Monaco: post-race analysis 2019

Well, I’d hoped for a race more exciting than last year, and we had it. For a third of the race.

At the start, Bottas did well to keep off a charging Verstappen and Ricciardo slipped past Magnussen for best of the rest. Further down the order, Leclerc immediately made up a place.

In the opening laps Leclerc performed a few more passes, but when trying to overtake Hulkenberg he appears to have clipped a barrier and spun himself, possibly lightly colliding with the German. This caused a puncture on the Ferrari and Leclerc returned to the pits too quickly (Hulkenberg also pitting, ahead of him). The tyre shredded and whipped his bodywork like a dominatrix armed with a flail and PMS. Debris was spread, Leclerc was last, and the safety car emerged.

Ricciardo and Magnussen, best of the rest, pitted. Almost no-one else did. Hulkenberg, who had changed tyres just beforehand, was buggered, ending up almost as far down the order as Leclerc. The Aussie and Dane were stuck behind Raikkonen. And the Finn was going to have a long, long first stint.

The top quartet pitted, Bottas holding things up a bit to avoid a delay in the Mercedes pit box. This had unforeseen consequences. Red Bull performed an unsafe release on Verstappen, who hit Bottas’ car lightly and passed him in the pit lane. The contact caused Mercedes to put Bottas, swapping his tyres (I think medium at this stage) for the hard compound. Red Bull got a 5s time penalty.

Hamilton was on medium tyres, and spent the next 60 laps or so complaining about it. The three chaps behind him (Verstappen, Vettel, Bottas, in track order) were all on hard tyres. Verstappen, with his time penalty, pushed hard to pass Hamilton. And couldn’t. One of the best drivers, in a car that was clearly faster (seconds a lap) couldn’t get past. That’s why Monaco is a rubbish circuit.

Late on, Gasly was pitted (he far enough ahead of the field to retain his place) for fresh tyres, enabling him to attain the fastest lap and the bonus point that goes with it.

The Toro Rossos benefited from sensible strategy, staying out long, as did Grosjean. All three were helped by Ricciardo/Magnussen getting trapped behind Raikkonen (because circuits where you can’t pass are just wonderful). But the best of the rest was Sainz (I do think he’s particularly good on street circuits).

Once the penalties had shaken out (Grosjean got one which lost him a place to Ricciardo and, further down the order, so did Magnussen), we had Hamilton winning, Vettel 2^nd and Bottas 3^rd. Verstappen was 4^th and Gasly 5^th. Kind of a mixed bag for everyone, except Hamilton, of course.

Leclerc ended up boxing and retiring, as he’d flayed his car too much. A rough weekend for him, but his reaction to the situation did not improve it.

Sainz was 6^th, a very solid result for McLaren in their tight midfield contest with various teams. Norris was 11^th, which is a bit unlucky, but overall very good for them. Kvyat and Albon were 7^th and 8^th for a good result for Toro Rosso (and half the top eight were in Honda-powered cars).

Ricciardo ended up 9^th. Perhaps rough to criticise the Renault strategy error because you can’t be sure what others will do and the situation was fluid, but trapping him behind Raikkonen probably cost him the best of the rest position. Grosjean got 10^th, for the second race in a row. Ok for him but Haas will, like Renault, be disappointed that their strategy call compromised the performance of one of their drivers (Magnussen, of course, in this case).

Before the race started it was reckoned there was a 90% chance of rain. There was no rain worth mentioning. A shame, as the initial third of the race was quite interesting, and a downpour would’ve made the race rather good. As it happened, things lapsed into processional tedium.

My bet failed, of course. Hulkenberg was a bit unlucky with both the Leclerc attempt and the timing of his pit stop. Mildly annoyed I considered the Leclerc DNF bet and didn’t go for it, but it’s no skill to predict results in hindsight.

On the plus side, this is one more (about 15 or so left to go) towards Hamilton beating Schumacher’s win record, which I backed and tipped at about 9.

Drivers:
Hamilton 137

Bottas 120

Vettel 82

Verstappen 78

Leclerc 57

He moaned a lot but this is a tasty result for Hamilton, stretching his lead over his porridge-fuelled team mate to the greatest extent it’s been this season. The rest are all more than a win away, and frankly looked to be little threat (Verstappen was competitive today but I don’t expect him to be able to fight for the win, on pace, at most circuits this year). Ferrari look like they’ve lost another season. They might want to spend the time thinking about basic strategy.

Constructors’:

Mercedes 257

Ferrari 139

Red Bull 110

McLaren 30

Racing Point 17

Toro Rosso 16

Haas 16

Renault 14

Alfa Romeo 13

Williams 0

Half the teams are covered by just 4 points. McLaren are currently best of the rest but they’ll have to work hard to stay there, given how competitive the midfield is (alas, makes Williams look all the more tragic). At the sharp end, it looks like another Mercedes year, but Red Bull do stand a chance of overtaking Ferrari if the Prancing Horse doesn’t get its act together.

The next race, excitingly, is held on a circuit that is both fast and enables overtaking. We might see cars passing one another on track. Gosh. We’re off to Canada in a fortnight.

Morris Dancer