Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo claimed his first F1 win after a thriller at the Canadian Grand Prix in 2014. An eventful race saw both Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton suffer technical problems, and Felipe Massa and Sergio Perez involved in a heavy crash, while Jenson Button’s late surge earned him a brilliant fourth for McLaren.
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Video: Brembo Brake Facts – Round 07 Canadian Grand Prix
The hardest braking point on the Île de Notre-Dame lies just ahead of the start/finish line. The driver has to brake down hard, decelerating by 210 km/h over just 122 metres. 2,456 kW of power are released in the process. Up to 5.6 g pull at the driver, who pushes with 171 kg onto the brake.
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F1 2015: Monaco GP Review – Mercedes Bungle Monaco
To be perplexed is to be completely baffled or mystified as to what has happened. Suffice it to say that Mercedes ensured that entire Formula 1 fraternity was left entirely stunned.
Lewis Hamilton secured his first ever pole position around the famous streets and easily led his teammate from the starting grid as the red lights extinguished. The race settled quickly and the seventy-eight laps of the Monaco grand prix appeared to be nothing more than a formality as yet another victory beckoned for Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.
The Brit had a more than comfortable lead ahead of Nico Rosberg and was cruising towards the chequered flag. As the grand prix drew towards its conclusion Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen clipped the back of Romain Grosjean’s Lotus and ploughed headfirst into the turn one barrier. The Toro Rosso teenager was given a five place grid penalty at the next round for causing a collision. It first brought out the safety-car and prompted a serious malfunction of logic on the Mercedes pitwall.
Hamilton was called into the pitlane for a new set of supersoft tyres and emerged back on track behind Rosberg and Vettel. The fresher tyres on Hamilton’s car were negated by the notoriously narrow Monaco circuit as the championship leader went from assured victory to third.
The reasoning behind the stop remains remarkably vague. As neither Rosberg nor Vettel, in third, pitted for new tyres there was nothing to cover from Hamilton’s perspective who held a nearly 21 second lead. It was a peculiar call that saw a rightly morose Hamilton on the makeshift podium. An immediate debrief within the team revealed a miscalculation of the gap between Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel.Call it a stroke of luck but there is much to be said for being in the right place as Nico Rosberg and his side of the Mercedes garage found out. A third consecutive Monaco victory takes Rosberg into elite company and only ten points off the championship lead.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel shadowed Rosberg for most of the afternoon and reaped the benefits of Mercedes mistake by securing second overall whilst holding off Hamilton. Red Bull enjoyed its best outing of the season with a fourth and fifth place finish for Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo. Kimi Raikkonen paid for a lacklustre qualifying performance and an inability to overtake with sixth place on the day.
It was a good weekend all-round for Sergio Perez who finished seventh overall in what is effectively a 2014 Force India. After six races McLaren opened their points account with Jenson Button’s eighth place finish. It’s a welcome reward for the team as Fernando Alonso was once again sidelined, this time with a gearbox issue. Sauber’s Felipe Nasr and Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz rounded out the top ten.
A major talking point of the weekend was the supersoft and soft compound tyres that Pirelli rolled out for the Monaco grand prix. A pronounced lack of grip and an inability to get enough heat into the tyres was a problem up and down the pitlane.
Of late there have been rumblings that additional tyre suppliers may be brought into the equation. Pirelli, along with the likes of Michelin, will have to bid in 2017 to be the official tyre
supplier of Formula 1. Several drivers confirmed that the supersoft tyre could easily do half of the Monaco grand prix and the soft, yellow-walled compound, the entire race distance. While Pirelli are following instructions as to the make-up of the compounds it certainly is not conducive to entertaining racing Formula 1 so badly seeks.Flashback two years ago when Pirelli’s supersoft tyre faced different criticism for all but falling apart after a handful of laps. In 2013, the tyres had to be coddled and cajoled, sometimes to the extreme, but even that produced a better show than the damp squib of a one-stop race with nearly indestructible tyres.
Ultimately, a race that was rather dull was infused with a dramatic plot twist that no one saw coming. While Lewis Hamilton is allowed his interlude of woe-is-me that is all it’s likely to be. The 2015 version of Hamilton is, mentally, much stronger than at any other stage of his career and by the time Canada rolls around will have consigned the incident to the history books.
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Raikkonen believes Ricciardo should “obviously” have been penalised
Never one to mince his words, Kimi Raikkonen has said that he believes Daniel Ricciardo should have been penalised for his move to take fifth position nearer the end of the 2015 F1 Monaco Grand Prix.
Ricciardo, on fresh tyres, attacked Raikkonen after a safety car period and passed the Finn on the inside at Mirabeau. Ricciardo made contact with the Ferrari and pushed Raikkonen wide to take the position off the Finn – a move which Raikkonen feels the Australian F1 driver should have penalised for.
“It’s not very clear what you are allowed to do because sometimes you get a penalty for gaining advantage and other times you don’t,” he said. “There is usually a penalty for this kind of thing but this time there was not. In my mind it was pretty obvious, but the stewards think different.”
And that’s about as much as you’ll hear from the Iceman about that.
Speaking about his pace and Ferrari’s current position, Raikkonen said that the key to better results would be to qualify higher up the grid.
“Obviously we have to go away and think as something wasn’t right in qualifying yesterday. Get the car working as best as we can and gain some places. Hopefully for the rest of the year we can do that and make the race a whole lot easier. On Sundays we seem to have the speed but starting in bad positions doesn’t help.”
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Christian Horner: Red Bull not thinking of leaving F1
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has laid fears that the team are wanting to exit Formula 1, to rest – for now.
The Milton Keynes squad have made no secret of their dissatisfaction with their current engine supplier, Renault, with their winning days seeming to be nothing more than a distant memory.
Red Bull are currently struggling and fighting for positions in the midfield – their cars simply unable to match rivals Mercedes and Ferrari.
In recent weeks, both Horner and Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko have highlighted that Red Bull may leave Formula 1 should things not change but Horner indicated in Monaco that this would not happen.“Although there is a degree of frustration, we are not thinking of leaving F1,” the Horner told the media.
Despite the troubles with Renault, speculation has been rife that the team’s troubles are not only a result of the shortcomings of their Renault engines, but also down to problems within the team itself. Horner however, disregards such comments saying, “We are a team, so we win and lose together, but everyone can see that our big problem at the moment is the engine.”
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WATCH: Verstappen Grosjean Monaco GP crash
A nice collage from different camera angles, of the Monaco GP crash involving Toro Rosso rookie driver Max Verstappen, and Lotus driver Romain Grosjean.
Verstappen has been handed a 5 place grid penalty for the Canadian Grand Prix for causing the collision with Grosjean.
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Max Verstappen gets penalty, blames Grosjean for crash
Max Verstappen has been handed a 5 place grid penalty for the Canadian Grand Prix for causing a collision with Lotus driver Romain Grosjean.
The Toro Rosso rookie started the Monaco Grand Prix from 9th place on the grid but lost a lot of time at his first stop. Verstappen was stationery for 31 seconds due to the right rear wheel not attaching properly.
Toro Rosso opted for another pit stop and switched Verstappen to the Option tyres. He made quick work of passing team mate Carlos Sainz Jr. and Valteri Bottas in his Williams.
The Dutch rookie announced over team radio that he was sticking to Vettel because the German lapping backmarkers was making it easy for him to pass his rivals on track. Something he should perhaps not have done since Lotus made quick work of warning Grosjean of the impending threat from Verstappen who by now was on the back of Vettel’s gearbox on a shoestring.
Young Max tried to pass Grosjean for 10th place but ran into the right rear of Grosjean’s Lotus under braking at Ste Devote and headed straight on into the barriers. Grosjean was sent into a spin and the Safety Car was deployed.The stewards judged that Verstappen was at fault and have handed in the grid penalty, as well as two points on his Super License.
Despite being hit with the penalty, Verstappen blames Grosjean for braking too late.
“The lap before I braked on the same spot as when I crashed,” Verstappen said.
“But you could see when I braked the car ahead braked early and when you are going that speed and are quite close to each other you can’t do anything, you don’t expect them to brake early.”
Verstappen will serve the 5 place grid penalty at the Canadian Grand Prix.
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Niki Lauda orders investigation into “unnacceptable” strategy call
Mercedes team boss Niki Lauda has called on fellow big chief Toto Wolff to launch a full investigation into what he called an “unacceptable” strategy call by the Mercedes pit wall at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hamilton had dominated for the majority of the Monaco GP but lost victory as a direct result of a completely unnecessary pit stop under a late safety car. Changing tyres saw Hamilton drop back behind both Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg and Ferraris Sebastian Vettel. Lauda insisted that the mistake needs to be fully investigated by the team.
Lauda apologised to Hamilton and his engineers, “Honestly, I really feel sorry,” he said. “I apologised, even to his engineers over there, because this is for me unacceptable.
“Nevertheless, Toto, I gave him the order to analyse it properly and see where the mistake was made. But absolutely the decision to bring him in was completely wrong.”
Lauda said that there was confusion between Hamilton and the pit wall just before he pitted.
“I was listening to the talks – the talks were going forward and backwards – and there was too much confusion. In the end it was the wrong decision, no question about it.”
Photo Credit: Niki Lauda, Toto Wolff – Mercedes AMG Petronas
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Mercedes Apologises to Hamilton
Mercedes Head of Motorsport Toto Wolff has apologised to Lewis Hamilton on behalf of the team following the late pit stop mistake at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hamilton was leading the race when a late safety car was deployed because of Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen colliding with Lotus’ Romain Grosjean. Initially the virtual safety car was deployed which meant drivers are to stick to a delta lap time. A short while after that the Safety Car was deployed. This prompted Mercedes to ready their pit crew for a pit stop. Hamilton, who had built up a considerable gap to second place man, Nico Rosberg, pitted under instruction from the team. The gap, which was anticipated to be enough for Hamilton to rejoin back in the lead was not large enough and when he emerged from the pits he lost two positions and was running in 3rd.
There was a bit of uncertainty between Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton as to who crossed the safety car line ahead at the exit of the pit lane. In the end, replay’s showed Vettel crossing the safety car line ahead of Hamilton by about half a car length.
When the race ended Hamilton was distraught. He took his time returning to parc ferme and even pulled over at the Portier corner for a while. Supposedly to collect himself. He got going again and returned to parc ferme. On the podium he was visibly upset choosing not to say much in the podium interviews.
Toto Wolff, after the race, apologised to Hamilton said that they had got their maths wrong by miscalculating the gap between Hamilton and Rosberg.
“First of all, we must apologise to Lewis,” said Wolff
“We win and we lose together and what I am proud of in this team is that we take collective responsibility,” he added.
“But this is a day when we simply have to say sorry to our driver, because our mistake cost him the victory here.
“What happened? In simple terms, we got our numbers wrong.“We thought we had the gap for Lewis to take fresh tyres and come back out in the lead behind the Safety Car, ahead of Nico and covering off any risk of another competitor taking fresh tyres.
“But the calculation was incorrect and he came out in third place. It was our decision to call him in and our mistake, pure and simple; in these situations, a driver trusts his team.
Wolff lauded Hamilton for the sportsmanship he showed after the race.
“Lewis had driven flawlessly until then and really delivered a perfect weekend, with a stunning pole lap and a masterful race.
There’s nothing more to say other than to highlight the grace with which he handled the situation; he was a leader and a true sportsman this afternoon.”
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First Points Finish for McLaren for 2015
With Jenson Button finishing the Monaco Grand Prix in 8th position, the McLaren F1 team together with engine partner Honda have picked up their first points of the 2015 season.
McLaren racing director Eric Boullier has called it “a hugely positive step for the whole team” but he remains cautiously optimistic and says that there is still lots of progress to be made.
“Today, thanks to Jenson’s eighth place, our renewed McLaren-Honda partnership was rewarded with its first world championship points – a result that underlines that steady improvement,” said Boullier.
“Okay, we’ve now squirrelled away four world championship points, but, although Jenson drove very well, we won’t waste time celebrating that milestone,” he continued.
“Yes, it’s encouraging, but our ambitions run to far greater heights than eighth places. And we’ll achieve them, believe me.”
Button said that he quite enjoyed the race today, although it was very tough physically, it was enjoyable out there for him. He was also very happy that he was able to secure McLaren’s first points of the season.
“It’s been a positive day for us. We were hoping to score a point today, and we scored four. I certainly didn’t expect to finish eighth,” commented Button after the race
“At the start I lost a position to Nico [Hulkenberg], but got it back by going around the outside of him at Turn Three on the first lap, which was good fun. Once I got past Pastor [Maldonado], my race was basically about turning quali lap after quali lap: it was flat-out.
“That was tough – in fact it was pretty physical out there – but I really enjoyed it.
“I’m really happy for the team – we’ve worked hard to get into this position, and they deserve this. We have work to do, but this is a hugely positive step for us.”
Photo by courtesy Pirelli
