A pit-stop error by Mercedes cost a guaranteed victory for Lewis Hamilton, which handed the Monaco Grand Prix to his team-mate Nico Rosberg.
For 64 of the 78 laps the race around the tight, twisty streets of the Principality, this was a high speed processional, with the defending champion Hamilton seemingly unruffled from the moment the five red lights disappeared to signal the start.
But then Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen misjudged a move and crashed into the rear-right wheel of the Lotus of Romain Grosjean at Sainte Devote, immediately turning the fortunes on the Grand Prix result.
Hamilton had a 21-second lead at the stage but Mercedes made an unnecessary strategy call in covering off rival Ferrari during this safety car period.
The championship leader was called into the pits to take on the super-soft compound tyres, yet as Hamilton emerged back on track, Rosberg and Ferrari’s Sebastien Vettel had passed him.
From a commanding position Mercedes have changed the outcome of the race and for Hamilton, this should have been the 37th win of his Formula 1 career.
Despite being on much faster tyre over the final eight laps after the withdrawal of the safety car, Hamilton was unable to find a way past Vettel, never mind catching Rosberg.
It was an astonishing end to an otherwise dull race, with the opening lap providing a frantic action.
Come the sweep through Mirabeau, double world champion Fernando Alonso was involved in a collision with Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, sending the ‘Hulk’ into a barrier, resulting in the loss of his front wing.
The incident forced the race stewards into an immediate investigation, with the blame on Alonso. The McLaren driver was handed a five-second time penalty.
Such was Alonso’s pace, however, throughout the opening 30 laps that by the time he pitted to take on a set of soft tyres – switching from the opening stint super-softs – the additional penalty proved redundant.
Alonso, though, did not last too long after his pit stop, pulling his Honda-powered car off track at Sainte Devote with a gearbox issue caused by rising temperatures a day after an MGU-H problem brought an early end to his qualifying session.
Behind the leading trio Daniil Kvyat scored the highest finish of his career with fourth, followed by his Red Bull Racing team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.
Kvyat was ordered to let Ricciardo through in the closing stages, but the Red Bulls swapped back on the final lap once it became clear that Ricciardo could not make any progress against Hamilton.
Force India’s Sergio Perez took seventh, the team’s best result of the season, with Jenson Button claiming McLaren’s first points this season with eighth.
Sauber’s Felipe Nasr and Carlos Sainz in the Toro Rosso completed the top ten.
This was a disappointing race for Williams. Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa – who suffered a lap-one puncture – were classified P14 and P15.
So a hat trick of victories for Nico Rosberg at Monte Carlo and yet the major talking point was the bad strategy call from Mercedes which cost Lewis Hamilton a certain win.
The team will learn from this but the championship leader will need to remain calm and collective. This is racing after all and as Murray Walker would often say: “Anything can happen in Formula 1 and it usually does.”
Monaco Grand Prix, race results after 78 laps:
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1h49m18.420s
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 4.486s
3 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 6.053s
4 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull-Renault 11.965s
5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 13.608s
6 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 14.345s
7 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 15.013s
8 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 16.063s
9 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 23.626s
10 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso-Renault 25.056s
11 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 26.232s
12 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Mercedes 28.415s
13 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 31.159s
14 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 45.789s
15 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1 Lap
16 Roberto Merhi Marussia-Ferrari 2 Laps
17 Will Stevens Marussia-Ferrari 2 Laps
– Max Verstappen Toro Rosso-Renault Collision
– Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 41 Gearbox
– Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Mercedes 5 Brakes
Fastest lap: Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1m 18.063s (lap 74)
Drivers’ standings:
1 Lewis Hamilton 126
2 Nico Rosberg 116
3 Sebastian Vettel 98
4 Kimi Raikkonen 60
5 Valtteri Bottas 42
6 Felipe Massa 39
7 Daniel Ricciardo 35
8 Daniil Kvyat 17
9 Felipe Nasr 16
10 Romain Grosjean 16
11 Sergio Perez 11
12 Carlos Sainz 9
13 Nico Hulkenberg 6
14 Max Verstappen 6
15 Marcus Ericsson 5
16 Jenson Button 4
17 Fernando Alonso 0
18 Roberto Merhi 0
19 Will Stevens 0
20 Pastor Maldonado 0
Constructors’ standings:
1 Mercedes 242
2 Ferrari 158
3 Williams-Mercedes 81
4 Red Bull-Renault 52
5 Sauber-Ferrari 21
6 Force India-Mercedes 17
7 Lotus-Mercedes 16
8 Toro Rosso-Renault 15
9 McLaren-Honda 4
10 Marussia-Ferrari 0
Next race: Canadian Grand Prix, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. June 5-7.
After controlling the Monaco Grand Prix from the start, the team made a wrong strategy call which cost Lewis Hamilton the race win. The championship leader ‘can’t express’ feelings after Mercedes mistake. Autosport.com has the news story.
Lewis Hamilton said after the Monaco Grand Prix that he could not express how he was feeling after an error by his Mercedes Formula 1 team cost him victory.
The reigning world champion had the race under control, leading comfortably from Nico Rosberg until the race was neutralised following a crash between Max Verstappen and Romain Grosjean.
Mercedes thought Hamilton had enough of a gap back to Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel to make a precautionary pitstop, but he emerged from the pits behind both of the Germans in third place, handing victory to Rosberg.
“I can’t really express the way I’m feeling at the moment so I won’t attempt to,” said Hamilton.
“To be honest it happened so fast I don’t remember. You rely on your team.”
Hamilton said he initially thought the cars behind him had pitted, so he assumed he was called in to cover off the fact his pursuers would be on fresher tyres when the race resumed after the safety car.
“I saw a screen and it looked like the team was out [in the pits],” he added. “It looked like Nico had pitted.
“I thought the guys behind were pitting, so when the team said stay out, I said the tyres were dropping temperature, and I was assuming that these guys would be on options and I would be on the harder tyre, so they said to pit.
“I did that and came in thinking with full confidence the others had done the same.”
Hamilton said the lost victory was particularly painful because of how special the Monaco Grand Prix is to him.
“This race has been close to my heart for many years,” he added.
“It was a great feeling in the race, I had so much pace. I didn’t have to push too much.
“I could have doubled the lead if I needed. I’m grateful for that pace and I’ll come back to fight another day – at the moment I can’t think of anything else.”
Mercedes has apologised to Lewis Hamilton after a strategic error cost the reigning Formula 1 world champion victory in the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hamilton was cruising to what would have been his second success around the streets of the Principality until a crash involving Max Verstappen and Romain Grosjean on lap 64 brought out the safety car.
Even though only 14 laps of the race remained at that stage, Hamilton was brought in to take on a fresh set of super-soft tyres, and he emerged not only behind Rosberg, but also Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari.
Although the duo were on cold and older tyres by the time the safety car pulled back in with eight laps remaining, there was no way past for Hamilton on his fresher rubber.
Asked ‘what the hell happened there?’, Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff replied: “What the hell happened there? That’s exactly the right question.
“The simple answer is we got the math, the calculation wrong.
“We thought we had a gap which we didn’t have when the safety car came out, and Lewis was behind the safety car.
“The calculation was simply wrong, hence what happened. In Monaco, you have no GPS and that makes the whole exercise more difficult.
“This is why we got it wrong when it switched from the virtual safety into the safety car.
“I went to see him in the scrum and I said ‘apologies for that one, it goes on the team’. It was all good between us.”
Questioned as to why the team would take such a gamble, with Hamilton ahead on a track where overtaking is virtually impossible, Wolff said: “The potential risk could have been Sebastian switching on a soft tyre behind us.
“Now, very simply from a common-sense overview – disregarding the data, but we have to follow the data, that’s how the sport works – I agree it looks like a risk.
“But the simple answer was the numbers were wrong.
“This was a team’s decision. We make decisions together and it is not one person to blame.”
Wolff has revealed Daimler chairman Dr Dieter Zetsche, looking on from the Mercedes garage, was also left far from impressed.
“He was very unhappy with that particular situation,” said Wolff.
“We have a championship leader, this is Lewis, and we have Nico running in number two today.
“Lewis is a great leader, a great driver, and I am sure he will understand sometimes we make errors and this was such a situation.”
“Believe me, there is no such thing as favouritism in this team for whatever reason.”
Source: Autosport.com
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has apologised to Lewis Hamilton for the strategic error which cost him victory in the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hamilton dominated from the front throughout the race, enjoying a lead of over 14 seconds during the closing stages of the race when Max Verstappen crashed heavily after contact with Romain Grosjean.
With the safety car deployed for the incident, Hamilton pitted but saw his lead wiped out as Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel stayed on track.
Hamilton finished third as his team-mate won from Vettel, and Wolff said after the race it was a “misjudgement” by the team.
“There is nothing else to do than apologise to Lewis, it was a misjudgement in the heat of the moment,” Wolff said.
“I’m sorry for Lewis that we made the mistake and I’m sorry for Lewis. It should have been a perfect 1-2 today.
“We made a decision and it was the wrong decision. We need to analyse it and to apologise to Lewis.”
Hamilton also revealed in the driver press conference there had been a discussion over whether to pit or not, with the team originally telling him to stay out.
“I saw a screen and it looked like the team was out, so I thought Nico had pitted,” Hamilton said.
“I couldn’t see the guys behind so I thought the guys behind had pitted. When the team said to stay out I said that these tyres would drop in temperature and thought that these guys were going to be on options and I was on the harder tyre, so we said to pit. So with that thinking I came in with full confidence.”
Source: F1i.com
Three-time Monaco Grand Prix winner Nico Rosberg admitted he was surprised to see his team-mate Lewis Hamilton pitted. Autosport.com has the full story.
Monaco Grand Prix winner Nico Rosberg never considered making a late pitstop in the race, adding he was surprised leader Lewis Hamilton was called in by the Mercedes team.
A strategy blunder by Mercedes after a safety car was deployed for a lap-64 crash involving Max Verstappen and Romain Grosjean cost Hamilton dear, handing a third successive triumph around Monte Carlo to Rosberg.
For Rosberg, there was never any question he would make a pit stop of his own, not with so few laps left in the race at that stage.
“Stopping wasn’t on my mind at all,” he said. “There were just a few laps to go, so I didn’t consider it.
“Instead I was very, very surprised to see the safety car and not see Lewis [behind it].
“It was a big surprise and I thought ‘where the hell did he go?’
“Then all of a sudden I saw wheel-banging behind me between a Mercedes and a Ferrari, and I thought ‘what the hell is going on there?'”
Rosberg empathised with Hamilton after stealing a victory he suggested was the luckiest of his Formula 1 career.
Expressing “mixed” emotions over his 10th F1 success, Rosberg said: “Lewis did a great job, he deserved to win.
“I’m very well aware of that, and I also feel for him. It’s a horrible way to lose a race.
“I have a lot of space for empathy towards him because I know how horrible a day it is for him after such a strong weekend, and to lose it right at the end like that, that sucks.
“On the other side a win is a win, and in sport luck plays a big factor in all these things, so I’ve learned to just take it.
“I’m aware I got lucky, very lucky, probably the luckiest I’ve ever been in my career, but I’ll take it and enjoy it.”
Although overtaking is almost impossible on the streets of Monte Carlo, Rosberg was not confident about holding on to win the race on much older tyres than Hamilton.
“I still thought Lewis would win because he was on fresh super-softs and we were on stone-cold hard tyres,” said Rosberg.
“It was going to be a massive mission to not hit the wall after the restart because it felt treacherous out there.
“I still thought he was going to come through and it was going to be a big battle, and I was sure he would win it.
“But I went for it, the temperature came back quick and I could do some good lap times.”
Dutch teenager Max Verstappen will have a five-place grid penalty for next month’s Canadian Grand Prix after causing a collision that brought out the safety car and cost world champion Lewis Hamilton a Monaco victory on Sunday.
The Toro Rosso driver smashed into the back of Romain Grosjean’s Lotus at the Sainte Devote first corner while battling for 10th place.
The impact sent the car slamming hard into the impact-absorbing barrier, leaving Verstappen sore but without any serious injury.
While race stewards ruled the rookie had caused the collision, and imposed the grid drop as well as two penalty points, the 17-year-old insisted Frenchman Grosjean was the one at fault.
“It wasn’t really a move,” he said. “The lap before I braked on exactly the same spot as I did on the lap I crashed. But clearly you could see Grosjean in front of me braked 10 to 15 metres earlier than the lap before.
“I was caught by surprise because normally nobody does that,” he added. “I had nowhere to go. Maybe it looked like an overtake but I was just trying to avoid him.
“If it was my own mistake, I would tell you I misjudged it. But I don’t feel like that.”
Already the youngest driver to race and score points in Formula One, the son of former F1 racer Jos Verstappen had qualified ninth and had started the day hoping for a strong finish.
Slowed by a long pitstop as the team struggled to change the rear tyres, he then showed his intelligence by sticking close behind Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to pass cars in his slipstream after being lapped.
Grosjean, however, was wise to the trick and let Vettel through while blocking Verstappen, who tailed him closely before the biggest crash of his career.
“At the moment I am quite alright, still a little bit stiff in my arms but for sure tomorrow will be worse,” he said. “I had some little crashes but this was by far the biggest one.”
The safety car interlude led to Hamilton pitting needlessly and losing the race lead to Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg.
Source: Reuters
Good news for McLaren-Honda with Jenson Button recorded an eighth place finish in the Monaco Grand Prix. Reuters provides the details.
Jenson Button scored the first points of McLaren’s new Formula One partnership with Honda in Monaco on Sunday and said it felt like winning a race.
The 2009 world champion’s eighth place, if far from where the sport’s second most successful team want to be, at least ended a negative trend with McLaren enduring their worst ever start to a season.
“We won’t be patting ourselves on the back too much, it’s only four points, but it’s nice to finally get into the points and I think it’s great for McLaren and Honda,” said the Englishman.
“I’m happy but I also know that this is only a stepping stone to where we want to finally get.
“I think I got everything out of the car today and the actual pace was good. It wasn’t like we were gifted it and didn’t have any pace,” added Button, whose team mate Fernando Alonso failed to finish.
McLaren started the season with both their misfiring cars on the back row as Honda wrestled with the new V6 turbo hybrid power unit.
However, they have made steady gains in performance, despite the lack of results, since then with double world champion Alonso predicting even at the previous race in Spain that they would score points.
“We have made progress at every race, with at least one car, but people don’t really notice it until you are in the points,” said Button.
“To finally get it is great..the interviews are a bit more positive,” he smiled.
“To come in now, sixth race with a brand new engine and everyone else has had a season with the new engine in, and to score points feels like winning a race.”
Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda railed against his own Formula 1 team for making “a huge mistake” that robbed Lewis Hamilton of victory in the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hamilton was cruising to the chequered flag after leading for the first 64 laps of the race until an accident involving Toro Rosso teenager Max Verstappen and Romain Grosjean in his Lotus turned the blue-riband event on its head.
Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff conceded his strategists blundered by calling in Hamilton for a pit stop to take on a set of fresh super-soft tyres – a decision Lauda branded an over-reaction to feedback Hamilton gave on the radio.
It resulted in the reigning champion emerging behind team-mate Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari, with no way past and having to settle for third.
“It was heartbreaking for Lewis, for me and everybody in the team,” Lauda told AUTOSPORT.
“Lewis did say he was not happy with the tyres, but then we over-reacted by bringing him in, which was a mistake.
“It was completely unnecessary, a huge mistake because this is Monaco where you cannot pass.
“I apologised to him and his team because we ended up destroying his race.”
Hamilton, who last week agreed a new three-year deal with Mercedes, was disconsolate and at a loss post-race to understand what had unfolded.
On the slow-down lap Hamilton even parked his car at Portier, the corner closest to his apartment home, and paused for several moments before opting to continue back to parc ferme and a solemn podium celebration.
It revived memories of his hero Ayrton Senna who crashed at Portier in the 1988 race around the streets of the Principality after dominating from pole, with the Brazilian so incensed he left his stricken car and returned to his apartment.
Wolff has no doubt that after taking time to reflect, Hamilton will bounce back at the next race in Canada early next month.
“He has such mental strength and he is on a roll,” said Wolff of Hamilton, who still holds a 10-point lead over Rosberg in the drivers’ championship.
“It must be very sore to lose that run because it was his to win, but I have no doubt he will recover as quickly as he has always done.”
Wolff, though, has dismissed any possibility of Mercedes atoning for their error by ‘fixing’ a future result for Hamilton.
Suggested to Wolff he might speak to Rosberg, he added: “You would want me do this and then start to play PlayStation. No, we’re not doing this.”
Source: Autosport.com
Lewis Hamilton can turn Monaco misery into a Canadian celebration because every setback makes you stronger, according to retired double world champion Mika Hakkinen.
“‘I’m going to win the next one’. That will be his motivation. You cannot just start getting depressed about it,” the Finn, who overcame his own share of race setbacks, told Reuters.
“You have to learn and analyse everything that has happened, and get stronger and better.”
Hakkinen, champion with McLaren in 1998 and 1999, knows all about that from bitter experience.
At the 1999 Italian Grand Prix, he sobbed in bushes by the side of the track after making a basic error and crashing out while leading.
In Spain in 2001, the Finn suffered one of the cruellest blows when his McLaren’s engine blew on the last lap while he was coasting to victory.
“All these things that happen in motor racing or in life, they make you stronger because you learn from those things. It’s just very hard in the position you are sitting, in the racing car, when everyone is staring at you,” said Hakkinen.
“Millions of fans looking at it and asking why? It’s hard to be a driver sitting there and have to answer these questions.
“But you have to go on, you have to go flat out. You have to build up your confidence inside more and challenge the next grand prix. There’s a long way to go in the season. And Monaco is an example that anything can happen.”
Sunday’s race had a Hamilton victory written all over it. He was fastest in practice, qualified on pole and led from the start by a comfortable margin until the safety car came out near the end.
While others stayed out, the Briton came in for fresh tyres in what turned out to be a needless stop. He finished third.
Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff apologised for the error but said Hamilton, whose championship lead over team mate and race winner Nico Rosberg was halved to 10 points, would fight back at the next race, the seventh of the season, in Montreal.
“He has such mental strength and is on a roll. It must be very sore to lose that one, because it was his to win. I have no doubt he will recover as quickly as he always did,” said the Austrian.
Source: Reuters