Formula One held the biggest race of the season and their final race in Europe before heading to North American for the Canadian Grand Prix. Monaco is a circuit covered in history and prestige and remains highly regarded as a legendary circuit, holding a place in the Triple Crown of Motorsport.
The weekend started a little earlier than usual, with the first two practice sessions taking place on Thursday instead of Friday. The day was overshadowed by a strange incident involving the McLaren of Jenson Button, which was struck by a dislodged manhole cover. Luckily, Button was uninjured, but it brought safety concerns to the eyes of the event organizers. In terms of the sessions, Mercedes started strong, topping the charts during the first session, but then being overtaken by Daniel Ricciardo in the next session. The Ferrari lap times dropped in free practice two. Red Bull and Toro Rosso showed their classic Red Bull Monaco pace, ranking within the top two.
With a day off, the drivers returned to action on Saturday. Sebastian Vettel led the first session of the day, beating out the Mercedes drivers, while Kimi Räikkönen continued to struggle near the bottom half of the top ten. The two Red Bull teams continued their strong performance. Ricciardo swapped the lead with Vettel during qualifying, with Vettel dropping down to be the bottom slice of the bread in the Mercedes sandwich. Meanwhile, Räikkönen took a five place grid penalty for a gearbox change, topping him out of the top ten of the grid. Nico Hülkenberg found some pace in the Force India, rising from out of the top ten into P5 for the start on Sunday. Felipe Nasr failed to set a lap time during qualifying, hindered by issues. Coming from a race victory in Spain, Max Verstappen didn’t have the qualifying session that he was hoping for, crashing early in the session.
The race started behind the safety car, as rain came into the mix. Early issues for Daniil Kvyat’s car put him multiple laps behind the leader while he pitted for repairs. After seven laps behind the safety car, the race finally began. Only a few laps in, Jolyon Palmer’s day came to a premature end, as he lost the rear of the car on a zebra crossing and slammed into the barrier. The virtual safety car was deployed while the safety crews removed the debris. Räikkönen hit the barrier in the hairpin a few laps later, damaging his front wing. The following corner he was rear ended by Felipe Massa and ran wide, blocking Romain Grosjean. Daniel Ricciardo built up a lead and left the Mercedes teammates to battle for second position. Hamilton was faster than his teammate and Rosberg had a brake issue according to the team and allowed Hamilton to pass. Once Hamilton got past, he was able to put his foot down and quickly close the gap, as drivers began to trickle into the pits to fit the intermediate tyres to their car. Kevin Magnussen and Carlos Sainz had a collision in the last sector, as Sainz dove up the inside and ran the pair wide into the barriers. Hamilton took the lead of the race when Ricciardo pitted for intermediate tyres. Hamilton stayed out of the pits on the wet tyres and that allowed Ricciardo to catch up on the faster tyre. Hamilton finally pitted for the ultrasoft tyres on lap 32 and his teammate shadowed him. The pit lane became busy while teams made the switch to the slick tyres. Red Bull made a critical mistake when Ricciardo pitted and the tyres weren’t ready. The car was stationary for over 13 seconds while the mechanics rushed to get the tyres from the garage. The virtual safety car was used again when Max Verstappen suffered a second crash in the weekend, locking up and slamming the car into the barrier. After a heated discussion on the radio, the Sauber teammates were instructed to swap positions. Ericsson couldn’t wait and tried to overtake on the inside of the last two corners, causing a crash between the teammates. With ten laps remaining in the race, the virtual safety car was deployed for a large tarp that had made its way onto the track. At the end of the race, Ricciardo was unable to overtake Hamilton for the race victory. Sergio Pérez gave Force India a podium, as a bit of late rain in the race started to dampen the track.
Formula One will make a brief stop in North America for the Canadian Grand Prix before heading back to Europe for a long list of races. The teams will be at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal on the weekend of June 12.
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