2018 Monaco Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, May 24-27

[sosic2121]

Norberto Fontana claimed after his retirement as a driver that Sauber (powered by Ferrari at the time) had instructed him to hold up Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 in Spain so that Michael Schumacher could catch and pass him.

At the same time, Williams and Mclaren had anti-ferrari deal(source Adrian Newey's book).

[drunkf1fan]

I can`t figure out how Vettel had lost this race, coz Ricci was 30km/h down at the end of the tunnel and Vettel couldn`t get near him not to mention pass him. The only reason I could see is that he was massively fuel managing bearing in mind we had no safety car ... I don`t think that crap excuse at the press conference when he said his front tyres were graining and he couldn`t get a good exit in Portier heading for the tunnel in order to have a good getaway ...

Vettel managing fuel wouldn’t be an issue. Go for 100% fuel flow for a few laps, gain track position and, especially with a limping car behind you, you could almost come to a stand still, save all the fuel you want.

Apparently, overtaking a car in Monaco that is brilliant under braking and super in/out of corners is very very difficult.

Plus, Vettel lost the championship last year by not seeing the big picture. Hamilton had a 100% finish score last year, taking a risk, especially when you already in front of him, is not done. I think we’ll have a very well behaved and calculating Vettel this year.

Overtaking a complete POS car with a car that has great brakes and traction is almost impossible here. I think I'm remembering a race in which Kovalainen in that terrible old Lotus held up Button in must have been a Mclaren for was it most of a Monaco race?


I think part of the issue for Vettel was they would probably have felt like Ricciardo's engine had a good chance of failing so maybe they held him back for say 25 laps waiting for Ricciardo to simply pit and retire, why risk an overtake. Then by the time they figured they would have to take the position as the mgu-k problem appeared manageable and not terminal for the rest of the engine at that point Ricciardo had superior tire condition to race on while Vettel's tires were close enough to shot that they weren't sure they could trust them to the end of the race let alone trying to dive late into a heavy braking zone.

But yeah, I also felt that last year was a big deal, picking up points rather than ending up in another Singapore like situation. If he makes contact with Ricciardo not only does he risk not finishing he all but hands Hamilton a win.

I still contend that Hamilton had very little to lose by pitting to hypers with 25 or so to go, before Ocon got within range, Bottas would move right over so at worst case he would finish 4th. Thing is he was first onto the tires, a fair amount before everyone else and because he was pushing the undercut he was pushing hard out of the pits so taking the most out of tires on the heaviest car. Everyone else came out in the same position and were safe to warm up the tires slowly. In other words Hamilton was potentially risking not finishing with the worst condition tires out of the top 6. So I think he's swapping a slightly risky 3rd for a certain minimum 4th. Then if the tires were good enough he certainly had a shot to pass Kimi and if that was possible he certainly had a good chance to get at Vettel.

If Ricciardo wasn't holding up Vettel, if he hadn't pitted so early then it wasn't a great idea but the risk of his tires failing and the ridiculous pace difference of hypers, I'm extremely disappointed they didn't even try, simply for the actual chance to have something interesting happen at the front in the final laps.

[zac510]

And who can forget Todt trotting down to some backmarker's prat perch to 'arrange' for Schumacher not to be held up when lapping them.

[falonso81]

By the way, the Strokin penalty is joke. They could never dare to give a penalty like that to top three. Terrible referees.

Indeed. Just for reference, ten years ago on this track Kimi got a drive through penalty for the same reason.

[zeph]

Mark Hughes explains why Vettel couldn’t overtake Ricciardo in his routinely excellent race report: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/repo ... rix-report

It was on lap 28, 12 laps into the second stint, 50 laps still to go when Ricciardo, just as he was thinking it was all under control, felt the sickening sudden loss of power. Not just a small reduction – but a full 160bhp. The ERS-k had failed. “Yes, we see the problem,” the team radioed. They could see the temperature of the unit had gone sky high.

The loss of power was alarming – but not immediately debilitating. Ricciardo was amazed that Vettel had not just immediately devoured him, but the Ferrari had problems of its own. Its front left was graining badly and in fact he locked up into the chicane as he tried to take advantage of the Red Bull’s problem.

[zac510]

Mark Hughes explains why Vettel couldn’t overtake Ricciardo in his routinely excellent race report: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/repo ... rix-report

It was on lap 28, 12 laps into the second stint, 50 laps still to go when Ricciardo, just as he was thinking it was all under control, felt the sickening sudden loss of power. Not just a small reduction – but a full 160bhp. The ERS-k had failed. “Yes, we see the problem,” the team radioed. They could see the temperature of the unit had gone sky high.

The loss of power was alarming – but not immediately debilitating. Ricciardo was amazed that Vettel had not just immediately devoured him, but the Ferrari had problems of its own. Its front left was graining badly and in fact he locked up into the chicane as he tried to take advantage of the Red Bull’s problem.

I suppose then from that point, the top teams were too afraid to be the only one to pit twice and finish 5th. It's a shame we didn't end up with a Singapore 2016 last minute strategy change/dash to the line. Vettel pitting twice could have triggered a chain reaction of the top 5 (except RIC) pitting.

Anyway no track is immune to a bad race so blaming Monaco's layout is only a small part of the problem.

[drunkf1fan]

The difference in speed on the hypers and the well, fairly long time they had a very safe window to Hulk before his stop and then Ocon meant they could burn it out on the out lap. Whoever pit first would have made certain no one else pitted tbh. There were times where that window back to Ocon and Hamilton was ranging between 3-6 seconds back from Ricciardo, if he pits then by the time anyone else did the undercut would have Hamilton ahead. Realistically either Vettel or Hamilton had the situation in which they had a team mate who would move over and didn't stand to lose many positions, though for Vettel it was two overtakes to get back to where he was, for Hamilton just the one. Would have been great to see one of them pit, even if it failed we'd have seen a fast guy at least attempting an overtake. I was so disappointed that even without much chance of an overtake and despite being within half a second at times we never even saw Vettel shape up for a dive up the inside somewhere then deciding against it.

I think Hamilton needing only one pass to get back to where he was (excluding his team mate) and that he had the oldest and worst tires really just made the race set up perfectly for him to have a go and yet Merc wimped out. They were thinking about it, they had tires at the ready to go last second but then they missed their window, Ocon got too close and they gave up on the idea.

[maxxer]

https://www.gpfans.com/en/articles/1548 ... in-monaco/

If this was made between Seb and Charles Leclerc… it would be talked for years.

The original article appears to claim that all team orders are illegal (which shows a slightly worrying grasp of F1) but, assuming it's accurate, this is pretty sad for the sport. Is it just Ocon? Or is it everyone who drives for Force India? I know there's always been suspicion but to have it confirmed and in such an offhand manner...

Does FIA have a sensor to this?

As far as I'm aware, there's no regulations about asking other teams to do stuff so equating the two would be a mistake.

If Ocon admits to doing this he should have a race ban as he is supposed to drive the car unassisted.

[Big Tea]

I can`t figure out how Vettel had lost this race, coz Ricci was 30km/h down at the end of the tunnel and Vettel couldn`t get near him not to mention pass him. The only reason I could see is that he was massively fuel managing bearing in mind we had no safety car ... I don`t think that crap excuse at the press conference when he said his front tyres were graining and he couldn`t get a good exit in Portier heading for the tunnel in order to have a good getaway ...

Maybe he decided to wait for a safety car, not realizing his tyres would not warm on the restart?

A car down on power is probably still not going to be easy to pass, so maybe he was just plain waiting for it to die.
I think Horner was very canny when giving interviews during the race as he would not even hint at what the problem was.

Seb and Ferrari knew there was a problem, but not what it was.

[TAG]

The media is so hypocritical it makes me want to vomit. What happened with the Mercedes and Force India is just lousy. The same media pundits accuse Ferrari of team orders without any proof and diss it like it's a sin. Here we have two teams colluding in a competitive environment and it's just fine. Shame!

You must feel horrible that Ferrari designs Haas' car over the winter for them.

[Restomaniac]

The media is so hypocritical it makes me want to vomit. What happened with the Mercedes and Force India is just lousy. The same media pundits accuse Ferrari of team orders without any proof and diss it like it's a sin. Here we have two teams colluding in a competitive environment and it's just fine. Shame!

You must feel horrible that Ferrari designs Haas' car over the winter for them.

As well as Sauber now being under the ‘Fiat Chrysler’ umbrella alongside Ferrari.

[siskue2005]

The media is so hypocritical it makes me want to vomit. What happened with the Mercedes and Force India is just lousy. The same media pundits accuse Ferrari of team orders without any proof and diss it like it's a sin. Here we have two teams colluding in a competitive environment and it's just fine. Shame!

You must feel horrible that Ferrari designs Haas' car over the winter for them.

Also don't forget how Ferrari have their
Aero personal in Haas and sauber now, so that they can increase their CFD and Wind tunnel usage time by 3 folds

[Andres125sx]

I haven't watched the race, but by the news, i guess i didn't loose a big show. Alonso even says that this was the most boring race ever. But i saw the hightlights of F2 race, and it was a nice race. Are the F1 cars, to big for the streets of Monaco?

In all honesty, no. It's not like they aren't able to take the corners, and overtaking was not hindered by the size as Verstappen duly showed.

Running in dirty air is the primary concern.

Sorry Turbo, but you can´t take the fastest car starting from the bottom of the grid as a reference for overtaking posibilities.

He finished 9th, behind Renault wich is more than a second slower, but couldn´t pass.

To me Monaco is boring to the point I fast forwarded most part of the race. Looking a sucession of cars lapping around 2-3 seconds slower than the could do because none can overtake so they don´t need to assume any risk is a gimmick

That is Monaco today, a gimmick

[Vasconia]

I haven't watched the race, but by the news, i guess i didn't loose a big show. Alonso even says that this was the most boring race ever. But i saw the hightlights of F2 race, and it was a nice race. Are the F1 cars, to big for the streets of Monaco?

In all honesty, no. It's not like they aren't able to take the corners, and overtaking was not hindered by the size as Verstappen duly showed.

Running in dirty air is the primary concern.

Sorry Turbo, but you can´t take the fastest car starting from the bottom of the grid as a reference for overtaking posibilities.

He finished 9th, behind Renault wich is more than a second slower, but couldn´t pass.

To me Monaco is boring to the point I fast forwarded most part of the race. Looking a sucession of cars lapping around 2-3 seconds slower than the could do because none can overtake so they don´t need to assume any risk is a gimmick

That is Monaco today, a gimmick

People like Hamilton and Alonso tend to complain a lot about Monaco but they remained silent when they were leading this race back in time. Monaco has been boring since…….I don´t know.

Anyway, this trend to drive as slow as possible became quite notorius in 2013 if I am not wrong, when Rosberg followed this strategy and won the race. From that race Monaco has always been "drive as slow as you can to win" more than ever. In my opinion it should be mandatory to do two stops, so the drivers would not have excuses to drive faster, and consecualy make more mistakes which would make the race more interesting.

[Vasconia]

Mark Hughes explains why Vettel couldn’t overtake Ricciardo in his routinely excellent race report: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/repo ... rix-report

It was on lap 28, 12 laps into the second stint, 50 laps still to go when Ricciardo, just as he was thinking it was all under control, felt the sickening sudden loss of power. Not just a small reduction – but a full 160bhp. The ERS-k had failed. “Yes, we see the problem,” the team radioed. They could see the temperature of the unit had gone sky high.

The loss of power was alarming – but not immediately debilitating. Ricciardo was amazed that Vettel had not just immediately devoured him, but the Ferrari had problems of its own. Its front left was graining badly and in fact he locked up into the chicane as he tried to take advantage of the Red Bull’s problem.

Vettel reported that the car had managed the tyres very badly. What is happening with Ferrari and they tyres?. When the season started they could manage the tyres decently, but now they are one of the worst.