Perez took his chances and won amidst Ferrari's many tactical blunders
All weekend, the paddock and fans studied the weather forecast with interest as rain was forecasted to be not ruled out during the race. On Sunday morning, the weather radar seemed to drastically change causing chaos.
Was the start according to Charles Leclerc’s plan even with a downpour?
Suspicious clouds began to gather over Monte Carlo an hour and a half before the start, but the rain finally came at the worst moment, right before the start. As a result, the FIA directors decided that it was better to postpone the warm-up lap for 10 minutes to give all teams a chance to switch to intermediate rubber or tires for heavy rain.
Teams scrambled from the pitlane rushing with tyres and tents to change to heavy wets. As the deadline approached, the rain had time to both subside and rain again, this time much harder. As a result, the decision was made to race with two set-up laps behind the safety car which then sadly led to a real downpour. Rivers of water flooded the track, leading to the inevitable red flag.
Overall, we started about an hour later than originally planned. The race director once again looked at the safety aspects as finally, the start was given the green light. Together with safety car, some drivers were given the chance to pit especially as a few drivers sustained damage, one being Nicholas Latifi.
Some driver decided to take their chances and change to intermediate tyres. Not that it helped much - yes, the leader of the early birds, Pierre Gasly, was able to quickly catch up with the middle group, beautifully overtaking Guanyu Zhou and Daniel Riccardo, which brought the Frenchman to 12th position. Although Pierre then went two seconds faster than everyone else, he was soon to be caught up with Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen.
Ahead, despite the difficult weather, everything was going according to plan for Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque was, undoubtedly, the fastest in the group of leaders and pulled away from Carlos Sainz. Red Bull were getting increasingly frustrated for lack of pace to close the gap to the Spaniard. Max Verstappen, who seemed to come only close to Sergio Perez but immediately falling behind again for a second and a half.
Mick Schumacher slippery accident
The leaders long strategised whether it was worth switching to intermediate tires, or try to be patient with the slicks. In the end, Red Bull called in Perez to pit and did not fail! Checo’s pace put the Ferrari drivers on the back foot, flustering them which led to a late pit stop for Leclerc. The Mexican had such an incredible speed advantage that he overtook confidently ahead of the Ferrari and rushed after Sainz.
It didn't get any better for Ferrari after the unfortunate double stack. The pit-stop a lap early led to the fact that the Monegasque was behind Verstappen. From first to fourth place, and after a confident lead - a complete failure on Ferrari’s part!
Interestingly, Ferrari at the last moment tried to cancel the pit stop especially after realizing that he would have to stay behind Sainz in the pits for a bit. But the engineer's order came too late as he was sadly already on the pit lane. It remained to see if Leclerc would be able to make a miracle and somehow win back the places lost.
The race was interrupted during the 30th lap after Mick Schumacher slid and crashed his Haas. Fortunately, the driver was not hurt, but his car was wrecked, the gearbox and the rear wing came off. Though the marshalls had much experience with clearing up incidents during the years, the full safety car came out as the race had to be interrupted to clear the debris.
Victory to Checo!
It was obvious that all drivers would put on tyres on which they would drive the rest of the race distance. At the same time, it was decided once again to give the start of the race with a rolling start. Sadly, everything was against the chances of Ferrari to win back places after a series of tactical failures. In this case, the team preferred to stay on the already used hard tyres, while the Red Bulls preferred the new mediums. In the same way George Russell (medium) and Lando Norris (hard) differed in their decisions.
Up to a certain point, the differences in tyres did nothing with no change in the top 4. At some point the lap countdown was turned into a countdown due to the late race start and red flag, the decision was made that the grid wouldn’t race the full 78 laps. Nevertheless, 15 minutes before the finish, Perez began to lose pace as the rest of the trio approached him.
In the end, the non-accelerated nature of the track played its part. Perez's bold decision with an early switch to intermediate tires and his amazing pace gave him a deserved win. Sainz stayed second ahead of Verstappen, whilst Leclerc sadly didn't make the podium. A failure for the Ferrari leader, which was undoubtedly not his fault.
After the Top 4, Russell confidently performed better amidst the mid pack, ahead of Norris. Though, a rather strange tactic came from Fernando Alonso. After the restart he drove a couple of seconds slower than he would have done to save tires. Lando Norris had freedom of opportunity for a free pit stop, which converted into the fastest lap.
Lewis Hamilton, struck by the tactics of his former partner, was in eighth place, ahead of Esteban Ocon and Bottas. At the same time, Ocon received a five-second penalty for an early battle with Hamilton, when the Frenchman closed the door in their battle a little to aggressively which almost caused an accident. As a result, Ocon was stuck behind Lewis and did not score any points. With the penalty, the Frenchman rolled back to 12th place, and the points zone was closed by Bottas and Sebastian Vettel.
Victory in the race again for the Red Bull, a second year running in Monaco. Ferrari's new chance for a counterattack will come in two weeks in Baku.
Comments