Rosberg wins Monaco GP; Hamilton displays mature behaviour after team’s blunder costs him dearly
Monaco, 24 May 2015: After dominating for most of the race, reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton suffered a severe jolt due to a blunder by his Mercedes team which wrongly called him into the pits towards the end, during the Safety Car period, thus handing over the Monaco GP win to teammate and championship rival, Nico Rosberg. Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari squeezed into the second position and Hamilton was stuck in the third place despite a faster pace, at the street circuit notorious for its lack of overtaking possibilities.
Hamilton was deeply disappointed and was visibly dow
n but showed a mature behaviour and refused to drag the team into controversy. He repeatedly held his cool and did not criticise the team and said that he would come back with a win. He shook hands with Rosberg and congratulated him on the podium and said “the team have done an amazing job. We win and lose together,” he said. With his cool handling of the situation despite the emotional blow, he won the hearts of thousands of fans, who reserved the best applause for him today. Mercedes Head Toto Wolff apologised profusely: “What a crazy day. I don’t think there has ever been a more bittersweet feeling than this one. We have won the Monaco Grand Prix and we have lost the Monaco Grand Prix all at the same time. First of all, we must apologise to Lewis. We win and we lose together and what I am proud of in this team is that we take collective responsibility. But this is a day when we simply have to say sorry to our driver, because our mistake cost him the victory here.”
Rosberg has won the Monaco Grand Prix for the third successive time joining the elite club of Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Graham Hill. He used a one-stop strategy, starting on the P Zero Red supersoft tyre and then switched to the P Zero Yellow soft. The German now becomes only the fourth driver in history to win the Monaco Grand Prix for three consecutive years. He also claimed his second consecutive victory of the 2015 season to close up the fight for the championship to 10 points.
The race was turned on its head by a safety car period close to the finish, during which Lewis Hamilton lost the lead that he had held from pole position, after making an extra pit stop to change to the supersoft.
The majority of drivers stopped just once after starting on the supersoft tyre, although Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, Williams driver Valtteri Bottas and both Manors started on the soft tyre.
Temperatures were generally cool throughout practice and qualifying but warmed up during race day, peaking at 42 degrees centigrade on track, which improved the grip from both compounds. As usual, wear and degradation was minimal on the least abrasive and slowest circuit of the year. This made maintaining tyre temperature crucial after five laps of the safety car.
A particularly impressive drive came from the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz, which started from last place following a penalty post-qualifying. The Spaniard got up to a points-scoring 10th on his Monaco debut, using a one-stop strategy. Crucial to his strategy was a 66-lap stint on the soft tyre at the end of the race.
Rosberg set his fastest lap of the race just two laps from the finish, when his final set of soft tyres were already 39 laps old.
eom/with inputs from Mercedes and Pirelli Motorsports
