Ferrari stamped authority with 1-2 finish in Monaco GP

If there was any doubt that Ferrari is faster than Mercedes, it was put to rest on Sunday following Sebastian Vettel’s convincing win over his teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, and the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and Valterri Bottas at Monte Carlo.

Hamilton may have won the Spanish Grand Prix but that was not down to being the faster driver, but rather the application of a strategy that went his way when Bottas was able to hold Vettel for precious seconds which ultimately cost the German the race.

Monaco was a different proposition altogether for Vettel and Hamilton. To begin with, Raikkonen took an unexpected pole and Hamilton, with his car’s settings having been problematic the entire weekend, only managed 14th.

Of interest to note is that Bottas qualified in third position, 0.002 seconds behind Vettel, which means that the Ferrari and Merc took to the flying lap in virtually identical fashion.

A difference of two-thousandth of a second means that if the timer was like your mobile phone or digital wrist watch counter with two decimal places, the two would have had identical times.

During the formation lap, McLaren Honda’s Fernando Alonso spoke to former world champion Jenson Button, telling him to take care of his car. The Spaniard spoke from Indianapolis in the US where he was making a go at winning the Indy 500 at his first attempt. Would Button obey the ‘order’?

Finn Kimi Raikkonen made a brilliant start, giving Vettel no chance to overtake him before the first corner and maintained the lead for almost half the race in the tight street circuit.

By the twelfth lap of the race, Hamilton was in 12th position but more than a pit-stop behind the leader.

Less than halfway into the race, Raikkonen began hauling over the backmarkers, which raised the possibility that the Ferrari could eventually catch Hamilton’s Mercedes before the end of the race.

It was not all going according to plan for Button who was last for a significant part of the race. Pit-stop strategy was going to be critical in this race, despite the fact that most teams only needed to pit once.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who had seemed stuck behind Bottas went into the pits on the 33rd lap, seeking the undercut against the Merc.

The German team responded by bringing in Bottas in the next lap, and by doing that, kept the Merc just ahead of the Red Bull.

Pitting early by the two turned out to be the short end of the stick as Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo would prove few laps later.

Ricciardo stayed out for six laps more than his teammate and on exiting the pit-stop, came out well ahead of Bottas and Verstappen, much to the chagrin of the Dutch driver who in trying to overtake Bottas, lost a position to his teammate and the chance to finish on the podium.

Raikkonen also suffered the same fate as Verstappen, with Vettel executing an overcut by pitting four laps later which saw the German emerge in front of his teammate further fueling the debate that the four-time champion is the ‘special one’ at the Ferrari stable.

Despite a safety car period late in the race, the German duly won his third race of the season and 45th of his career opening a 25-point gap on Hamilton.

The win ended the 130-race drought of a Ferrari one-two. As for Button, he failed to follow Alonso’s advice.

Not only did he plough into Sauber’s Pascal Wehrlein causing the Sauber to end up on its side against the barriers, but he also failed to finish the race courtesy of a damaged car.

He was penalized for his uncharacteristic error. Second for Raikkonen was visibly disappointing, Ricciardo was third while Hamilton came in seventh. Over to Canada.