, Jolyon Palmer finished in 11th, Stoffel Vandoorne was running 10th before Perez, sort of, directed him into the barriers at Sainte Devote, Lance Stroll kept himself out of the wall (a cooked front left brake forcing him to retire late on), Pascal Wehrlein was sent sideways by Jenson Button and Esteban Ocon finished his 1st Monaco Grand Prix at the first attempt.
A good outing for the young’ns.
Jenson Button’s and Fernando Alonso’s pre-race radio exchange
JB came out of retirement for one race, to race in his former teammate’s place as the Spaniard competed in the Indy 500. Before the race, Alonso spoke to Jenson wishing him luck and JB’s response was hilarious.
Amazing.
Losers
Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen
The most talked about item from this race was Ferrari’s decision to pit Kimi Raikkonen before Vettel. This allowed him the optimum strategy around Monaco (the overcut) and to pound some super laps in before pitting him. The ultimate result was a seemingly perfect execution of the switch Ferrari wanted the German jumped the Finn after the only round of scheduled pitstops. It looked engineered, a ploy to get the Ferrari the team wanted in front…
This made it very clear that Ferrari have put all their chips on Vettel to win the title. It’s race 6-of-20. RACE SIX. It’s way too early to do this kind of thing…
Lewis Hamilton was also absolutely convinced that Ferrari knew what they were doing when they pitted Kimi first.
“On strategy that just doesn’t happen – the leading car, it’s very hard for him to get jumped by the second car unless the team decide to favour the other car. That’s very clear.”
For Kimi himself, this officially labels him as the clear number two driver for the rest of the season and what does this mean for him going forward into next year? Is this it for Kimi in F1 after this season? I’m sure there’s a team who’ll sign him but I don’t think Kimi is interested in anything other than a Ferrari drive.
What should’ve been a wonderful day for Kimi and many F1 fans turned into stoic expressions.
Lewis Hamilton
Though Lewis Hamilton did a good job to limit the damage that was inevitably going to be done after his difficult qualifying by finishing 7th, he does however find himself now 25 points behind Vettel in the title race.
The good news for Hamilton is that there’s plenty of time to recover but it’s obviously never ideal to be down 25 points at any stage of the season. We’ve seen how he can seemingly just turn it on and romp away with 3/4 straight wins. He’s going to need to do that — or hope that Vettel slips up/breaks down — in order to catch up.
A lot of work to do for Lewis.
McLaren
If there was a weekend for McLaren to score points this was it. But they were already compromised even before the race started. Despite both McLaren’s qualifying in the top 10, both Button and Vandoorne started outside of it due to various penalties, Button starting from the pitlane.
Track position is everything at Monaco, and unfortunately for Button he was screwed from the start. He got tucked up behind Pascal Wehrlein for his entire race despite McLaren trying a different strategy to get Button in free air, and his frustration eventually got the better of him as JB tried to send one up the inside of the Sauber at Portier… Not exactly an overtaking spot and Wehrlein was un-sighted by the move, turned in for the corner, caught JB’s wheel and flipped over.
Not JB’s finest moment and he netted himself a three-place grid penalty for the next race… I somehow doubt that penalty will ever be applied… Joking aside, had he not had to deal with his various penalties, I’ve no doubt he would comfortably finished in the top 10 where he qualified.
As for Vandoorne, he was running well in P10 but stuffed it in the barrier after Perez’s dive down in Sainte Devote forced him to adjust his line out of turn one and, as is the case with Monaco, he ran out of space.
With the next two tracks (Canada and Baku) being power tracks, it’s hard to imagine — barring major upgrades — when McLaren will be in a position to contend for some points again in the near future.
“Sometimes you visit the Monte-Carlo casino and hit the jackpot; other times you walk away empty-handed. For us, this was just one of those unfortunate days when the luck didn’t go our way…”
— Eric Boullier
Force India
Rotten weekend for Force India. Perez’s race was ruined on lap 1 when he sustained some front wing damaged that forced him to eventually pit, sticking him behind the Williams of Lance Stroll. After recovering to the points positions, Perez was involved in two separate incidents with Vandoorne and Daniil Kvyat, the latter forcing the Russian to retire and the Mexican to pit again, placing him last of the finishing runners at 13th.
And the only punishment for Perez was a 10 second penalty, not a grid penalty for the next race which would’ve been well deserved.
For Esteban Ocon, he was compromised with his qualifying spot but found himself in more trouble when he was forced to make an unscheduled stop after suffering some damage to his tyre in the same way K-Magg did in the Haas — a loose manhole cover/track breakup in Sainte Devote.
He was near the back of the field for most of the race but did finish ahead of his teammate in the end, thanks to Perez’s adventures.
They have been double-points finishers for the first 5 races but that streak was abruptly broken on the streets of Monte Carlo.
“A day of unrealised potential on both sides of the garage. Sergio’s contact with Sainz on lap one proved very costly with the early pit stop to change the nose. For Esteban, it was always going to be difficult to battle through from P15 on the grid, but the race was coming to us until he picked up a puncture. It cost Esteban a handful of points and that was a real shame. So it was one of those days when things didn’t go our way – as can often be the case in Monaco. We will dust ourselves down and look to come back strongly in Montreal in two weeks’ time.”
— Bob Fernley
Graham Chapple 