Nico Rosberg surprisingly wins his third consecutive Monaco GP

Yesterday afternoon, Nico Rosberg surprisingly won the Monaco GP for the third consecutive year in a row; equalling Graham Hill, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna's record at the event when the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team made a strategy mistake with Lewis Hamilton who was dominating the race.

Before the start of the race, Carlos Sainz Jr had to start from the pitlane after failing to stop at the weighbridge when requested by the FIA during qualifying.

Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg got great starts off the line; as did Daniil Kvyat who passed his team mate Daniel Ricciardo for position. However, Nico Hulkenberg had contact with Fernando Alonso heading into the Mirabeau corner and had the wall. This then lead the stewards to investigate the incident and Alonso received a five second stop and go penalty as a result of this.

Also, there was an incident between Felipe Massa and Pastor Maldonado at the start of the race which left Massa having to pit where he then suffered problems with his front end but was able to get back out onto the track; albeit a lap down already on the leaders.

On Lap 5, Max Verstappen and Pastor Maldonado made contact with each other but were able to continue running in the race. The next lap saw Verstappen into the Sainte Devote corner passing Maldonado beautifully for eighth place, but Maldonado officially retired from the race on Lap 7 with a brake-by-wire failure.

Hamilton was leading the field for the majority of the race. Lap 40 sees the stewards announcing that Roberto Merhi was under investigation for crossing the white line in the pitlane but no further action was taken against the Manor F1 driver. Lap 42 saw Fernando Alonso retire from the race with a gearbox failure after locking up heading into the Sainte Devote corner and going straight on.

In the latter stages of the grid, there was a battle between Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel for second place; with Vettel slowly gaining on the Mercedes driver with every lap left. But on Lap 64 is when everything changed. Max Verstappen while trying to pass Lotus driver Romain Grosjean crashed at Sainte Devote with a huge impact.

Luckily enough , Verstappen was okay and got out of the car and retired from the race. This then brought out the first virtual safety car of the season which then brought out the safety car in order to the car to be recovered and for the barriers to be fixed.

The stewards then announced that they would be investigating Grosjean and Verstappen and after the race, Verstappen received a five place grid penalty for the Canadian Grand Prix as a result of this.

The next lap saw Lewis Hamilton pitting for a second time bizzarely, therefore handing the lead over to his team mate and losing second place to Vettel who was ahead of him leading the pitlane. The safety car went in at the end of Lap 71 and the next lap saw Ricciardo passing Raikkonen for position; both drivers being investigated by the stewards; with no further action being taken.

But it was Nico Rosberg who got his second consecutive win of the season and his third consecutive win at the Monte Carlo circuit ahead of Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel in second place who was 4.486 seconds behind him. But Vettel finished ahead of Lewis Hamilton in third place who was 6.053 seconds behind his team mate.

Daniil Kvyat achieved his best result in Formula One with fourth place ahead of his team mateDaniel Ricciardo in fifth place, Kimi Raikkonen finished in sixth place and Sergio Perez in seventh place who put in a great performance this weekend to achieve much needed points for the Force India team.

Jenson Button finished the race in a superb eighth place and scored McLaren-Honda's first points of the season ahead of Felipe Nasr who had a great drive to finish in ninth place ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr who after starting in the pitlane rounded off the top ten finishers of the race.

Nico Hulkenberg finished out of the points in eleventh place ahead of Romain Grosjean in twelfth place, Marcus Ericsson in thirteenth place and the two Williams drivers of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa in fourteenth and fifteenth place. As we head into the latter stages of the grid, the two Manor F1 drivers of Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens rounded off the last two drivers to finish the race in sixteenth and seventeenth places.

Max Verstappen did not finish the race after crashing at Sainte Devote, Fernando Alonso did not finish after suffering a gearbox failure and Pastor Maldonado did not finish due to a brake-by-wire failure on his Lotus.

The classification of the Monaco GP is as follows:-

1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1.49.18.420
2. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 4.486s
3. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 6.053s
4. Daniil Kvyat, Red Bull-Renault, 11.905s
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 Jr, Toro Rosso, 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, Manor, 2 laps
17. Will Stevens, Manor, 2 laps
18. Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso, Not Classified
19. Fernando Alonso, McLaren-Honda, Not Classified
20. Pastor Maldonado, Lotus-Mercedes, Not Classified

Lewis Hamilton leads the Drivers' Championship with 126, Rosberg is second with 116 points, Vettel is third with 98 points, Raikkonen is fourth with 60 points, Bottas is fifth with 42 points, Massa is sixth with 39 points, Ricciardo is seventh with 35 points, Kvyat is eighth with 17 points, Nasr is eighth with 16 points and Grosjean is tenth with 16 points.

Mercedes lead the Constructors Championship with 242 points, Ferrari is second with 158 points, Williams are third with 81 points, Red Bull are fourth with 52 points, Sauber are fifth with 21 points, Force India are sixth with 17 points, Lotus are seventh with 16 points, Toro Rosso are eighth with 15 points and McLaren-Honda are ninth with 4 points.

Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa

“Monaco” by www.grahamandleigh.co.uk