Today's race in the principality was exciting, but, still didn't fill people's expectations, I'm sure many expected better fights for points and more emotions, at the end, I think the accidents and retirements is what made the race exciting and not the fights themselves.
Once again, the race was painted silver and turquoise. Again, Mercedes filled the top two positions, this time, with the German Nico Rosberg taking a win that he had almost assured after securing pole position on Saturday and a win that was predicted by many given Nico's talent to drive there.
Although many could call this an unfair win for Nico after the controversy of the mistake Nico did in qualifying that didn't allow his teammate Hamilton to make another flying lap, I share Toto Wolff's point of view saying that it was only a mistake and "it was all bulls***"
Lewis Hamilton arrived in second place, after being as close as 0.4 seconds behind Rosberg in several occasions and then holding off a Daniel Ricciardo that attacked him on the closing stages of the race, following Lewis' drop of the pace caused by his sight being blocked by something he got in his eye.
Behind the two Silver Arrows, arrived the Aussie Daniel Ricciardo, a man that just keeps achieving, going further, getting better and gaining experience. It was Daniel's second consecutive podium and second for him in the season. He lost his 3rd starting position to Kimi Räikkönen at the start but held himself comfortable behind him in P4, which eventually allowed him to get back to P3 following Kimi's problems in the pits (I'll speak with more detail about it further in the blog).
But he would have enough with P3 as he stepped up and gave Hamilton a run for P2 following the Briton's struggles but, in the end, I think he wasn't aggressive enough and lost the fight to Lewis.
In the other side of Red Bull's garage, Sebastian Vettel had a nightmare race struggling with gearbox problems and not being able to run even 25 laps.
With this result, Ricciardo once again confirms his superiority over Vettel as the German is still having problems to understand the car.
For Ferrari, Fernando Alonso arrived P4, 20 seconds behind Ricciardo. Alonso initially made a bad start, losing out fifth place to his teammate Kimi Räikkönen and falling back to sixth, he evolved to fifth after Seb retired and stepped up to fourth after Kimi's struggles in pits.
The Spaniard only gained one position from his initial starting position in fifth, a gain that was caused by Vettel's retirement and Kimi's bad luck today and I don't think he made that much of a good race.
For Kimi Räikkönen, the Finn made a superb start, starting from his sixth position, overtaking teammate Fernando Alonso and both Red Bulls to put himself in P3. A second podium this season for Ferrari seemed close. Kimi held that position through the fist three laps' safety car and then in a comfortable 3 second lead over Ricciardo. He would hold that position until the next safety car, in lap 27. Kimi didn't lose any time on the first stop under that safety car but later in that lap, he suffered a puncture caused by contact with a Marussia, possibly Max Chilton, and was forced to put again, which pushed him from third place to thirteenth.
He spent the next laps doing his best, battling through the field to get back to the points, which eventually he would do, following his overtake on Kobayashi, Massa's pit stop and Vergne's and Bottas' retirements.
After this he got himself in a fight for P5 with Hulkenberg (on P5), Magnussen (P6) and Button (P7). It became difficult for Kimi to overtake them as he had to let pass Hamilton and Ricciardo.
Then, on lap 74, Jenson Button made his move and overtook his teammate Kevin Magnussen for P6, following that move, Kimi tried to overtake Kevin as well on the Casino Hairpin but failed in the move and ended in the wall, as Magnussen did too.
'The Iceman' didn't retire but he and Magnussen suffered damage on their front wings and were forced to pit, Kevin came back on P10 and Kimi in P12, neither one of them would be able to move from their positions and they'd finish that way. Kimi's new set of tyres allowed him to set the fastest lap of the race.
This race for Kimi could've been fantastic, he was doing a great job until his puncture, then he just went down. It was a good performance from him while it lasted. He's race was screwed by an unfortunate situation. It's clear he deserved more than what he achieved.
Behind Alonso, on P5, arrived Force India's Nico Hulkenberg.
Nico did a good race, starting from P11 and then climbing through the field, he didn't do anything spectacular but only enough to get a generous quantity of points.
On the other side of the coin, Nico's teammate, Mexican Sergio Perez, who started the race in P10 with a chance of scoring more points for the team, suffered an accident caused by contact with Jenson Button on the fifth turn of the first lap. This contact brought a safety car there in the first lap.
Yet another disappointing race for Perez in Montecarlo. He's never had a good result there.
In 2011, he suffered a terrible crash in qualifying and didn't get to race. In 2012, an accident in quali put him in the back of the grid. Last year, he made a heck of a race with breathtaking overtakes at the chicane on Button and Alonso but finished his race after contact with Kimi in the chicane. And now, he suffered a first lap accident.
Behind Hulk, it was Jenson Button. With few chances of overtakes here, it didn't seemed to be a good weekend for the 2009 champion as he started from P12. He spent most of the race battling in the midfield and in the end he managed climb 6 position to finish in P6, beating his teammate.
On the other side, Kevin Magnussen had a promising starting position on P8, with Vettel and Vergne's retirement, he went up to P6 but teammate Button would snatch that position from him. Then, he suffered the contact with Kimi at the Casino Hairpin which ruined both of their races. At the end, Kevin managed to get a point finishing P10.
Felipe Massa finished P7, behind Button. As well, very few expected this to be a good race for Massa as he was starting on P16. Felipe made a very good race, he pushed his supersoft tyres to the limit, getting 46 laps out of them, a totally impressive number. This got him as up as fifth place. After his only stop, he fell to P13 but raced through the field and with Vergne's retirement and the accident involving Kimi and Magnussen, he got up to P7.
Meanwhile, his teammate Valtteri finished a bad weekend for him. He started on P13 but managed to go up and race for points in the midfield. He was in P8 just ahead Räikkönen when it happened, his engine just blew up, smoking. It was the end of the race for him and the first time a Mercedes engine has blown up in the whole season.
On P9, arrived Romain Grosjean for Lotus, securing the second scoring position finish for the Enstone-based team. He started on P14 but with his good pace and the numerous retirements he managed to climb up 5 positions. His P9 eventually became P8 following Jules Bianchi's (whom I'll speak about later in the blog) 5-second penalty.
His teammate, Pastor Maldonado didn't even get to start the race as his car stalled at the start of warm-up lap. He was put at the pit-lane to start from there but then, he would come out due to engine problems.
Toro Rosso also had a race to forget. 'The Toro Russian' Daniil Kvyät retired early in the race due to engine issues.
Kvyät's teammate Jean-Eric Vergne had a promising start to the weekend with a sixth grid place. His race was going well until the second safety car.
JEV's stop went all right but the pit crew released his car dangerously and it almost hit Kevin Magnussen. A drive-through was handed to Vergne for the infraction. Shortly after, the Frenchmen's car's engine began smoking and it was the end of his race.
Sauber's struggles continued, Esteban Gutierrez and Adrian Sutil started the race on P17 and P18, respectively.
First, Sutil gave a heck of a show fighting to get to point scoring positions, making surprising heart-stopping overtakes on the Casino Hairpin and on the Chicane.
However, his run came up short as his race ended on lap 27 when he lost control of his car coming out of the tunnel, crashing on the chicane's wall and then ending up in the escape road, thus causing a safety car.
On the other side, Gutierrez made a better and longer effort for points, climbing up to P8, following Bottas' retirement.
While on P8, holding off Kimi Räikkönen, he spun at La Rascasse, ending his race in what seemed to be the first point scoring finish for Sauber.
For Caterham, the story was the same. The green bolts were set to start 21st and 22nd but Maldonado's retirement got them to start 20th and 21st. Kobayashi tried to fight his way up but only failed, cutting the chicanes twice and putting other drivers' races in danger. In the end, Marcus Ericsson beat his teammate Kobayashi, finishing 11th while Kamui finished 13th.
The surprise of the race was Marussia, on one side, Max Chilton finished last, on P14, only finishing the race to keep his mark of finishing all his races since entering to F1 in 2013. intact and stretching his record to 25 consecutive finished.
But, that wasn't the surprise I'm talking about. I spoke about Massa that finished seventh, Grosjean that finished eighth, Magnussen that finished tenth, Ericsson 11th, Kimi 12th, Kamui 13th and Chilton 14th. Now, I suppose you wonder who finished 9th.
SURPRISE! Jules Bianchi!
The Frenchman started the race in 19th place. He spent the whole race fighting, trying to climb through the positions and then, along with all the retirements and Jules' persistence, he climbed up to eight position and he would keep that position but his 5-second penalty pushed him back to P9.
With this, the Russian team scored the first points in their history.
After 4 seasons and 6 races, after 46 races, they have done it! Big Congratulations to the team and to Jules.
Hard not to say he was the man of the race.
With this, now Marussia is in front of Sauber and Caterham in the constructors championship. Terrible season for the Swiss team, they don't seem to be close to scoring points.
Also, Jules reaffirms himself as the number one man in Marussia.
Well, Rosberg's win gives him the championship lead once again, pushing Lewis into second.
With Mercedes' 1-2 finish (their fifth consecutive), they stretched their lead on the constructors championship on Red Bull to 41 points (240 to 99).
See you in two weeks when F1 is back for the Canadian Grand Prix!
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