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7
9/10
Event rating
MICHAEL SCHUMACHER
Mercedes F1 W03-05
Start: 6th. Finish: DNF
Don’t underestimate the
achievement of a 43-yearold
taking pole at Monaco.
His lap was impressively
precise and the fact that he
lost it due to a Spain penalty
makes no difference to his
rating here. Lost time behind
Raikkonen, but P7 was on
without fuel-pressure woes.
8
De la Rosa: happy after
qualy, less so after race
9/10
Event rating
NICO ROSBERG
Mercedes F1 W03-03
Start: 2nd. Finish: 2nd
Claimed after the race that
the Mercedes was the best
car and it certainly looked it
on track. So should Rosberg
have won? With a slightly
better Saturday effort,
the answer is surely yes
although there is no shame
in not being able to pass
around Monaco.
9
Fernandes was happy
with Kovalainen’s 13th
Maldonado had a
weekend to forget
5/10
Event rating
KIMI RAIKKONEN
Lotus-Renault E20-03
Start: 8th. Finish: 9th
Not as quick as Grosjean, but
he at least managed to make
it as far as the first corner in
the race. From there, he was
puzzlingly slow, something
the team was keenly aware
of, but he at least salvaged
a couple of points for ninth
despite a pretty lacklustre
Sunday afternoon.
overextend himself trying to get out
of DRS range, soon realising that
Rosberg could do nothing about
passing anyway. For a time Alonso
took it very easy, falling off the back
of Hamilton and generating a bit of
a queue behind him, with Massa
snapping away at his heels, but it
was only temporary as Fernando
sought to give the tyres the easiest
time possible.
As Webber gradually eased out a
couple of seconds over Rosberg, it
was eventually Kimi Raikkonen – in
seventh place – who began falling
away at around 15 laps. The Lotus,
which is normally renowned for
being easy on its tyres, was wearing
its rears badly. But with rain
expected he was told to stay out,
and would do so until lap 29, badly
delaying the following Schumacher
(his Merc miraculously almost
“Rosberg’s only real
hope was at the start,
and he aggressively
angled his car
towards Webber”
undamaged from the hefty hit
on the right-front wheel from
Grosjean) and the Force India of
Nico Hulkenberg.
Further back, Button was making
no progress whatsoever from his
delay at the first corner, trapped in
15th, behind Heikki Kovalainen’s
Caterham. Although Button was
later critical of the intensity of
Heikki’s defence of such a lowly
place, he admitted his problem all
stemmed from his poor qualifying
the day before. There is a piece of
electronic trickery on the McLaren,
which has been on both cars all
year, and Button is now feeling it
may be confusing his feel for the
car, causing him to make poor
10
4/10
Event rating
ROMAIN GROSJEAN
Lotus-Renault E20-01
Start: 4th. Finish: DNF
Rightly touted as a possible
winner before qualifying,
but lost time in the second
sector left him down on row
two. He failed to factor in the
fast-starting Schumacher
and has to carry the can for
moving over on the Merc.
Fortunately, his spin didn’t
take out half of the field.
11
PAUL DI RESTA
Force India-Merc VJM05-02
Start: 14th. Finish: 7th
Qualifying was solid, but he
lost out to Hulkenberg. In
the race he turned in a great
drive to be best of the rest
behind the leading pack. Ran
behind Nico early on, but
jumped him after stopping
earlier and capitalising on
his team-mate losing time
behind Raikkonen.
REPORT
MONACO GP
set-up choices.
But actually, it wasn’t as if the
sister car of Hamilton was behaving
much better, despite it running
third. From around the 24th lap it
was beginning to fall away even
from the fairly controlled pace of
Webber and Rosberg, and had the
Ferraris and Vettel queued up
behind. “I struggled in the lowspeed
corners and found looking
after the rear tyres tough,” said
Hamilton. “To make them last as
long as we did, while trying to keep
up with the pace of the guys in
front, was one of the trickiest
things I’ve had to do in a race.”
Rosberg, by contrast, felt he had
the fastest car in the race. But
although he could keep within a
couple of seconds of Webber, he
was never in a position to try
putting a move on the Red Bull.
Instead, Mercedes blinked first in
the strategy game, bringing Nico
in at the end of the 27th lap and
replacing his options with a new set
of primes in just 3.4s. This was a
crucial moment in the race’s
destiny. Could the earlier stop
leapfrog him ahead of the leader,
using the new tyres’ grip? This was
actually quite a gamble because,
with a moderate track temperature
of around 34C and a significantly
lightened fuel load, there was a real
concern that the harder tyre may
not switch itself on immediately.
What was there to lose? Well, in
trying to leapfrog Webber,
Mercedes could have made
Rosberg vulnerable to, say, Alonso.
Everyone kept a close eye on the
Merc’s sector times. They were
good – but not that good. The
degradation rate of the supersofts
was not high here, and so the new
softs were not buying that much
time, even though Rosberg got them
switched on well enough. Just prior
to his stop he had done a 1m19.6s;
his first flying lap on the new
8/10
Event rating
12
9/10
Event rating
NICO HULKENBERG
Force India-Merc VJM05-03
Start: 10th. Finish: 8th
Qualifying lap was mighty,
dragging a Force India closer
to the top 10 than it deserved
to be. Also impressive was
his opportunistic pass on
Raikkonen when the Finn
was held up by a pit-bound
Perez. But time lost behind
the Lotus had given di Resta
the opportunity to jump him.
May 31 2012 autosport.com 35