Monaco Grand Prix: How & Why

This year’s Monaco Grand Prix was one of the more exciting races to be held around a track that can easily cause a 'procession'. With a culmination of different strategies from the drivers, a series of questionable overtaking manoeuvres throughout the field, and race defining moments in the pit lane; the 2011 race around the Monte-Carlo streets was one of the best ever in terms of outright excitement. In order to understand just why and how the race panned out, I have selected three race defining factors that essentially caused Sebastian Vettel to clinch his fifth victory of the year; and his first win around Monaco.

Driver Judgement

 Formula One drivers are often scoffed at for maintaining a job that is essentially driving a car quickly, and being paid monumental sums of money; however, Monaco like no other track is a track that really does allow the drivers to rightfully earn their money and show their worth. With the steering wheel only centralised for a mere ten seconds during in a lap of Monaco, the drivers judgement is tested to the absolute limit more than ever thanks to the business of any one driver.

Two examples that stood out from the rest for me in terms of drivers judgement was those of Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton. During the opening lap, Hamilton had overtaken Schumacher going into the first corner, after the Germans Mercedes had gone into anti-stall mode, causing Schumacher to endure a horrific start from fifth on the grid. As a result, Schumacher filtered in behind Hamilton after the first turn at Sainte Devote. A mix of experience and skill however, meant that Schumacher was able to put a fantastic maneuverer up the inside of Hamilton's McLaren going into the extremely tight Lowes Hairpin, catching the Brit somewhat napping. This move was crucial to Hamilton’s progress; the McLaren driver losing 26 seconds to the leaders, two seconds per lap slower, by the time he managed to find a way through into Sainte Devote on lap ten. Schumacher’s split second decision demonstrated to on-lookers that there certainly isn’t anything wrong with the 42 year olds race craft, on a circuit where it is most potent in terms of being displayed.

Besides losing the place to Schumacher on the first lap, Lewis Hamilton suffered a race full of misjudged and ill-fated manoeuvres and decisions that essentially meant that he wound up a disappointing sixth place in car that had looked to have the legs in terms of race pace on the Red Bull's and Ferrari's. Hamilton's most costly mistake came on lap 36, when a misjudged late lunge up the inside of Felipe Massa going into the Lowes Hairpin left Massa with terminal mechanical damage to his cars left rear end, causing a secondary accident seconds later in the Tunnel, in which Massa's damaged Ferrari came to a stop alongside the barriers prior to the chicane. This bought out the safety car; a factor that essentially lost Hamilton's McLaren team mate Jenson Button the lead of the Grand Prix. The initial move, and another move later on in the race during the restart with six laps to go on Pastor Maldonado, earned the Brit two separate penalties, compounding the horror of what was a poor race caused by poor judgement calls, for a driver who is often linked to being one of the few 'Monaco Masters'

Strategy

Strategy was absolutely key to how and why Sebastian Vettel was victorious in this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix. Heading into the race, Pirelli Boss Paul Hembery had confirmed the widely expected conventional strategy would indeed be a two stopper. However, come the end of the race, winner Vettel had amazingly only made one pit stop, ahead of the two stopping Alonso and the three stopping Jenson Button in third. How did Vettel pull it off? Well, Red Bull placed their driver on the gutsy strategy in an attempt to nip Buttons strong victory charge in the bud, in a race they anticipated would place massive pressure on Vettel, in terms of defensive ability and being able to nurse a set of Soft compound tyres on a massive 60 lap stint. Their faith in the current World Champion was well and truly justified, as Vettel was able to hold off the efforts of Alonso and the extremely quick Button in third place, prior to the red flag being bought out with six laps to go. It was desperately unfortunate for fans that the inevitable three car battle for victory was effectively prevented thanks to the red flag, as Alonso and Vettel were allowed to change their fading sets of Pirelli's during the temporary race stoppage.

It's unclear to anyone as to whether Vettel would have maintained the lead had the red flag not come out, with many calculated suggestions from insiders at Pirelli expecting Vettel's tyres to metaphorically fall 'off the cliff' in terms of grip three laps on from the Petrov/Sutil/Hamilton/Algusuari incident that bought out the red flag.

A certainty to come from yesterday’s race was that the winning strategy modelled by Red Bull was somewhat lucky in terms of the timing of the Petrov incident and the need for Red Flags. This 'luck' was also empathised by the sluggish first round of pit stops that had earlier hindered Vettel aswell.

On the other end of the scale, McLaren's Jenson Button was massively unlucky; the two safety car periods during the race both causing the Brits race to be heavily compromised. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing; had McLaren not brought Button in early for his second of three pit stops; Button probably would have enjoyed a comfortable and classy second victory around the streets of Monte-Carlo.

FIA

Perhaps the most upsetting and frustrating and aspect of this year’s Monaco Grand Prix was the manner in which the FIA had to interfere with race proceedings. With a fantastic scrap shaping for the race win between Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, the last ten or so laps looked to be the most exciting yet this year. However, after Petrov's Renault slammed into the barriers as a result of attempting to avoid the damaged Force India of Adrian Sutil on lap 72, the FIA Race Director Charlie Whiting selected to rightfully stop the race. This decision was later justified as news emerged that Petrov was in a considerable amount of pain in his stricken cars cockpit, and time and medical officials would need to venture out on track to recover the Russian Driver. However, perhaps a more disappointing and spectacle ending factor of the race stoppage, was that the FIA rulebook states that tyres are able to be changed during the course of a race stoppage. This as a result, ruined the dynamics of the scrap for first, as overtaking at Monaco in-between cars of similar outright pace on  identically worn rubber is nigh on impossible, and highly risky. It would be fair to say that this rule indeed did ruin the conclusion to a race that up until the red flag had looked to be a classic.

Although the 'edge of your seat' build up to races conclusions was eventually deflated and below expectations, this year’s Monaco Grand Prix was still a fascinating race for teams, drivers, and fans alike. With Vettel picking up another on what was a track that wasn’t expected to be particularly advantageous to the Red Bull, and his closest rival Lewis Hamilton suffering a torrid weekend, Monte-Carlo could well have staged a Grand Prix that could well be seen as critical, come the end of the season in Brazil.