Time for a Party in Monaco, 2013

It wasn’t the most exciting race this year by a longshot, and even be Monte Carlo’s standards, it wasn’t amazing. It’s always a bit different due to the nature of the track and while there were a lot of cars bunched up, it was very slow. Once again, overshadowing the whole weekend was the issue of tyres and testing.

Rosberg’s Time to Shine

The worry coming into this race was the Mercedes would qualify on pole, which they did, but fall back during the race with excessive tyre wear. The tyre test is another factor to consider a bit later but with it being so hard to overtake, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton had to be feeling reasonably confident. In the end, Rosberg controlled the race perfectly, even pulling away from the Red Bulls who did not seem to be on the pace this round. We didn’t see much of Rosberg as a result, there were too many things happening elsewhere but it was a great drive to win in Monaco. This will be a massive boost to the team.

Hamilton could have easily had second this time, and a one-two for the team would have been great. A mistake with the timing of his pit stop during the safety car period dropped him behind the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. He openly admitted after the race it was his fault.

The Overtakes

It is almost impossible to overtake on track at Monaco, and any opportunities are not always taken because the smallest mistake will lead to the barriers and the end of the race – not just for the ones involved in the overtake. This year, we saw some daring moves, most notably from Sergio Perez and Adrian Sutil. Sutil made some great moves at the hairpin, passing Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso without incident. It was daring and you have to say that since his return this year, the Force India driver has been on great form.

Perez made his moves just after the tunnel, and while bold and daring, I’m not sure they were great moves. Each time, he forced the other driver off of the track to avoid a collision, and with Fernando and Button, it’s what they did. They wanted to finish the race but it wasn’t a great way to do it. Unfortunately, not all drivers are like that, and Kimi Raikkonen basically said no. The move was late this time, but Kimi left no space but there were nowhere to go. Perez retired later in the race and Kimi dropped way back, managing to finish 10^th.

Tyre Testing

After the last race in Barcelona, there was a three day tyre test with Mercedes. It’s been called a secret test and teams have been protesting (most notably Red Bull and Ferrari) but what does this mean?

The track was booked openly by Pirelli, and Mercedes asked to take part. Reports say that other teams were spoken to but that’s all we know. Current cars and current drivers on UNKNOWN compounds. While the team will have an idea of what was going on and with who, they were not told what each compound was for so it wasn’t going to be a massive benefit. On top of that, 1,000Km over three days between the two cars so not a massive amount of testing really, and yes, they may come across a compound next year or even later this year they’ve raced on but they can’t set a car up precisely for that compound, and next year the cars change anyway. Like I said, there will always be something the teams can take but in the time between races, how much could have been put to use? It will be interesting what the FIA does about this.

Summary

There were some great drives in Monaco, controlling themselves perfectly to get the best result. Well done to Rosberg and hopefully this will be an upturn in performance for his team which will help put up a bigger fight for the championship. Button drove a solid race and McLaren do seem to be turning it around, whereas Alonso just didn’t seem to have an answer for anything this weekend. That will be worrying given the Ferrari team’s form this year so far. On another note, big crashes from Felipe Massa and Pastor Maldonado this time out as well. Both seem to be okay but hopefully they will be back to their old racing selves next time as they are great drives and it’s never nice to see problems like that.

Results

1 – N. Rosberg (Mercedes)

2 – S. Vettel (Red Bull)

3 – M. Webber (Red bull)

4 – L. Hamilton (Mercedes)

 

5 – A. Sutil (Force India)

6 – J. Button (McLaren)

7 – F. Alonso (Ferrari)

8 – J. E. Vergne (Toro Rosso)

9 – P. Di Resta (Force India)

10 – K. Raikkonen (Lotus)

11 – N. Hulkenberg (Sauber)

12 – V. Bottas (Williams)

13 – E. Gutierrez (Sauber)

14 – M. Chilton (Marussia)

15 – G. van der Garde (Caterham)

16 – S. Perez (McLaren) – DNF

17 – R. Grosjean (Lotus) – DNF

18 – D. Ricciardo (Toro Rosso) – DNF

19 – J. Bianchi (Marussia) – DNF

20 – P. Maldonado (Williams) – DNF

21 – F. Massa (Ferarri) – DNF

22 – C. Pic (Caterham) – DNF