It was redemption on the streets of Monte Carlo for Daniel Ricciardo as he persevered from a power issue to hold off Sebastian Vettel and win the Monaco Grand Prix for the first time.

 

 

Ricciardo held a comfortable gap in the lead early on before an energy recovery problem began to take its toll on the Australian for the majority of the race.

 

He managed his RB14 racer down on power to the chequered flag to claim his seventh career victory, with Vettel falling further back later on to settle for second and Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes completing the podium.

 

How the Monaco GP unfolded

 

 

When the 78-lap race began, Ricciardo kept Vettel behind at St. Devote and built a gap of over 3.5 seconds before the leaders pitted to switch their pink-walled hypersofts.

 

Vettel came in on lap 16 to put on his ultras with Ricciardo remaining out a lap longer before stopping and emerging with a three second lead.

 

Ricciardo then reported over the radio over a loss of power as Vettel started to close in.

 

 

The team replied that it would not get worse as Ricciardo continued to push on and maintained the gap with a reduced pace.

 

This allowed Vettel to be narrowly over a second behind the Australian, with Hamilton getting closer and the top three became within three seconds of each other.

 

Hamilton was concerned about his tyres over the radio and started to slip back to a distant third.

 

Ricciardo’s pace slip meant that Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas could have stopped battling for fourth and catch the leading trio but were unable to do so.

 

Bottas briefly was the dark horse in the race when pitting for the red-branded supersofts while the top four runners went on ultras and the Finn was much faster in cleaner air.

 

Bottas’ push ended when he caught his fellow Finnish compatriot and was stuck behind the Ferrari, although the duo caught Hamilton at the end as their positions remained stable.

 

Force India’s Esteban Ocon came home in sixth place and was the best of the rest.

 

Ocon stopped later than most of the leaders but not as late as Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly and Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg, who ran longer stints and had stronger pace in the second half of proceedings.

 

Gasly was on supersofts whilst Hulkenberg was on ultrasofts, but the Frenchman just managed to hold seventh place as Ocon kept the duo behind him.

 

The other Red Bull of Max Verstappen scored points after the crash in FP3 jeopardised his weekend as the Dutchman started at the back of the grid.

 

Verstappen slowly climbed through the field to finish ninth after putting on a great move on Sainz into the Nouvelle Chicane.

 

Sainz remained ahead at first by cutting the chicane, but the following lap later, Verstappen made the move on the outside, ran a little deep into the corner and cut half of it, jumping half of the kerb on the right-hander apex and took the place.

 

A tame ending to the race was halted by Sauber’s Charles Leclerc rear-ending the Toro Rosso of Brendon Hartley under braking heading into the Nouvelle Chicane with seven laps remaining.

 

Hartley was in 11^th place with Leclerc tucked right behind when the hometown Sauber rookie crashed into the rear of the Honda-powered Toro Rosso just after exiting the tunnel.

 

Leclerc reported of a brakes failure immediately after the crash, and his C37 racer slid down the escape road with the front of his car battered, while Hartley limped his way to the pits with a destroyed rear wing.

 

That deployed the virtual safety car, but with not much time left, the leaders decided not to take the risk pitting and the positions remained stable, as Vettel dropped further back from race leader Ricciardo.

 

McLaren’s Fernando Alonso was the other casualty of the race with the Spaniard on his way to finishing seventh until the rear of his Renault-powered MCL33 racer started smoking and was forced to retire at the end of St. Devote with 25 laps remaining.

 

The Top Three

 

 

1st. Daniel Ricciardo – Aston Martin Red Bull Racing: “I think I can show more emotion today than yesterday! Two years in the making – I finally feel like the redemption has arrived. We had problems, we had a lot to deal with during the race. I felt power loss and I thought the race was done. We got home just using six gears. I’m stoked. There were a few doubts that came in mid-race, but we’ve won Monaco – feels good, feels good.”

 

2nd. Sebastian Vettel – Scuderia Ferrari: “We had the pace, it was a tricky race. Daniel had the answers at all times. He was a bit stronger, we couldn’t follow, and I was going through the tyres a bit quicker. I think he had a problem with his MGU-K, then it picked up towards the end again. At the restart I didn’t have much confidence in the tyres, I lost quite a lot. Otherwise it would have been nice to keep the pressure on.

 

3rd. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport: “A big congratulations to Red Bull and to Daniel, they did a great job all weekend and they were the quickest – we knew that would be the case. It would be nice to have been second, but I did everything I could. It was the least interesting race.”

 

The Formula 1 Grand Prix De Monaco 2018 Race Results Classification (78 Laps)

POS	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	GAP
1	Daniel Ricciardo	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing	78	1h42m54.807s
2	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari	78	7.336s
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	78	17.013s
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Scuderia Ferrari	78	18.127s
5	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	78	18.822s
6	Esteban Ocon	Sahara Force India F1 Team	78	23.667s
7	Pierre Gasly	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	78	24.331s
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault Sport F1 Team	78	24.839s
9	Max Verstappen	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing	78	25.317s
10	Carlos Sainz	Renault Sport F1 Team	78	1m09.013s
11	Marcus Ericsson	Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team	78	1m09.864s
12	Sergio Perez	Sahara Force India F1 Team	78	1m10.461s
13	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team	78	1m14.823s
14	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren-Renault F1 Team	77	1 Lap
15	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team	77	1 Lap
16	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams Martini Racing	77	1 Lap
17	Lance Stroll	Williams Martini Racing	76	2 Laps
18	Charles Leclerc	Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team	70	Collision
19	Brendon Hartley	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	70	Collision
–	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Renault F1 Team	52	Gearbox

 

2018 Formula 1 World Drivers Championship Standings

1. Lewis Hamilton – 110 Points.
2. Sebastian Vettel – 96 Points.
3. Daniel Ricciardo – 72 Points.
4. Valtteri Bottas – 68 Points.
5. Kimi Raikkonen – 60 Points.
6. Max Verstappen – 35 Points.
7. Fernando Alonso – 32 Points.
8. Nico Hulkenberg – 26 Points.
9. Carlos Sainz – 20 Points.
10. Kevin Magnussen – 19 Points.

 

2018 World Constructors Championship Standings

1. Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport – 178 Points.
2. Scuderia Ferrari – 156 Points.
3. Aston Martin Red Bull Racing – 107 Points.
4. Renault Sport F1 Team – 46 Points.
5. McLaren-Renault F1 Team – 40 Points.
6. Sahara Force India F1 Team – 26 Points.
7. Scuderia Toro Rosso – 19 Points.
8. Haas F1 Team – 19 Points.
9. Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team – 11 Points.
10. Williams Martini Racing – 4 Points.

 

Round seven of the 2018 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the famous Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada for the Formula 1 Grand Prix Heineken Du Canada 2018 from June 8-10.