Monaco: The race seen from the pits

Mercedes

Nico Rosberg – Winner

Lewis Hamilton – 4th

Ross Brawn, Team Principal: Congratulations to Nico today. He didn’t put a foot wrong all weekend, leading every session and driving a magnificent race with complete control. He fully deserves this second victory of his career. Lewis was comfortably in second position before the safety car intervention, where both our drivers had to make their first stops. The team did a fantastic job all weekend in a tricky qualifying session and a complicated race. But we are all aware, Monaco is not really a representative circuit. We will take the time tonight to enjoy this success, but we know we have to keep moving forward to understand how to extract the maximum from our car on every track and continue to improve.

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Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – 2nd

Mark Webber – 3rd

Thierry Salvi, Renault Engineer: « Even though we would have liked to win today, everyone knows it’s difficult to overtake in Monte Carlo. The safety cars didn’t bring many opportunities for an original strategy, so we can be happy with the double podium. It’s the fourth consecutive year that the Red Bull-Renault partnership finishes on the podium, so it’s great to keep this record alive. »

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Force India

Adrian Sutil – 5th

Paul di Resta – 9th

Vijay Mallya, Team Principal: It was a very eventful Monaco Grand Prix, and I am delighted to see both Force Indias come home with points. With Adrian’s fifth place and Paul’s ninth, we add 12 points to our tally and consolidate our fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship. Adrian’s race was superb as he showed great speed and patience all afternoon. He waited for the right opportunities to arise and made the most of them. I think everyone enjoyed his two overtakes at the hairpin on two world champions. It’s our best result in Monaco, and it’s well deserved for the whole team. Paul was also superb, showing his overtaking skills at the first corner and climbing from 17th on the grid to score two points. I congratulate the whole team on another strong weekend and hope we can do the same in Canada in a few weeks’ time.

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McLaren

Translate: Jenson Button – 6th

Sergio Pérez – 16th

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Director: Jenson drove very well this afternoon to finish 6th and in doing so scored 8 very useful points for the championship. Checo could also have secured good points, but a collision with Kimi compromised the effectiveness of his brake ducts and led to a brake failure. He is disappointed, which is understandable, but the positive is that he was combative and entertaining almost every lap – and, more importantly, he was very fast.

McLaren has won the Monaco Grand Prix 15 times in the past – far more often than any other constructor – so naturally, we are disappointed not to have increased that number of victories to 16 today. But we were in the running throughout, and it’s clear that the development curve of the MP4-28 is positive.

The next race will be the Canadian Grand Prix, where we have won 13 times in the past, which puts McLaren tied with Ferrari for the most victories at the Canadian Grand Prix. We don’t expect to increase that number to 14 for McLaren in 15 days, but we will undoubtedly give it our all starting today and we will do everything to be as competitive as possible.

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Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 7th

Felipe Massa – Retirement

Stefano Domenicali, Team Principal: « We cannot be happy about this weekend, not only because of Fernando’s race outcome but also due to the accidents Felipe had. Fortunately, despite the severity of the impact, he is fine and already back home, and I believe that in a few days, he will be back in perfect condition and ready to race in Montreal. Despite all the bad luck, it was a complicated race, affected by some technical issues. Now, it is important for us to understand why we were not as competitive as in previous races and try to react starting in Canada. Our goal is always to improve our qualifications and try to regain the pace we have seen so far. »

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Toro Rosso

Jean-Eric Vergne – 8th

Daniel Ricciardo – Retirement

Franz Tost, Team Principal: In many ways, it was a typical Monaco Grand Prix with lots of passion and few overtakes. For Jean-Eric, starting 10th on the grid after making it to Q3 for the first time in his F1 career yesterday and then crossing the line in 8th place is an excellent result. This proves that the car’s performance is improving and that the team is doing a good job, but Monaco is a circuit on the calendar that’s more about the driver, so congratulations to Jev for staying out of trouble and staying focused during this long afternoon. Starting on soft tires, his tires held up well, and the team on the pit wall did an excellent job calling him into the pits right after Massa’s accident, even before the safety car was deployed. However, the red flag meant everyone could switch to new tires, which nullified the advantage we hoped to have over those struggling with their tires. Then, towards the end, the Räikkönen-Pérez incident offered us a well-deserved eighth place. Starting from 12th, Daniel lost a position at the start and stayed 13th until lap 62, when he was hit from behind by Grosjean coming out of the tunnel and had to retire. When he had a clear track, he was putting in some great laps, but the safety car interventions and the red flag didn’t play in his favor.

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Lotus

Kimi Räikkönen – 10th

Romain Grosjean – Retirement

Eric Boullier, Team Principal: « This is certainly not the weekend we were hoping for. Kimi was impeccable all weekend, once again, and his race was ruined by another driver who hit his car. This caused a puncture and ruined his race. Romain had a difficult weekend, but he showed fantastic pace when he had a clear track. We’ve lost ground in both championships, so we’re going to work twice as hard to turn things around in Canada. On a more positive note, we were extremely proud to see Daft Punk join the team for the race – only their third public appearance in twenty years. We therefore want to express our gratitude to Columbia Records for helping make this concept a reality. The team has a truly unique brand image and we want to extend this unorthodox approach in the future. »

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Sauber

Nico Hülkenberg – 11th

Esteban Gutiérrez – 13th

Tom McCullough, Track Engineering Manager: « It was a Monaco race full of twists and turns with many safety car interventions and a red flag. Both our drivers drove well today, but in the end, the car was too hard on the tires. The degradation was too significant, and the overall pace wasn’t fast enough to score points. So, we need to regroup and prepare for Montreal in two weeks. »

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Williams

Valtteri Bottas – 12th

Translate: Pastor Maldonado – Abandon

Mike Coughlan, Technical Director: « We had planned to execute a one-stop strategy for both our cars, but Pastor had a collision on the first lap. He therefore had to make an unscheduled stop for a new front wing. Pastor drove a great race, managing his tires after the first safety car period, but then had a big accident, which caused a red flag after a Marussia crashed into him on lap 45. Pastor is not injured, but he’s disappointed that the race ended early. Valtteri drove a mature race, doing a great job for his first Monaco Grand Prix. The red flag allowed surrounding cars to switch to fresh tires. Therefore, strategy did not play as important a role as expected. We were chasing a point towards the end of the race, but it didn’t happen. »

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Marussia

Max Chilton – 14th

Jules Bianchi – Retirement

John Booth, Team Principal: Today’s race was incredibly turbulent for everyone, and our team was no exception. We are sorry for the problem Jules encountered on the grid, but things seemed to improve for us from there. Our strategy was working well, and we had to make a few late decisions, including stopping Max under the second safety car so that we could have fresh Super Soft tires and the opportunity to pass Van der Garde. Thanks to an incredible drive from Max in the final laps, he pulled a one-second gap on the last lap to ensure we walked away with something positive as, in the meantime, Jules had unfortunately been eliminated from the race. It was a nice reward for Max after a strong recovery from the crash with Maldonado. It appears that Jules suffered a failure of his front right brake disc, and for that, too, we must apologize to him. There are many things to learn and improve after this weekend, but the main thing is that we are happy with this result.

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Caterham

Giedo van der Garde – 15th

Charles Pic – Abandon

Caterham has not published statements from the team’s representatives.

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