Kunal's F1 Blog. Author Kunal Shah May 29, Facebook Notice for EU! You need to login to view and post FB Comments! Cancel Reply. Rajesh Kankavlikar says:. May 29, pm. Sudipta Kumar Gogoi says:. May 30, am. Murari Kadam says:. Kunal Shah says:. We await the lights Lap 1: The five red lights go out and we are racing in Monaco! Lap 1: Vettel drops the hammer Button is alongside but doesn't make it.
Vettel leads from Button and Alonso into Ste. Lap 2: Schumacher made a shocking start but nails Hamilton into the old Loews hairpin to take ninth place on the opening lap. Lap 2: Vettel has a 2. Lap 2: Alonso is right on the gearbox of Button's McLaren, with Vettel comfortably clearing off up front. Lap 2: A remarkable move there from Schumacher. Hamilton is down in 10th with Barrichello 11th, di Resta 12th and Kobayashi 13th.
Lap 4: DRS is now available to the drivers, but there isn't likely to be much successful use of the rear wing system down into the first corner.
Lap 4: Replays show another storming start from Alonso in the Ferrari, who easily cleared Webber and was even looking to challenge Button. Lap 5: Hamilton is chasing Schumacher with his harder tyres, but he is losing two seconds per lap to the leaders at the moment. Lap 5: Massa is also harrying the car in front - Rosberg - who was lucky to clear his slow-starting team-mate off the line.
Lap 6: Hamilton is staying under the rear wing of Schumacher's Mercedes, as they continue to battle for ninth. Lap 6: Barrichello is 1. Lap 7: Hamilton gets a great drive out of Ste. Devote and pulls right up to the gearbox of Schumacher, but there is no way through. Lap 7: Vettel's lead remains a comfortable 4.
Lap 8: A gap is developing as Petrov in eighth pulls away from these two. Hamilton again has good speed on the start-finish straight but the wily Schumacher just eases over a touch to maintain track position. Lap 9: Hamilton gets another chance on the pit straight, but he is not close enough this time round. Lap 9: Schumacher reports on the team radio that he can feel his rear tyres graining up. Lap 9: Alonso takes away the fastest lap from Vettel but remains over a second behind Button's McLaren.
Lap 9: Button's pace has been good in recent laps, matching leader Vettel in the mid 1m19s bracket. Lap Hamilton sends one up the inside of Schumacher at Ste. Devote and sheer belief and commitment takes him through and into ninth position. Lap A great move from the McLaren driver. Schumacher began to turn in and the pair made very light contact, but both got through and continue. Lap So Hamilton now has a 5. Lap Meantime, Schumacher is now left to fend off the advances of Rubens Barrichello - that could be interesting.
Lap Rosberg also seems to be struggling for speed on his tyres at this stage, with Massa, Maldonado and Petrov all forming a train behind. Lap Barrichello is on Schumacher's gearbox through Rascasse but the German is able to pull away in the early part of the pit straight. Lap Barrichello doesn't give up and makes a move up the inside of the Mirabeau Lap The lead gap is down slightly to 4.
Lap Schumacher pits from 11th and the team is replacing the front wing. Lap Hamilton is charging up to that train behind Rosberg and is now just over a second behind them. Lap Schumacher rejoins in 21st position and will face a very hard afternoon from there. Lap Massa is virtually pushing Rosberg around the circuit but is yet to find a way past the German's Mercedes. Lap Massa clips the Mercedes with his front wing heading up the hill from Ste Devote, but there was no chance of a move there.
Lap Barrichello is 10th and after Schumacher's stop di Resta is up to 11th with Kobayashi 12th, Sutil 13th, Heidfeld 14th and Buemi 15th. Lap Massa sends a remarkable move at Tabac and he is through! Lap Schumacher in 21st is 6. Lap Maldonado snuck past Rosberg as well, leaving Petrov now chasing after the Mercedes. Lap Button pits, as Hamilton dives past Rosberg into the chicane.
Lap Button resumes on another set of super soft rubber in fourth place on the road. Lap Rosberg admits defeat and pits his Mercedes. Lap Button has resumed in clear air ahead of Massa and is looking to get an undercut on the leader. Lap There is total confusion at Red Bull as Webber pits as well and they scramble to find the right tyres.
Lap Rosberg has rejoined in 19th position and Schumacher has closed to within 1. Lap Vettel is back underway but he is now behind Button on the road after some disastrous pit work at Red Bull. Lap Alonso reacts with his own stop in the Ferrari.
Lap Barrichello moves still further up the list in the pitstop phase to eighth, with di Resta ninth, Kobayashi 10th and Sutil in 11th place. Lap Vettel is now down to second after that bungled pitstop, but Vettel is on the harder tyre while button opted for super softs.
Lap Alonso wasn't quite able to make it past the slowed Vettel and is third on the road, also on the harder tyres. Lap Heidfeld is 12th with Buemi 13th, Webber currently 14th after his stop, Trulli 15th and doing well with Alguersuari on his tail in 16th.
Lap Button sets the fastest lap as he pushes on to a lead of 6. Lap Behind the top three, Massa is the first man yet to stop, chased by Maldonado, Petrov and Hamilton.
Lap Barrichello is 4. Lap Button continues to eke out his advantage as he finds promising speed from the super soft rubber at this stage. Lap Kovalainen pits from 17th in the Lotus. He was just 3. Lap Hamilton is all over the gearbox of Petrov's Renault but is yet to find a way through. Lap Di Resta pits the Force India from ninth place. Lap Petrov is wide out of the first corner but it's just too tight for Hamilton to capitalise up the hill into Casino Square.
Lap Schumacher has passed d'Ambrosio for what is now 19th place after Kovalainen's stop. Schumacher is now less than one second behind his team-mate Rosberg.
Lap Rosberg is all over the gearbox of Glock's Virgin, as they fight for 17th. Lap Button's advantage is up to 9. Lap Rosberg is not able to pass the Virgin into Ste. Devote and the three of them are together. Just ahead of this three-car scrap is di Resta. Lap Once again it is a late call and Hamilton surprises the McLaren mechanics with his visit.
Lap Hamilton resumes on super soft rubber in a lowly 15th place. Lap Glock pits the Virgin and that releases the two Mercedes drivers into some free air. They are 6. Lap Trulli pits from 13th place and that releases Hamilton into some clear space. Lap Trulli has done well to keep Alguersuari behind him in the opening stint of the race, as di Resta has a go at Alguersuari and it all goes wrong. Lap Maldonado is in for his first stop of the afternoon, resuming behind Hamilton on prime tyres.
Lap Di Resta tried to pass the Toro Rosso up the inside at the old Loews hairpin, but the Spaniard turned in and they made contact. Lap Massa is in for his first stop from fourth. Lap Massa resumes on the harder tyres - in between Webber and Hamilton. Lap Di Resta has damage to the front wing of his Force India but has continued on. Now he is given a drive-through penalty for causing a collision.
Lap The Mercedes drivers have closed up to 1. Lap Button leads by The McLaren man lost some time on that lap passing heavy traffic. Lap Massa is 11th and Hamilton has caught him easily. The Briton is looking for a way round the Ferrari.
Lap Petrov dives into the pits for his stop. He takes prime compound rubber and resumes behind the scrap between Massa and Hamilton. Lap Barrichello is now up to fourth, but is yet to stop and is almost a minute behind leader Button. Lap Maldonado has rejoined in 12th place so that is track position gained for Hamilton in the stops.
Lap Kobayashi, Sutil, Heidfeld and Buemi are all looking at a one-stop plan and are yet to visit the pits. Lap Schumacher sends a move up the inside of Rosberg at the hairpin and makes it through to 14th.
Petrov is next man up the road in 13th, some five seconds away. Lap Button has picked up his speed again as he pulls back to over 14 seconds clear of Vettel. Lap Buemi is up to eighth and holding up the drivers that have stopped. Webber, Massa and Hamilton are all nose-to-tail behind the Swiss. Lap Remarkably, Button is quickly closing on his team-mate to lap him as Hamilton is slowed by this train behind Buemi.
Lap Just ahead of this train is Barrichello, who is fourth but a massive 50 seconds behind the leader. Kobayashi is fifth with Sutil sixth and Heidfeld seventh. Lap Timo Glock pulls off the track with what appears to be suspension damage on the Virgin. Lap Leader Button is in and takes another set of super soft rubber. Lap Di Resta pits for his second tyre stop of the afternoon, as Hamilton tries to pass Massa at the hairpin.
Lap The pair made contact and Massa sustained front wing damage. He has since crashed and is out of the race. Lap Vettel does not opt to pit, while Alonso is in for fresh rubber. Lap Schumacher has stopped on track as Massa climbs out of his crashed Ferrari at the chicane. Lap Schumacher is pushed into the pitlane by a team of marshals with no drive. Lap Heidfeld, Buemi, Rosberg and Liuzzi all react with stops.
Lap Replays show that Schumacher just lost drive coming out of La Rascasse. He is out of the race. Lap Further replays show what happened between Hamilton and Massa.
They battled at the hairpin, made contact but Massa held track position. Lap Hamilton then tried again and pulled off an unbelievable move up the inside as they went through the tunnel. Lap Vettel leads behind the safety car from Button and Alonso. Given that Red Bull was bound to respond, there still was no way Button was going to jump ahead, and neither Vettel nor his crew should have been under any undue pressure for what should have been a very routine covering operation.
But that's where it all went wrong. For reasons the team couldn't explain in the immediate aftermath, the request to fit supersoft tyres, to shadow what Button was doing, didn't get through to the pit crew. Communications are more complicated at Monaco than anywhere else for the simple reason that the engineers on the pit stand are in the building above the garage rather than on the pit wall as at every race, from where they can simply turn round and see what's happening.
That didn't help in this situation, and McLaren had an even more costly faux pas with Hamilton later in the race, when no tyres were ready when he came in. In the confusion the stop had dragged out. He spent 3. When he emerged Button had blasted past, having also banged in a superb out lap on his fresh ex-qualifying supersofts.
On lap 14 Vettel had been 3. By the time he completed lap 17, the first out of the pits on the less favourable softs, he was 4. A remarkable turnaround, and a massive headache for Red Bull. It wasn't even a case of switching to Plan B or C, this was something totally unexpected, and which set the team strategists scrambling.
The only positive was that having used both tyres Vettel could — in theory — now get to the finish without another stop. Initially it looked like an impossible ask, given that the tyres would have to do 62 laps, way, way more than anyone in the paddock had anticipated. The only real hope was that if some safety car interludes calmed things down, there was a tiny chance that he could do it.
Vettel couldn't allow Button to get far enough ahead so that the McLaren could make a second stop and come out still in front. If he did that and put on the softs, it would be game over — they would now be on the same tyres, both in a position to get to the end, but Jenson's would have been that much fresher. For a while, it looked like Button might do it.
By lap 26 the gap was as high as But then traffic began to trip him up, and with his supersofts past their best, he couldn't make any more progress. Crucially Vettel hung in there, keeping the margin at s. This was a tricky one for McLaren, as Button had lost momentum. They team had to do something, choosing to bring him in on lap They knew he would come out still behind Vettel, but it was a question of either a putting him onto softs and creating a potential race to the flag with Button on tyres that were 17 laps younger, or b taking another set of supersofts and giving their man some pace and overtaking potential.
With the latter strategy Button would have to stop again for softs and he was relying pretty much on Vettel having to make another step, even though he didn't have to. In the end McLaren went for Plan A. And no sooner had he made the stop than the safety car came out after Felipe Massa crashed his Ferrari in the tunnel. This was a fascinating development. It was crunch time for Vettel — he could pit under the safety car, and drop back behind Button, or stay out and try to get the tyres to the end.
There were still some 44 laps to run, and it looked like a daunting task, but he chose to roll the dice and stay out. Button meanwhile was behind him the safety car queue, albeit with lapped cars in the way preventing him from being in a position to immediately attack Vettel at the restart. By lap 41, just three laps after the green, Button was right on the Red Bull's tail. This was truly fascinating stuff. Button could push because he could use up those tyres.
Indeed he had to go for it, because he had to find a way to squeeze in a stop for soft tyres, and that meant getting past Vettel. Vettel meanwhile just had to focus on the long game and somehow stay ahead while preserving his tyres.
So we were trying hard to get that, and trying hard to find a way through. However, Button couldn't find a way by. Meanwhile McLaren's attention had by now been diverted to Alonso.
Ferrari had made a great call under the Massa safety car. Having watched Button take the supersofts on lap 34 the team put Alonso onto softs on the basis that a 44 lap run to the finish was feasible. It was clear also that at least the first few laps would be run under safety car conditions, which would give the tyres a little extra respite. With Button stuck behind Vettel, Fernando was closing in. Button had to stop and drop behind Alonso at some stage, and McLaren brought him in for softs on lap 48, after he'd run laps on his three sets of supersofts.
Thus at the end of lap 49, Jenson's out lap on the new tyres, Vettel was 5. Now it was simply a question of the maths, with everyone's tyres losing performance by the lap. Vettel's were 33 laps old, Alonso's had done 15, and Button's just the one. Vettel knew that the others would catch him, and he really had to use his head. It was pointless to go flat out — he had to keep some life in the tyres and save some performance for when his rivals appeared in his mirrors.
0コメント