Nico Rosberg wins Monaco GP ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo.
Mercedes took their fifth straight one-two finish of the F1 season as Nico Rosberg scored his first win since the opening round of the series in Australia. Lewis Hamilton challenged him for most of the race but dropped back in the closing stages to finish less than one second ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in third. Fernando Alonso finished a lonely fourth ahead of Nico Hülkenberg and Jenson Button. Felipe Massa was seventh ahead of Romain Grosjean, Jules Bianchi and Kevin Magnussen respectively.
Felipe Massa make his way from 16th on the grid and ends with a seventh-place finish. Valtteri Bottas finishes 50 of 78 in the Monaco Grand Prix. Both drivers made strong starts and, despite two safety cars interrupting proceedings, looked in a strong position to collect a good points haul for the team following their pitstops. Felipe pushed hard to catch Button and capitalised on accidents between Magnussen and Raikkonen. Valtteri stopped on track following an issue related to the Power Unit. The cause still under investigation.Infiniti Red Bull Racing Quotes:
DANIEL RICCIARDO, Finish Position: 3rd, Start Position: 3rd
“The race really came to life towards the end. It started off not so well and it’s a really short run to Turn 1, so that was frustrating. Then we got Seb due to his reliability and Kimi had a puncture and we sort of got back to where we were hoping to be. After the re-start we were just saving the tyres to the point that we could get to the end and then, with 20 laps to go, I thought they would be okay so I pushed. It was the first time in the whole race that I felt like I was really driving the car and we caught Lewis. It was fun but I couldn’t get him, so I have to say the race finished better than it started.”
SEBASTIAN VETTEL, Finish Position: DNF, Start Position: 4th
“It’s disappointing. I had a good start and then we lost boost pressure from the turbo, so I had no power and had to retire. The team did everything they could. I felt quite helpless in the car, so I was asking for an answer of what we could do, but there wasn’t anything at that stage. We fixed some problems yesterday with the ERS, but some more came today with the turbo, but we will move forwards and it will be good for us soon.”
CHRISTIAN HORNER, Team Principal: “First of all we have to apologise to Sebastian for an issue with his power unit. It’s frustrating that, after making a good start, his race came to a very premature end. Thereafter, Daniel benefitted from a puncture from Kimi to get some free air and was able to run his own race. We closed down the gap to the Mercedes at the end and got very close to Lewis, but round the streets of Monte Carlo it’s always extremely difficult to overtake. It’s the closest we’ve been to Mercedes all year and it’s the first time we’ve been really racing them this season, so there are signs of progress and we’re certainly getting closer. Finally, congratulations to the Marussia team on getting their first points in Formula One. Scoring points in this business is never easy and for a new team that stuck at it and scored their first points today, they deserve a large amount of recognition for that.”
THIERRY SALVI, Renault: “Today was a very up and down day. Daniel fought throughout the race and was able to come close to Hamilton towards the end. It is a great result for him and showed yet again today that he’s strong enough to perform on such a difficult city track. For Seb he had a disaster today as he suffered a reliability failure from the power unit. We tried different settings to fix the problem but ultimately we had to retire. We’ll look into the causes tonight and in the coming days to fully understand what happened.”
In their own words
Felipe Massa: “I am very happy with seventh after starting 16th on the grid. I took some risks when I changed strategy at the safety car and had to make my tires last, which they did. I made the most of the opportunities I had with other cars making mistakes or retiring. Many things could have happened so I am pleased they worked out for the best. A tough weekend turned into a positive one.”
Valtteri Bottas: “We had an issue with the power unit which is frustrating. There are some investigations to do to find out exactly what happened. After the start I was quickly in the points so it could have been a good weekend. Felipe finished seventh so the team can walk away with something. We now look towards Canada where we hope to be strong due to the nature of the track.”
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: Felipe’s race went well; he recovered from 16th to seventh and stayed out of trouble, driving with a sensible head. The strategy was a risk but paid dividends as we didn’t have to stack the cars during the pitstops. Valtteri would have got some good points today, but sadly there was a failure on his car. We now have to look forward to Canada and consider where we can make improvements to continue bringing home points.
