Despite the glamour as the centre piece of Formula 1, the Monaco Grand Prix is often derided as processional as no one can overtake. What we witnessed today was nothing short of breath taking. Yes it ended up with yet another Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull victory, their fifth out of six races, but it was an action packed race full of drama from start to finish. It was quite possibly the best race we’ve ever seen at Monaco.
Lap 69 and you could almost see a crash coming as 10 cars circulated together, it would determine the outcome of the race. Vettel, Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari and McLaren’s Jenson Button driving out of his skin were nose to tail. It was perfectly poised, Vettel on old tyres trying to go through to the end on one stop, Alonso on 17 laps younger rubber, with Button having cruised up to the back of them with tyres a full 30 laps fresher than the Red Bull and quicker than both his competitors.
As the lap started the three of them were fast catching a gaggle of six cars led by Adrian Sutil in the Force India and included Williams’ Pastor Maldonado, Vitaly Petrov in the Renault, Lewis Hamilton of McLaren and the Toro Rosso’s of Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Algersuari.
Sutil, who had been hit earlier on his right rear wheel smacked the barrier just before the swimming pool chicane as the tyre let go causing all hell to break loose. Maldonado was straight through, as Hamilton dived inside Petrov, and was followed by Algersuari. Sutil was limping and tried to get out of the way, but it slowed Hamilton going into the chicane, Algersuari tried to go over the top and Petrov got caught up in the accident. Hamilton survived with a damaged rear wing but the Russian and Spaniard were straight in the wall. It was a miracle that the leaders weren’t caught up in it as can be seen from the BBC footage,
The safety car was immediately deployed, and a few laps later the race was red flagged as they struggled to get Petrov out of the car as he claimed he had lost feeling in his legs, although after a scan in hospital all was revealed to be fine.
But that was it, the moment Red Bull domination was assured of continuing. During a stoppage, teams are allowed to change tyres, with all three contenders now on equally fresh rubber for the last six laps, 2011’s Vettel wasn’t going to throw away his first win in Monaco. It was great racing with various strategies for all three. Button in particular was hampered by the first safety car period caused by Massa crashing, but when the luck is with you, it all just falls in to place.
It was a beautiful demonstration of driving under pressure by Vettel. He had an assured calmness, and even if the race hadn’t been stopped you were beginning to get a feeling he had it all under control, but we’ll never know just what might have been for Alonso and Button.
There was action all the way down the order, ably demonstrated by some fine moves by Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber during their fight backs through the field. Michael Schumacher made a couple of great moves in to the Loews hairpin on Hamilton and his team mate Nico Rosberg.
It was another race of what might have been for Schumacher. A poor start dropping from 5th to 10th, then his tyres fading fast in his first stint resulted in him being passed spectacularly by Hamilton at Ste. Devote. He quickly pitted and once past the equally struggling Rosberg was setting competitive lap times comparable with the leaders. Unfortunately this effort was ruined by an air box fire which shut the car down on lap 32 just as the safety car had been released for Massa’s crash.
Schumacher was a driver who had a lot of luck in his first career, you’ve got to believe at one point in his comeback that’ll return to him because despite the results, he’s not doing as badly as it looks.
Pastor Maldonado deserves a special mention. His first time in a Formula 1 car at Monaco, he out qualifies his far more experienced team mate Rubens Barrichello, and circulates in the top 10 for practically the entire race, demonstrating that he’s far more than just a pay driver. It’s just a shame it ended in the barrier 4 laps from home after an arguably optimistic move by Lewis Hamilton. Still he made people take notice.
Some other notable performers were Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber who made his one stop strategy work to finish fifth from 12th despite barging Sutil out of the way at Mirabeau. Although passed by Webber towards the end it was still a fine race. I hope one day a big team will give him a chance to race for wins.
Lotus deserve a mention for finishing 13th and 14th, their highest double finish. They are slowly but surely making their way to being a solid midfield team.
Sutil drove a strong race despite the incidents that surrounded him to end up seventh. Outperforming his rookie team mate Paul di Resta for once who had a scrappy race.
A final word on a driver who also had a bit of a scrappy race; Lewis Hamilton. I wrote yesterday I thought he was being overly critical of the team. That he was a ‘we’ person when winning and a ‘they’ when losing. His interview with the BBC on the F1 forum certainly seems to confirm this current attitude which can be seen here
I also said that he has been with McLaren for over 10 years, and perhaps that insulation from the outside world has contributed to him becoming increasingly frustrated with problems that are coming his way now. For so long he had it all his own way but since his championship year in 2008, it hasn’t gone right. He’s someone who knows he’s one of the, if not the best driver out there and he is annoyed that he isn’t already a multiple title winner.
It’s beginning to look like this frustration is boiling over and he certainly looks like someone who is beginning to believe everyone is against him and he’s looking for someone to blame. Whether that’s other people causing incidents he’s involved in, or even believing people are blocking him, when to an outsider, it hasn’t looked like that at all, particularly the incident with Massa in qualifying. Maybe it’s time he looked at himself for the blame.
So far this year Hamilton has been involved in a few incidents with the stewards, but his use of the race card (although joking) after the race is indicative of someone who is feeling under pressure, (probably from himself more than anything), as far away as we can get from the polished interviewee we’ve had in previous years.
Looking back at the incidents in this race, he was certainly to blame for the incident with Massa at the Loews hairpin resulting in a drive through penalty. He came from too far back and was already taking to the pavement as Massa turned in. With Maldonado, it was at best a 50/50.
Certainly to me his interview with the BBC was made in the heat of the moment. He was already frustrated by qualifying yesterday and he carried that over to the race. This makes for exciting viewing, there’s nothing better to watch than a charging Lewis Hamilton, but today it didn’t go for him and he felt the need to tell the world about it in damning detail.
Nobody wants him to tone down his driving or for Formula 1 to become oversensitive to aggressive driving, but after reviewing today’s incidents surely he’ll regret his comments, he certainly needs to step back and calm down. As Formula 1 leaves Monaco, Lewis Hamilton is still the best driver to stop Vettel walking away with this season, he just needs to get himself in the right frame of mind again.
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