Posted on 29th May 2016
At the Monaco GP today, Lewis Hamilton took his first win of the 2016 season with a stunning performance ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez; even though Hamilton had to keep Ricciardo behind him in a great battle for the majority of the race.
Before the start of the race, it was announced that Max Verstappen and Felipe Nasr will start from the pitlane due to Verstappen having to change his chassis after his incident in Q1 and Nasr suffering engine failure during his outlap in Q1. Also, Kimi Raikkonen has taken a five place grid penalty after replacing the gearbox after FP3 on Saturday morning.
Just ten minutes before the start of the race, it was announced via Race Control that the race will start under the Safety Car and everyone will start on the wet tyres until further notice. The Monaco GP starts under the Safety Car and with the drivers on wet tyres. During the first lap, Daniil Kvyat has reported to his team that his car is stuck in constant speed and doesn’t understand why.
Kvyat is now going further down the grid and has to pit in order to rectify the problem. Even though the Toro Rosso driver will be a lap down on the field, he manages to regain onto the track. With the news that the Safety Car will be in at the end of Lap 7, everyone is looking forward to racing in Monaco; even though Ricciardo backed up the grid before setting the hammer down.
And on Lap 8, the race began and we are racing in Monaco with Ricciardo leading the two Mercedes drivers as they headed into Sainte Devote. The Virtual Safety Car was then deployed at Sainte Devote as Jolyon Palmer crashes into the barriers after lightening up the rear tyres on the start finish straight and having to retire from the race. This has been a miserable weekend for the British driver who hasn’t had the best start to his F1 career.
As this is ongoing on the track, Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button pit for Intermediate tyres to test the limits of the Monaco track. The Virtual Safety Car ended on Lap 11 and we are back racing in Monaco once again; with Ricciardo leading Rosberg by 3.3 seconds.
On the same lap, on the exit of the Lowes hairpin, Kimi Raikkonen hitting the wall with Romain Grosjean hitting Raikkonen and Felipe Massa also nearly getting involved in this as well; which saw Grosjean able to get going again as Raikkonen has sustained damage to his front wing and officially retiring from the race; with the stewards looking at the incident after the race.
Lap 16 saw Lewis Hamilton finally getting past Nico Rosberg on the way down to Matinee corner after Rosberg has been struggling to get onto the pace of Ricciardo in front of him and has now got 13 seconds to make up in the process.
In the opening stages of the race, the battle for sixth place between Felipe Massa, Sebastian Vettel, Nico Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso had everyone's attention; with all four drivers being very close together and all inching together in case any of one them makes a mistake.
On Lap 21 of the race, at the Rascasse corner Daniil Kvyat and Kevin Magnussen had an incident with each other after Kvyat tries to pass Magnussen at the Swimming Pool corner and there was no gap for Kvyat to go and he hit Magnussen in the process. This incident will now be investigated by the stewards.
With Ricciardo making his pitstop at the end of Lap 23 for Intermediate tyres, Hamilton now leads the Grand Prix ahead of his team mate as Max Verstappen is now up to tenth place after starting from the pitlane and is absolutely flying at this stage of the race so far; with an hour and seventeen minutes left of the race to run.
With Hamilton leading the race and losing up to a second a lap by Lap 30; Hamilton had to react to what Ricciardo was doing on the track (who was catching him up very quickly indeed) and could be taking a gamble in order to undercut him later in the race by maybe moving onto the Slick tyres instead of the Intermediate tyres.
With drivers such as Felipe Nasr and Kevin Magnussen all pitting for slick tyres; all eyes are upon Hamilton who is slowly starting to struggle to keep Ricciardo behind him and he pits at the end of Lap 31 and hands the lead of the race back to Ricciardo who pits at the end of Lap 32. But with his tyres not ready at his pit stop, Ricciardo loses the lead of the race to Hamilton as a result of that.
Many thought that the battle between Hamilton and Ricciardo was finished; you thought wrong. By Lap 35, Ricciardo has caught up Hamilton and with backmarkers on the circuit, anything could happen. On the same lap, Max Verstappen officially retires from the race after crashing at the Maintee corner and the Virtual Safety Car was deployed in order to recover the Red Bull from the circuit.
The battle between Ricciardo and Hamilton resumed on Lap 37, with Hamilton having gone off the road just after the chicane by the tunnel and Ricciardo sensing an opportunity to pass him wasn't given the space by Hamilton and Ricciardo via Team Radio broadcast his anger at this quite rightly.
After the incident between the two drivers, Ricciardo by Lap 44 was catching Hamilton again, with the gap being as small as 0.4 seconds. It was announced during the race that the incident between the two of them would not go any further and everyone's attention turned to the epic battle on the track between two very talented drivers.
Ricciardo on Lap 52 after exiting the tunnel tried once again to pass the current World Champion for position but wasn't able to get past and at the Rascasse corner, Ricciardo while catching Hamilton out of sheer frustration locks up his tyres but is able to continue the fight.
Lap 66 saw Hamilton leading Ricciardo by 2.5 seconds; which is the biggest lead he has had in the race as tyres start to grain and lose grip as Ricciardo after locking up his tyres twice in quick succession is starting to have an effort on the performance of the Red Bull-Tag Heuer car.
But behind the Hamilton and Ricciardo battle, Sebastian Vettel and Sergio Perez are also battling with each other for position on the track; with both drivers looking very handy on the ultra-soft tyres and Vettel is slowly catching the Force India driver on the track.
In the final stages of the race, on Lap 50; Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr after being instructed by the Sauber team to swap places collide into each other at the Rascasse corner after Ericsson decided to take matters into his own hands; leaving a high amount of debris onto the track which brings out the Virtual Safety Car for the third time and with both drivers retiring from the race.
There were talks by Lap 61 via team radio to Jenson Button that a small rain shower could hit the Monaco circuit with 8 laps remaining and this also provides more uncertainty to the end of the race, as if we didn't need enough drama today!
But the battle for fifth between Fernando Alonso, Nico Rosberg, Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz Jr was also building up nicely on the circuit in the latter stages of the race and with all the drivers close together and letting each other know that they are there if they make a mistake.
In fact; Rosberg tried to pass Alonso on Lap 59 after the tunnel but couldn't make the move stick and had to hand the place back to Alonso. On Lap 68, the Virtual Safety Car was then deployed for the fourth time after a cover was put onto the track on the start/finish straight of the circuit that flew off an balcony
.
In the final few laps of the race, Hamilton managed the gap between himself and Ricciardo who wasn't giving up the fight; even though the gap was 3.9 seconds by Lap 74 but was finding himself vulnerable to an attack from Perez at the end of the race.
But it was Lewis Hamilton who won the Monaco GP ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in second place who was 0.169 seconds behind him and ahead of Sergio Perez in third place who was 0.320 seconds behind Hamilton and secures Force India's first podium at the Monaco circuit.
Sebastian Vettel finished the race in fourth place ahead of Fernando Alonso in fifth place, Nico Hulkenberg in sixth place who beat Nico Rosberg in seventh place just before the finish line on the final lap. But Rosberg finished ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr in eighth place, Jenson Button in ninth place and Felipe Massa who rounded off the top ten finishers.
Valtteri Bottas ended the race in eleventh place ahead of Esteban Gutierrez in twelfth place, Romain Grosjean in thirteenth place, Pascal Wehrlein in fourteenth place and Rio Haryanto in fifteenth place.
As we head into the latter stages of the grid, Marcus Ericsson, Felipe Nasr, Max Verstappen, Kevin Magnussen, Daniil Kvyat, Kimi Raikkonen and Jolyon Palmer did not finish the race.
The classification for the Monaco GP is as follows:-
1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1.59:29.133
2. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull-TAG Heuer, 7.252s
3. Sergio Perez, Force India-Mercedes, 13.825s
4. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 15.846s
5. Fernando Alonso, McLaren-Honda, 1.25.076s
6. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India-Mercedes, 1.32.999s
7. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1.33.290s
8. Carlos Sainz Jr, Toro Rosso, 1lap
9. Jenson Button, McLaren-Honda, 1lap
10. Felipe Massa, Williams-Mercedes, 1lap
11. Valtteri Bottas, Williams-Mercedes, 1lap
12. Esteban Gutierrez, Haas Ferrari, 1 lap
13. Romain Grosjean, Haas Ferrari, 2 laps
14. Pascal Wehrlein, MRT Racing, 2 laps
15. Rio Haryanto, MRT Racing, 4 laps
16. Marcus Ericsson, Sauber-Ferrari, Not Classified
17. Felipe Nasr, Sauber-Ferrari, Not Classified
18. Max Verstappen, Red-Bull-TAG Heuer, Not Classified
19. Kevin Magnussen, Renault, Not Classified
20. Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, 1.651s
21. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, Not Classified
22. Jolyon Palmer, Renault, Not Classified
Nico Rosberg still leads the Driver's Championship with 108 points, Lewis Hamilton is in second place with 82 points, Daniel Ricciardo is in third place with 66 points, Kimi Raikkonen is in fourth place with 61 points, Sebastian Vettel is in fifth place with 60 points, Max Verstappen is in sixth place with 38 points, Felipe Massa is in seventh place with 36 points, Valtteri Bottas is in eighth place with 29 points, Sergio Perez is in ninth place with 22 points and Daniil Kvyat is in tenth place with 22 points.
Mercedes still lead the Constructors Championship with 188 points, Ferrari is in second place with 121 points, Red Bull is in third place with 112 points, Williams is in fourth place with 66 points, Force India is in fifth place with 37 points, Toro Rosso is in sixth place with 30 points, McLaren is in seventh place with 24 points, Haas is in eighth place with 6 points and Renault is in ninth place with 6 points.
Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa
