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Ricciardo wins in Monaco masterclass

Writer's picture: Andrew ZarbAndrew Zarb


Daniel Ricciardo has won the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix in a remarkable drive by the Aussie, making it his first win around the principality, and his second win of the season. It is also the first time that he's ever won a race that he started from third or better. Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel finished second, whilst World Champion and current World Championship leader Lewis Hamilton finished third for Mercedes.

At the start, polesitter Daniel Ricciardo got away well and led going into turn 1, with all cars getting away nicely going into the first corner without any contact. Max Verstappen moved up two places into 18th place at the start going into turn 1, overtaking Haas drivers Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen. Brendon Hartley did have some contact which damaged his front wing, but otherwise it was all quite clean.

Verstappen managed to move up into 16th place after getting past Marcus Ericsson, and Williams driver Lance Stroll. Williams' other driver, Sergey Sirotkin, was handed a 10-second stop-go penalty as his car was not prepared in time (the tyres were not stuck on his car before the 3-minute signal). Stroll suffered a puncture himself after seemingly making contact with Sauber's Marcus Ericsson, which caused the Canadian to have a front right puncture (he had a similar incident later on in the race, although it is not certain as to what caused the puncture).

On lap 12, Hamilton pitted from third place to switch onto the ultra-soft tyres. He re-emerged in sxith place, behind Esteban Ocon, however, he quickly got back past the Frenchman (Ocon didn't put up that much of a fight in reality). Vettel himself pitted on lap 16 and re-emerged ahead of both Mercedes drivers (Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas). Ricciardo and Raikkonen themselves pitted a lap later, whilst Bottas pitted not long after. The top 5 (excluding those who had not made their pitstop yet) was: Ricciardo, Vettel, Hamilton, Raikkonen and Bottas (who elected to switch to the supersofts). The drama was not over just yet, however.

On lap 29, leader Ricciardo complained that he was losing power, and Vettel began to rapidly close up in second place, however, Ricciardo was somehow managing to maintain first place. It is said that Ricciardo was 25% down on engine power, after he suffered an MGU-K failure. Crucially, though, he was still leading the race at this point.

Ricciardo was still running cleanly up at the front despite the power loss. Team-mate Verstappen pitted for a set of hyper-soft tyres on lap 48, and re-joined in 11th place. On lap 53, McLaren's Fernando Alonso retired with what was a gearbox issue. Carlos Sainz was ordered to let team-mate Nico Hulkenberg past for eighth place. Sainz was also passed by Verstappen for ninth place, but it was arguable that Verstappen cut the corner and gained an unfair advantage.

On lap 72, Charles Leclerc ran into the back of Brendon Hartley after the home boy seemingly suffered a brake failure, causing both to retire. This caused the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) to be deployed. The VSC ended on lap 74, and Vettel struggled on the restart with seemingly cold tyres, and was rather dropping back to Ricciardo who in the end cruised to victory despite an MGU-K failure, with Vettel and Hamilton following in 2nd and 3rd respectively. Esteban Ocon came home in sixth place after a very mature drive, whilst Verstappen finished ninth after starting 20th. Ricciardo called this win "redemption" after losing in 2016 due to a pitstop error by the team when he was on course to win. Interestingly, there was no Safety Car period during this year's Monaco Grand Prix, which is an impressive feat.

Race classification: Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer

Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes

Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari

Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes Esteban Ocon - Force India-Mercedes

Pierre Gasly - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda

Nico Hulkenberg - Renault

Max Verstappen - Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer

Carlos Sainz - Renault

Marcus Ericsson - Sauber-Ferrari Sergio Perez - Force India-Mercedes

Kevin Magnussen - Haas-Ferrari

Stoffel Vandoorne - McLaren-Renault

Romain Grosjean - Haas-Ferrari

Sergey Sirotkin - Williams-Mercedes

Lance Stroll - Williams-Mercedes

Charles Leclerc - Sauber-Ferrari

Brendon Hartley - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda

Did not finish the race and not classified: Fernando Alonso

World Championship classification: Lewis Hamilton - 110 points

Sebastian Vettel - 96 points

Daniel Ricciardo - 72 points

Valtteri Bottas - 68 points

Kimi Raikkonen - 60 points

Max Verstappen - 35 points

Fernando Alonso - 32 points

Nico Hulkenberg - 26 points

Carlos Sainz - 20 points

Kevin Magnussen - 19 points

Pierre Gasly - 18 points

Sergio Perez - 17 points

Esteban Ocon - 9 points

Charles Leclerc - 9 points

Stoffel Vandoorne - 8 points

Lance Stroll - 4 points

Marcus Ericsson - 2 points

Brendon Hartley - 1 point

Romain Grosjean - 0 points

Sergey Sirotkin - 0 points

Constructors' Championship classification: Mercedes - 178 points

Ferrari - 156 points

Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer - 107 points

Renault - 46 points

McLaren-Renault - 40 points

Force India-Mercedes - 26 points

Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda - 19 points Haas-Ferrari - 19 points

Sauber-Ferrari - 11 points

Williams-Mercedes - 4 points


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