It would have been fun to watch Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen battle to the finish for the podium spot at the Monaco GP but some bad luck for Raikkonen took away his best shot at a podium finish for the first time this season. Raikkonen had a tremendous start, jumping from sixth starting spot on the grid up to fourth and inheriting third soon after when the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel was forced to retire.
Raikkonen held on to third convincingly but, while the safety car was out, he was run into by Max Chilton, damaging his right rear tyre, forcing him to make a second pit stop. Raikkonen came back on track deep in the field and was forced to start his fight to the front all over again. He had made it back up to eighth position, battling with rookie Kevin Magnussen for more. Raikkonen made contact with Magnussen going into the Hotel Hairpin and damaged his front wing resulting in another stop for the Iceman. He came back on track frustrated and angry and he vented his anger through his throttle pedal, setting the fastest lap of the race on lap 75. Despite all that speed Raikkonen was held out of the points for the second time this season, finishing 12th. It was a tough result to swallow, especially when the first half of the race showed such promise for the Finn.
Raikkonen’s Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso had a pretty straightforward race; it was almost boring when compared to Raikkonen’s day. The electric motor in Alonso’s car was not working properly at the start of the race which didn’t give him the best start off the grid as he slipped from fifth to sixth. Problems for Vettel early on brought Alonso to fifth and then when Kimi had his trouble he moved to fourth. The race finished with the Spaniard just over two seconds behind Ricciardo and over 20 seconds ahead of the fifth place Nico Hulkenberg.
People were expecting the tight circuit which is the Monaco Grand Prix to somewhat equalize the cars a little bit, allowing Ferrari and Red Bull to bring the fight to the so far dominant Mercedes team, but that wasn’t the case. Nico Rosberg won his second Monaco GP in a row and has extended the Mercedes’ win streak to six out of six, with Rosberg winning the first and the most recent races and his teammate Lewis Hamilton winning the middle four. Rosberg now holds a four point lead over Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship. Hamilton finished second in Monte Carlo and Ricciardo rounded off the podium. Ricciardo did start catching Hamilton late in the race but something had got into Hamilton’s eye, disrupting his vision and his on track performance. However, Hamilton was able to fight through it to hold off the Red Bull to the finish.
The teams will be in Canada in two weeks, June 8, on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Ferrari will be hoping and trying once again to land at least one car on the podium and that the work they are putting in will finally show through with good results for both cars.
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