Scuderia Ferrari wins some loses some

Smiles all around in the Ferrari garage, if only the second Ferrari had finished a little higher. By Jerrica Leong

Sebastian Vettel is currently the biggest threat to the Mercedes AMG F1 team with team mate Kimi Raikkonen occasionally chipping in to help shake the silver arrows as well. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the scarlet team. Just a few races ago the smile had been totally wiped off team principal Maurizio Arrivabene’s face, thankfully the smile has been restored at the Monaco GP, or a half smile at least, with Sebastian Vettel proving that the Ferraris are hard to shake off.

Both Ferraris had started well, Vettel had maintained his third place at the start though Daniil Kyvat in the Red Bull almost ran into his back. Both Red Bulls had given the Ferrari driver a run for his position but Vettel proved too hard to chase. While race leader Hamilton pulled away from the rest of the field, Rosberg’s effort to shake off Sebastian Vettel had been futile the entire way. Vettel had remained on the rear end of the silver car the rest of the race. There were times where Vettel had managed to reduce the gap between Rosberg to less than a second before his tyres began to fall off.

Ferrari attempted to make the undercut but the plan was unsuccessful for Vettel as the German had remained behind Rosberg even after the pit-stops. After 65 laps, Vettel and Ferrari had settled on third but Verstappen’s crash that brought out the safety car had brought with it a huge confusion.

Vettel had had to fight for position behind the safety car with a returning Hamilton who had pitted for a new set of tyres. Both drivers had insisted that they were in the right although Hamilton had to concede the place to Vettel. The FIA reviewed the incident and no further action was warranted for the replays revealed that Vettel was ahead of Hamilton when he rejoined the race.

Kimi Raikkonen on the other hand was showing the same pace as his team mate. The Iceman caught up with Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull which was suffering from a lack of grip. While Raikkonen did not manage to pull a move on Ricciardo, Ferrari’s strategy to pit Raikkonen after the Red Bull saw the Iceman rejoining the race ahead of the competition.

Raikkonen enjoyed a little bit of slippery action after that allowing Ricciardo to climb all over his rear wing, but unfortunately for Ricciardo, the harder tyres he has on the Red Bull had not agreed with him. Raikkonen pulled away effortlessly to hunt down Daniil Kyvat in the other Red Bull who was racing in fourth place.

While Vettel had benefited from the safety car period, the same couldn’t be said about Kimi Raikkonen. Raikkonen’s harder tyres had suffered after the restart allowing Daniel Ricciardo, who had pitted for fresh tyres behind the safety car to pull a messy overtaking move on the Iceman which saw both drivers knock wheels at turn one.

It was a heart stopping final six laps for Vettel fans, all were rooting for their hero to keep Hamilton in third place which Vettel did in spectacular fashion on older and slower tyres compared to the fresher and faster tyres on the Mercedes.

After 78 laps, a very fresh looking Vettel hopped onto the podium to take home the second place trophy and a very grumpy Raikkonen came back to the pits in sixth place bum still sore from the brush with Ricciardo. While the incident between Raikkonen and Ricciardo had gone under scrutiny from the FIA it was later deemed a racing incident and no further action will be carried out.