Seb and Kimi secure a Ferrari one-two
Montecarlo, 28 May – An historic win at an historic race: Sebastian Vettel took the victory ahead of Kimi Raikkonen as Ferrari triumphed in Monaco. This was the Scuderia’s 227th world championship win, the 44th of Seb’s career and his sixth with the Reds. Vettel now leads the championship on 129 points, while Kimi is fourth on 67. This was the 82nd one-two finish in the Scuderia’s history.
As always in Monaco, a few minutes before the start, the grid is jammed with people, their hearts also filled with all sorts of feelings of expectation, emotion, concerns – “check the rim, seems the driver brushed the barrier…” before it was time for the grid to form up with an all-Ferrari front row. So much is at stake in the few seconds it takes to get off the grid and run down to the braking zone at Ste. Devote. However, when you have both your cars on the front row, you in fact have the most normal of starts.
Kimi got away well from pole on the right side of the track, pulling Seb along behind him, who was fighting off the Mercedes. The two SF70Hs soon pulled out a bit of a lead over Bottas, Verstappen and Ricciardo. However, the hot conditions made it difficult to follow another car too closely as there was a risk of overheating. Seb was running around 1’14” behind Kimi at this point, but the Reds began to up the pace, lapping in the low 1m 17s.
The basic strategy was quite straightforward: just one tyre stop shortly before half distance, switching from the Ultra to the Supersoft: therefore it was best to try and build up a small lead right away. A sixth of the way through, there was just a little more than two seconds splitting the Ferraris, while Bottas was dropping back. Things livened up on lap 15 with Sebastian posting a fastest lap of 1’16”197.
Next time round, Hulkenberg’s Renault began smoking at the back in the run down to Mirabeau. The engineers started planning for a safety car scenario, but only yellow flags were required. In our garage, the calm tones of Diego Ioverno ran through the various scenarios and as Bottas had slowed less than the Ferraris under yellow, he was now 5 seconds off Seb, who in turn had closed on Kimi.
By lap 26, the backmarkers were already on the agenda and Kimi lost time getting by Button and Wehrlein who were scrapping between themselves. Seb also got past but Bottas had made up 4 seconds and therefore the two Ferrari men responded immediately. On lap 32 Verstappen’s Red Bull kicked off the run of pit stops and next time round it was Bottas’ turn. Immediately Ferrari moved to protect its position and, as planned, brought Kimi in first for his stop.
Seb thus found himself leading from Ricciardo who was pushing very hard, trading fastest sector times with Seb. Vettel’s best lap, a 1’15”587, gave a good idea of the Ferrari’s potential. Ricciardo pitted at half-distance and Seb continued to push in anticipation of his stop at the end of lap 39. Would that be enough to get him ahead of Kimi? Yes, the move worked.
In Monaco, it usually takes some major incident for things to change at the front. Seb continued to push, while Kimi held off Ricciardo. And then came that major incident: with just 18 laps to go, Wehrlein was hit by Button and his Sauber was tipped on its side against the barrier at Portier. The Safety Car came out and the gaps were wiped out, including the leader’s 12 seconds over Raikkonen. Seb asked about Pascal over the radio and was told he was okay. The Safety Car stayed out for a long time, coming in with 12 laps to go. The race was on again with the two Ferrari’s getting away well. Behind them there were some battles and Vandoorne went off at Ste. Devote. That was just about it in terms of excitement, with only the small matter of the best moment of all still to come as the cars took the chequered flag.
CAVALLINO RAMPANTE PER SEMPRE
Fact is that Seb would've won this race with undercut, overcut or whatever cut, because he just had better pace than Kimi, no question about it. And it's also a fact that some people would be moaning no matter how the pit strategy would've been set for the drivers. If Ferrari had left Kimi out longer then all the Kimi fans would be crying that Ferrari left him out too long on used tyres, and now that Ferrari did the courteous thing by bringing him (as the leader of the race) in first they're still not happy. The only way that people wouldn't be whining right now is if Seb would've just slowed down without using all that pace he had and just let Kimi finish in front. What people don't seem to understand is that Seb was just much faster and that enabled him to make the overcut work in his favor. There was no team play or any conspiracy, Seb was the fastest driver on the track and won fair and square. Kimi and Kimi fans can only blame Kimi himself for not driving faster, although the backmarkers didn't help Kimi's case either, but the biggest problem was just Kimi's lack of pace.
KEEP CALM AND LOVE FERRARI
I have been a Ferrari fan since 2007 (yes since Kimi moved to Ferrari). Since then they also moved away from the strict no. 1 / no. 2 policy.
I/m no mad max fan, although i live in the Netherlands. I even prefer Kimi over Max. I think it's unfair to a former WDC (a Ferrari WDC) to be treated this way.
It's al over the news that there is something going on inside of Ferrari. Below you finds some quotes.
"According to Toni Vilander, things were very heated after the race inside Ferrari garage, and Kimi's race engineer Dave Greenwood was very angry because they felt Kimi wasn't treated equally"
#Kimi7: 'If you have no confidence in your team it gets really complicated. As a driver I can also stop the car but I trust them' #MonacoGP
Raikkonen:"We have certain rules and we all know it. We go with those. I dont know what happened." #MonacoGP #F1
Hamilton: Ferrari F1 team is favouring Vettel over Raikkonen
It's pretty obvious what happened today. Ferrari is back to a clear no. 1 / no.2.
That's not the way formula 1 should be. Both Merc and Red Bull are treating both drivers the same way. And that's how it should be.
If they have done so and he won, you will still say that first pit stop is always for the leading car. Vettel was just simply faster that Kimi today. if he was faster He would come out ahead of the traffic that held him up. I hate it when people just make a non issue an issue.
Like the boss of red bull said Vettel would have won on both undercut and over cut strategy because he was after Kimi could not pull away period.
SERGIO MARCHIONNE: “A RACE WHICH WILL BE PART OF OUR HISTORY ”
Something we’ve been waiting for a long time has finally come to pass, a race which will be part of our history. Not only a victory, but a one-two finish at a Grand Prix with a tradition as glorious as Monaco, where Ferrari last won with another one-two, delivered on that occasion by Schumacher and Barrichello. Today it was a really exciting race where we saw the real Scuderia.
My compliments to the drivers and, once again, the whole team, both those at the track and the individuals that work so hard each and every day back in Maranello on a car that is finally giving our tifosi the satisfaction they deserve.
CAVALLINO RAMPANTE PER SEMPRE
We moved away from nothing, in 2007 Massa gave up a home GP win to assist Kimi, 2008 Kimi had to move for Massa, 2010 Massa again moves for Alonso.....since then we have not needed to move anyone as we were not good enough to challenge for titles, now we are and the team want the best results. But anyway Kimi did not do enough to cover Seb, had he opened up a decent gap then Seb could do nothing about it.....so not sure why you are crying about, and you say Merc treat both the same clearly you are trolling, and Red Bull done the same strategy today as us so they must have favoured no1 Ric then?
It's great to see Ferrari back on top and the trolls come back out haha I missed those days.
Forza Ferrari
There is no truth is what you just wrote - If Kimi was faster he could have done the same fast 2 laps the Vettel did before pitting and he would have come out of the traffic that held him back. Kimi was just slow today, if vettel was the leading car he would have pulled away unlike captain slow.
Agree with you totally.
As said earlier, Kimi doesn't come live in half of the race. If he looses interest where's no action on track. He seems to be there just to drive the car. I never seen Kimi moaning alot on radio which is not his way. But this year it's been different, he was coming up with excuses ofcourse there some bad strategy call in earlier races.
But this race vet won it on pure pace.
If you see vet race in Russia or Sochi I think, where vet was setting FL on 30laps old US tyres on that track. So these tyres can be pushed to extreme extent where chance of gaining is alot. Monaco showed it.
I secretly wished Kimi to win because it would be lovely to see him back in form with a win. Nevertheless, an amazing day that brought Ferrari's first victory in Monaco since 2001 with a 1-2, so i'm extremely happy for the team. As for Kimi's strategy, it looks like the team played fair. They brought him in first as soon as he began losing time. Seb had more life in his tires and began pushing in clean air setting a number of awesome laps thus overcuting Kimi. No team meddling here by the looks of it. However, it won't be this easy in Canada as i believe Mercedes are going to come back very strong.
Last edited by Stormy; 28th May 2017 at 20:11.
The hilarious thing is that had Ferrari used the sky sports coined 'tactics' it would have been fair play. Merc have used everything the get Hamilton to win, including our old driver Massa twice! The only reason they didn't move bottas for the second time in Russia was because it simply wasn't possible to do so
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On other side, when Max pitted for US tyres at last stint.
I thought he will make a aggressive move n take out bottas, for his revenge from last race where Max was taken out in barcelona.
Fantastic result, for team and both drivers. Hard work is paying off. The only thing that has got me back up, is how David Croft kept saying Ferrari and switching Kimi and Seb around.
First of all, there is not many chance you can take alot of damage to Lewis and mercedes, so we had to capatilize on it. Drivers feelings, or fans feelings do not com into it. Points, and WDC WCC s on the minds of the team. Yeah Kimi deserved it, but Seb banged in the quick laps in free air to make the jump. Kimi, ,was not quick enough. Kimi got priority strategy. Had, just not quick enough to make it count. Once Kimi came in, Seb was off, look at Dani Ricc aswell in free air he was banging in the times aswell.
Either way, great result, so nice so sweet.
CAVALLINO RAMPANTE PER SEMPRE
CAVALLINO RAMPANTE PER SEMPRE
Ha ha. I watched formula 1 since 1990. He was controlling the pace. In Monaco there is no overtaking possible.
I reffer to the quote from the man himself:
Raikkonen:"We have certain rules and we all know it. We go with those. I dont know what happened." #MonacoGP #F1.
There's a nice summary from another forum. I quote Grunge.
"As expected its the same arguments from both sides going back and forth.. Over and over.. Personal bias is an inevitable confounder in any analysis, even one that is made on "objective" grounds eg actual scientific research so you can forget about opinions on an internet forum being completely neutral.
My opinion remains the same.. To me only the most devoted of Ferrari/Vettel followers would be able to say this wasnt planned and keep a straight face at the same time.. It very clearly was.
We saw hamilton and rosberg in the exact same position every weekend for the past two years.. Many a times the one behind was apparently putting in faster laps than the one in front.. No matter how many things one can accuse Toto of, this is where he never budged.. Never once did we see the one behind getting a priority pit strategy in order to make him pass the guy in front.
2. The "Vettel was faster all weekend" claim doesnt hold up.. The same claim is instantly rubbished when KR does the same in practice but is superceeded in qualifying... FPs dont mean anything... The times dont mean anything.. In the end at Monaco, its the Q3 time that matters.
3 "Vettel screwed up quali" claim.. Again completely wrong. He kept mentioning that oh i went to deep in turn 5, was too greedy... But the fact of the matter is that even his 3 best sectors dont add up to beat Kimis final run.. If anything, KRs three best sectors assembled,wouldve beaten SVs best hypothetical attempt by 2 tenths.
4. "Vettel wae faster all race" argument... No he wasnt faster "all throughout" . Kimi maintained a 2 plus sec gap after the first 10 laps..it came down below one sec only when Kimi had to make his way through backmarkers and then went back to 1.7sec range once he was clear. The assumption that he was so much faster but was unable to show it because of being stuck behind KR is all pure conjecture.. For all we know this was the maximum he had as well..
Now yes, he was faster once kimi pitted and then for 3 more laps.. Yet again yer comparing those times with Kimi on a different compound, one which takes longer to heat up and the fact that he made his way right into the back of Jenson Button and other backmarkers ahead.
Even if that low 15s lap is considered to be faster than what KR couldve done all race, how does that possibly validate a pitstop shuffle leading to the two drivers exchanging positions?...as in just because he was faster for 4 odd laps at one point in the race qualifies him to be preferred over the guy that got pole on saturday and had lead the race till then?
4.for all this supposed superior speed, Vettel got the lead by less than a second and that second he made up only during the pitstop.. 0.6 sec faster coming in to his spot and then stop being 0.4 sec quicker.... So inspite of this "scorching speed" and kimi getting stuck behind backmarkers, he only barely got out ahead.without the sec he made up in the pits, he wouldve come out behind KR.
5."ferrari had to pit Kimi to protect him from Bottas".. Wrong again... Vetter came out almost sode by side to Kimi.. If anyone was at risk of being undercut by Bottas, it was Vettel not Kimi.... And anyone and his mother could see Bottas stuck behind backmarkers after his stop and that there was no way he was going to make ground there anyway..
Vettel himself said post race that Kimi was told to pit to cover for Bottas... So basically the driver leading the race was sacrificed to cover the threat behind while the in 2nd went on to get the optimal strategy.
6. "Vettel wouldve come out ahead, had he even pitted eerlier"... Again pure conjecture..had he been pitted in kimis place, he wouldnt have shown that" unbelievable" speed in the next four laps that he did and wouldve come back right behind Button on the slower, lazier SS compound.. Meanwhile Kimi wouldve been told to go crazy on the next 2 laps before he comes in and there in no way Vettel wouldve made his way thru the traffic fast enough to come out ahead.
Fact is stopping late was the priority strategy today. It was clear to Ferrari, it was clear to RB.
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