Mark Webber took a pole to flag victory in Monaco to become the sixth Grand Prix winner of 2012 fighting off a train of competitors in the final ten laps as scattered showers made the track slippery, 6.1 seconds covered the top six, Webber, Rosberg, Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton and Massa.
Mark Webber made a good start arriving in Sainte Devote first avoiding the carnage behind, Fernando Alonso squeezed Romain Grosjean clipping his right front wheel which started a chain reaction, colliding with Michael Schumacher who was charging down the outside sending the Frenchman into a spin collecting Kamui Kobayashi who bounced into Jenson Button. I’ve spoken with others that think the incident was cause by a rookie mistake by Grosjean, but I believe that Alonso squeezed the Frenchman, going for a gap that wasn’t there, hence the initial contact!
The opening lap incident brought out the safety car to clear Grosjean’s car off the track while Pedro de la Rosa and Pastor Maldonado also retired from he race as a result of the first corner carnage. Button and Kobayashi continued but both later retired, Kobayashi retired on lap five while Button got tucked up behind the Caterham of Heikki Kovalainen for much of the race and frustration got the better of the Briton as he first spun out and then outbraked himself into turn one in another overtaking attempt on lap 70. Another disappointing race weekend from Jenson!
Lewis Hamilton, who was hotly tipped to take victory in Monaco, finished fifth being overtaken twice during pitstops. First Alonso jumped Hamilton in a straight pitstop battle while Sebastian Vettel’s super long first stint allowed him to jump ahead of Hamilton after the German’s stop! Fellow German Nico Rosberg just hung onto Mark Webber’s exhaust like his life depended on it to come home second, but in reality, Webber managed his race brilliantly, he had it all under control and I feel could have gone faster if needed! I’m impressed with Felipe Massa who has been heavily criticised, answered his critics, me included with this sixth place, just six seconds off the lead!
Michael Schumacher retired from the race on lap 63 while running in eighth place while Jean-Eric Vergne pitted for inters, gambling on rain when running in seventh place. it turns out that Toro Rosso had used only one type of tyre, so had to pit to change to the other tyre, so took the gamble on rain, which didn’t come until after the chequered flag fell. The net result of Schumacher’s retirement and Vergne’s tyre gamble is the Force India’s of Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg were promoted to seventh and eighth places, Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen to ninth place and the sole remaining Williams of Bruno Senna to 10th place. An exciting end to the 2012 Monaco Grand Prix.
The result of the Monaco Grand Prix means that Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso has taken the outright lead in the world drivers title standings with 76 points, followed by the Red Bull duo of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber in joint second with 73 points apiece. McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton is a further 10 points behind with 63 points, while team-mate Jenson Button is currently in seventh place, 31 points behind Alonso, so it’s still very tight with 14 races remaining in the season but Button will need to get his act together fast before his slide down the table becomes terminal!
Bring on Canada, where hopefully Jenson Button can find his way back to winning ways, at minimum a podium finish, the last two races have been absolutely disastrous for Button, be it team strategy issues or simply not being fast enough, either way Button needs to step up his game, instead of sitting back and hoping the technical boffins at McLaren figure out how to fix his tyre woes.
