Mercedes robs Hamilton, gifts Monaco victory to Rosberg

Mercedes robs Hamilton, gifts victory to Rosberg

Lewis Hamilton’s sure shot victory chance at Monaco vanished during the safety car period because of a decision by Mercedes, which can politely be called a blunder. Lewis Hamilton was on the lead for 63 laps and had built up a lead of about 17.7 seconds. Then suddenly Max Verstappen had perhaps a brain failure as he has been driving well till that point and rammed behind the Lotus car of Romain Grosjean and then ploughs into the barrier. This brought the safety car. Mercedes then told Lewis Hamilton that both the two cars behind him have pitted whereas his teammate Nico Rosberg (of Mercedes) and Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari did not pit. So Hamilton agreed to get into the pits and changed his tyres. However, he lost the lead as after the pitstop, despite the lead he had built in, Lewis Hamilton joined the track behind Rosberg and Vettel. It was a sure shot win gifted to Nico Rosberg.

For some reason, someone in Mercedes wanted to perhaps keep Nico Rosberg in good humour after signing Lewis Hamilton for the next three years with a reported millions of dollars in salary. This is not an error. Despite the Mercedes boss Toto Wolf apologising, this is simply not possible. Someone somewhere decided to gift the win to Nico Rosberg to help him create the record of three wins in a row at Monaco. More importantly, now we know that this years drivers championship is far from over and Nico Rosberg does have a chance of winning it despite the brilliance of Lewis Hamilton.

The agony was evident in Hamilton’s face. He obviously didn’t celebrate by spraying the champagne. However, he said that he trusts the team.

Max Verstappen was penalised five places on the starting grid for causing the accident. He will start five places lower than his qualifying position in the next F1 Grand Prix at Canada.

Daniil Kvyat of Red Bull came in fourth. His teammate Daniel Ricciardo was fifth. Initially the Red Bull team allowed Ricciardo to overtake Kvyat as they felt that Ricciardo might challenge the other front runners and score a podium. When they realised that it is not going to happen, they allowed Kvyat to overtake Ricciardo and take his rightful position.

Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari was sixth. It is surprising that consistently Kimi has qualified behind Vettel and as a result has finished behind Vettel in most of the races. Kimi is a fast driver but his reputation as a fast and ice cool driver is taking a beating. In 2014, he was comprehensively beaten by Fernando Alonso. However, it was known that Kimi had walked into the team and was driving a car which was designed as per the preferences of Alonso. So there was some consolation. However, Sebastian Vettel routinely being in the podium and Kimi finishing in fifth or sixth is becoming difficult to digest.

Kimi was followed by Sergio Perez of Force India in seventh. It was a big surprise as Jenson Button of McLaren finished in 8th position. Earlier, Jenson Button had predicted that his McLaren team is not going to be in points in 2015. Hopefully this is the start of a good patch for the McLaren team.

Felipe Nasr and Carlos Sainz finished in 9th and 10th positions.

Nico Hulkenberg finished in 11th position. Romain Grosjean who was on the path of a points finish was crudely hit by Verstappen and finished in 12th position.

Marcus Ericsson was 13th followed by Valtteri Bottas of Williams in 14th. His teammate Felipe Massa was 15th.

Roberto Merhi for the first time finished ahead of his Marussia teammate. Merhi finished in 16th ahead of Will Stevens in 17th.

Results of Monaco F1 2015 Grand Prix

Finally Rosberg beats Hamilton to Pole in Spain

Nico Rosberg finally managed to beat Lewis Hamilton and score the first pole in this season in the Spanish Grand Prix 2015. Nico Rosberg scored a time of 1m 24.681 to Hamilton’s 1m 24.948 seconds. It was a convincing gap between the two. They ran on medium tyres.

In the top ten shootout in Q3 of the qualifying, the drivers generally go for two runs. Hamilton as well as Nico Rosberg set their top times in the first run. In the second run Hamilton couldn’t try and beat the provisional pole set by Rosberg and had to settle for second. Sebastian Vettel of Ferarri came in third behind the two Mercedes cars after he set a time of 1m 25.458. His teammate Kimi Raikkonen could only score a P7.


Valtteri Bottas of Williams came in P4 with a time of 1m 25.694. He was followed by Carlos Sainz Jr of Toro Rosso with a time of 1m 26.136. As a rookie and that too a Spanish, it must be a great feeling for Sainz beating the favourite Spaniard Fernando Alonso in Spain.

Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso came in P6 with a time of 1m 26. 249 seconds. Kimi Raikkonen whose contract with Ferrari expires end of this season is expected to do well and beat his teammate. However, he could only set a time of 1m 26.414 for P7.

Danil Kvyat of Red Bull was P8 as he came in at 1m 26.629. He was followed by Felipe Massa of Williams at 1m 26.757 and Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull with a time of 1m 26. 770.

Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado of Lotus will start tomorrow at 11th and 12th positions respectively in the race tomorrow. The Lotus duo were followed by the McLaren drivers who were lead by Fernando Alonso in 13th and Jenson Button in 14th.

Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson of Sauber will start in 15th and 16th positions. The Force India duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez will start in 17th and 18th positions. Their times are about 3.5 seconds behind the pole timing and it shows how low they have fallen primarily due to the lack of funds. It would be pertinent to mention that one of the promoters of Force India, Subroto Roy is in jail for nearly a year as his company has not been able to furnish a bail bond of 1 billion dollars. The other promoter of Force India and its principal Dr. Vijay Mallya is also in deep financial trouble. Mallya’s Kingfisher airlines went bankrupt and Mallya is also been hounded by banks to recover the money. So it shows that even a midfield team in F1 can’t sustain just based on their performance.

The last placed drivers are as expectedly from Manor racing. Will Stevens again out qualified his teammate Roberto Merhi. Will Stevens scored 1m 31.200 vs 1m 32.038 of his teammate. Both of them will start in 19th and 20th position.

Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying Results:

Hamilton beats Rosberg for Mercedes 1-2 in Shanghai

Mercedes came back to familiar race results with Lewis Hamilton winning the Chinese Grand Prix at Shangai and Nico Rosberg finishing in 2nd position. Sebastian Vettel of Redbull came in third behind the two Mercedes drivers.

Sebastian Vettel’s Malaysia win had shocked the F1 world, and Mercedes would be breathing easy now after this win in China. However, the victory by Mercedes was not one-sided as it was in Australia. Sebastian Vettel was not far behind and there was danger of Nico Rosberg losing the second place to him. The Mercedes team even urged Lewis Hamilton to quicken his pace, as he was cruising at a steady pace instead of the full pace that his machine was capable off. Mercedes even told Lewis Hamilton that if he did not increase his pace then may be forced to allow Nico Rosberg to the pits before Lewis Hamilton. It is an accepted fact that the leading driver of the team gets the first chance to pit before his team-mate. Infact Rosberg’s tyres were bad so he finally got a chance to pit before Hamilton, but Lewis Hamilton took the chance to quicken his pace and score a fastest lap.

Ferrari’s pace was not good in the medium tyres which they took in the last stint. They were a match to the Mercedes in the soft tyres. The race finished with the safety car as the youngest driver on the grid, Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso had to stop his smoking car on the pit straight and surprisingly it couldn’t be removed in time. This definitely impacted the race results as the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen was charging fast and could have snatched the third spot from team-mate Sebastian Vettel, as Kimi had fresh tyres on his car and the gap between the cars had dropped to only 1.3 seconds. When a car is within one second of the preceding car, it can deploy the DRS in the designated DRS zone and overtake. Kimi, a good friend of Vettel might be cursing his luck.

The Williams cars of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas came in fifth and sixth confirming that they have fallen behind Ferrari as well. Last year Williams were just behind Mercedes and were dreaming of a race victory, especially in Brazil where Felipe Massa was leading.

Romain Grosjean, the original bad boy of 2013, finished in seventh and got the first points for Lotus. 2014 was a forgettable year for Lotus with their team principal moving to McLaren and Kimi moving to Ferrari. They had financial trouble as well. This year after moving to Mercedes engines from Renault engines, they are having a better time.

Felipe Nasr of Sauber finished in eighth ahead of Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull. Ricciardo had a dreadful start to the Chinese F1 Grand Prix as he accidentally hit the auto stall during the start. He somehow held his nerves and showed a gritty performance to finish in points in 9th place. He must be happy that Verstappen of sister car Toro Rosso, who was scheduled to finish in eighth had to retire with a smoking Renault engine. Despite the much higher budget of Red bull, the sister cars of Toro Rosso are doing better.

Marcus Ericsson must be very happy moving to Sauber as he finished in points by claiming the 10th and last points paying position. He was one lap down. Sergio Perez of Force India came in 11th.

Jenson Button made a mistake and hit Pastor Maldonado’s Lotus car from behind. Button accepted his fault and was penalised with 5 seconds. So he finished in 14th and his team-mate Fernando Alonso finished in 12th. Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso was 13th.

It must be a very sad day for Fernando Alonso, who left Ferrari to join McLaren, as Ferrari is doing well this year and the Ferrari cars lapped the McLaren of Alonso.

Both the Marussia cars managed to finish the race and would be very happy with the reliability. They couldn’t race in the season opener at Melbourne. In Malaysia they only ran one car. At Shanghai in the Chinese F1 Grand Prix, Will Stevens lead his team-mate Roberto Merhi for a 15th and 16th position finish.

Retirements in Chinese F1 Grand Prix

Max Verstappen                Toro Rosso
Pastor Maldonado             Lotus
Daniil Kvyat                     Red Bull
Nico Hulkenberg              Force India