The 2015 Monaco Grand Prix marked the very first time a ‘Virtual Safety Car’ was used in Formula 1. An over exuberant Max Verstappen rear-ended French racer Roman Grosjean necessitating this debut albeit the accident was quickly reassessed as requiring a regular safety car which was duly deployed.
With Lewis Hamilton leading the race by almost 20secs the Mercedes team decided it was prudent to call their driver into the pits and allow him to reassume the race lead with new tyres. It was a monumental faux-pas. The Mercedes pit-wall, led by a German and an Austrian – two nationalities normally renowned for their precision timekeeping – completely miscalculated the English driver’s advantage and he re-emerged on to the track in third position.
With Monaco being a lame outdated excuse for a racetrack where an F1 car will struggle to overtake that other wonderful electric powered creation, a milk-float – thanks to its narrow barrier-lined configuration – it was race over for the Englishman. Mercedes turned almost certain victory into definite defeat.
Forward-wind almost three years and all the same ingredients – from Romain Grosjean to a Virtual Safety Car, miscalculations and a lame circuit where on track overtaking is as rare as a snowflake in summer – conspired to take away yet another race victory from the Englishman in Australia. Just how did Mercedes get it so wrong in Melbourne?
The team have almost two weeks to pick themselves up, check their computer algorithms and have a chat with their No.2 driver, Valtteri Bottas, politely asking him not to smash up another car especially as Hamilton needs a wingman that can be regularly thrown under the bus, just like Kimi Raikkonen in the Ferrari garage.
There’s speed in the blue cars, no bull
But there is no sacrificial lamb at Red Bull and once again the Milton Keynes team showed they have a car and drivers capable of mixing it with the ‘big two’. The drinks company left Melbourne with 20 World Constructors Championship Points, Mercedes claimed just two more.
And the fastest lap accolade, often played down by TV pundits went to Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo. It was not just another ‘fastest lap’ either, his 1:29.54 totally smashed anything his rivals could muster at any stage of the race. It was some remarkable pace from a car stuck in the dirty air of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari for the final third of the race.
Duel in the desert?
The next stop on this 21-race season is Bahrain on April 8th. Since 1.6L V6 hybrid cars have come into use only a Mercedes has started on pole here and on three occasions they have locked out the front row.
But it is Vettel who has the best win record, taking this race three times in the past six seasons. It is a great CV considering he never made it past the formation lap in 2016.
