Lewis Hamilton clinches Monaco Grand Prix

 

Lewis Hamilton is a winner again. Seven months after his last victory. And this was among the best of his life. His world championship has caught fire.

It was the most pulsating Monaco Grand Prix of

recent memory – a wet-dry race, a test of nerve through the narrow streets, a strategic conundrum, and a fierce fight for victory by two brave and brilliant drivers. And at the end of 78 laps of drama it was Hamilton celebrating in front of Prince Albert for the second time in his career.

It was a consummate victory by the Briton – one to sit alongside his triumph at Silverstone in the wet in 2008. It was achieved in a Mercedes car that, for once, was not the fastest on track. That was the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo, who finished second after a long duel at the front with Hamilton.

The victory, against the odds, takes Hamilton to within 24 points of the championship summit, having broken a losing streak stretching back to Austin on October 25 last year.

As for the championship leader, Nico Rosberg, it was a day to forget. Once the safety car under which the race started in rainy conditions made way after eight sterile laps, the German wanted for speed.

His Mercedes team later said he had been ‘struggling with brake temps’. It sounded little more convincing than ‘his hair got in his eyes’. And it should be noted that if there was not a genuine reason for his tardiness in the wet then his performance was so woeful that it would undermine his validity as world champion should he take the crown.

It reminded me of Felipe Massa here and at Silverstone in the wet in 2008 – the Brazilian was so wobbly and error-strewn that he could not be pronounced, morally, as the world No 1 driver.

 

Whatever the cause of Rosberg’s sluggishness, Mercedes instructed him to let Hamilton pass. He obligingly did so on lap 16. One wonders whether Hamilton would have been so acquiescent if the roles had been reversed. And what happened to Mercedes’ policy of letting their men race wheel-to-wheel?

Whatever the answers to those questions, it worked in so far as they gave themselves a chance of winning a race that Rosberg was losing rapidly. After starting second behind Ricciardo and a place in front of Hamilton, Rosberg was 10.3sec off the Red Bull in the space of four laps of real competition once the safety car had come in. He was delaying Hamilton hugely.

Now the big strategy call of the race. The track was drying and every car but one, Hamilton’s Mercedes, came in to change from wet to intermediate tyres. When Ricciardo went in to be re-shod after 23 laps, his lead over Hamilton was 11.2sec.

The question was whether Hamilton, who now took the lead for the first time, could stay in charge against the fast-charging Ricciardo long enough for the track to dry adequately to allow him to move straight from wets to slicks? Hamilton’s lead went down from 8sec to next to nothing, but that was fine.

Hamilton then went in for his tyre change on lap 31 – going to ultra-softs. Ricciardo came in a lap later to move from intermediates to slicks – super-softs, in his case. But the Red Bull team were at sixes and sevens, and Ricciardo’s car sat motionless for some three or four seconds while they carried over the right rubber.

That made a pivotal difference. It cost Ricciardo the race. He emerged a small fraction behind Hamilton, but he pushed hard. At one point Hamilton ran askew at the chicane and Ricciardo almost passed him, only to find no room between Hamilton’s right flank and the barrier. Ricciardo waved his hand in anger at his rival’s obduracy.

There were a few other spills, notably for Jolyon Palmer of Renault, who lost control on the white paint of the zebra crossing coming towards Sainte Devote. Splat. A virtual safety car was deployed.

Kimi Raikkonen lost control at the hairpin. Max Verstappen, of Red Bull, Palmer’s team-mate Kevin Magnussen, the two Saubers, of Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr, and Daniil Kvyat, of Toro Rosso, all crashed out.

Late rain fell. But Hamilton kept it on the tarmac. His margin over Ricciardo was 7.2sec. Sergio Perez was third. Rosberg was seventh, losing a place at the end to Nico Hulkenberg of Force India.