Vettel Wins Monaco Grand Prix
Sebastian Vettel takes another victory after a interesting finish at the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend.
Vettel, who started the race in pole position drove a good race but his mechanics’ did not look like they knew what they were doing, but Vettel going out on the Prime tyres, which are the longer lasting ones. This proved to be a good idea, as Vettel did not change his tyres again for the rest of the race until the race was stopped.
Christian Horner, Team Boss for Red Bull-Racing said on the team radio when he crossed the line:
“You beauty - that was a champion’s drive!” Vettel responds
“Thank you… Together we did it”
Vettel was being chased, very quickly by second place man Alonso, who was on fresher tyres and had better pit stops and also Jenson Button, who was less than a second behind the leader.
Massa and Hamilton had a battle half way through the race where Hamilton was battling to get past Massa and makes a move at the famous Hairpin but drives into the side of Massa, as they enter the tunnel they were side by side and Massa hit the marbles and hit the wall in the tunnel retiring him from the race. Hamilton was under investigation.
Hamilton commented after the race after visiting the stewards:
“Out of six races, ive been to the stewards 5 times, it’s a joke, absolute frigging joke”
Lewis Hamilton was involved in the crash that saw the red flag to be shown on lap 69, he was rear ended by Alguersuari and then went onto crashing in to Petrov which caused the big crash. Vitaly was reported to lose consciousness at one point and complaining about leg pains, but he was taken to hospital and was cleared after the race.
The race was red flagged on lap 72, which the race was suspended and all the cars were parked up n the start/finish line. All the teams mechanics rush to the star line to aid the drivers. There was some confusion whether the teams can change tyres on the finish line was this surely would be a advantage to some drivers and a disadvantage to others.
Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing’s team principal said that the red flag gave Vettel reprieve, as he was allowed to change his failing tyres on the stat/finish line to give him advantage over Alonso and Button who was chasing the leaders.
He commented after the race:
“This was a really special race. We had problems at Sebastian's first stop, we had radio issues, and didn't get the tyres on that we wanted. So we had to change our strategy. The main thing was that we didn't panic. We tried something a bit different, which was very aggressive. But Seb was making it work. That was what won him the race today. He was pretty confident, kept talking to his engineers, focusing on areas he could be quick."
Old timer Michael Schumacher drove a good race, firstly overtaking Hamilton at the Hairpin, then going on to reach 8th place before Hamilton overtook him when he was chasing Massa down. Schumacher went on to retire from the race, parking his car in the road just before the pits.
The next race is the Canadian Grand Prix that will take place on the 12th June at 1800 GMT.
30th May 2011
30-May-2011
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