F1 Talk: Has Hamilton Proven Himself Versus Verstappen

The run of Mercedes 1-2s ended in 2019 but Lewis Hamilton extended his lead in the drivers’ championship with a stunning drive to win his third Monaco Grand Prix victory. But it will be his battle with Max Verstappen that had the public talking at the end of a classic Monaco thriller.

Mercedes were able to lock out the front row and looked set to cruise to a record-breaking sixth consecutive 1-2. However, it all went wrong during the pitstop phase as Valtteri Bottas had to settle for the podium.

Qualifying is usually most of the job done to win in Monaco but it was not an easy Sunday for Hamilton as Max Verstappen pressured him for lap after lap in a very tense battle that increased in intensity as the race progressed.

Ferrari were unable to mount a proper challenge on Mercedes even though Sebastian Vettel managed to split the Mercedes in second place. It all went wrong for Ferrari on the all-important Monaco qualifying.

Firstly, Vettel had crashed in Saturday practice meaning he lost a lot of crucial running to get up to speed with the Saturday track conditions, therefore having to get up to speed in Q1 and not in optimal shape for qualifying.

Vettel was in trouble and had to do a second run in Q1 just to get through to the next phase of qualifying. Charles Leclerc was far from safe too, but bewilderingly Ferrari decided to not send him out for a second run and Leclerc was knocked out of qualifying. A nightmare for the Monegasque driver.

Hamilton Hold Ground at Start

Vettel managed to only qualify 4th whilst Verstappen was unable to prevent a 62nd front row lockout for the Silver Arrows. Remarkably, Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Williams have all had 62 front row lockouts, one more for Mercedes (or Ferrari although this is slightly less likely) and Mercedes will be the new record-holders. Hamilton pipped Bottas to pole position despite not looking like he had the pace of his Finnish teammate.

Pole position laps at Monaco are always spectacular and as I mentioned in my preview last week, the speed of the cars through the Swimming Pool section is breathtaking. They are able to pin the throttle down through the first part before scraping the inside barrier and hopping over the kerb, carrying an insane amount of speed.

Come Sunday, the ‘90% threat of rain’, which I am sure was completely untrue and just done to try and build up some sort of excitement, never came. Hamilton led the way and Verstappen crucially could not quite get his car alongside Bottas. Had he been able to, and it may have been a very different race.

Vettel held position whilst Carlos Sainz brilliantly held Alexander Albon at bay before going around the outside of Daniil Kvyat at Massenet. How often do you see that? I discussed Sainz in my latest Driver Ratings article and he deserves a lot of credit for a spectacular performance at the weekend.

Charles Leclerc was on a mission, a mission that came to an abrupt ending after he misjudged a move on Nico Hulkenberg. Monaco is a 78 lap race and patience is key to simply finishing the race, nevermind trying to score a good points haul. Even Verstappen against Hamilton at the front (which I will get onto later, managed to not try anything out of order or not got hot-headed). Leclerc drove far too fast with a punctured tyre, ripping his floor and suspension – ending a nightmare weekend with a silly driver error.

Pitstop Imperfection

The debris from Leclerc’s puncture that was all around the 2.1 miles Monaco street circuit brought out a safety car. Up front, the leaders decided to pit but the first big talking point is that Bottas in second place decided to slow down intentionally so that he did not have to wait for Hamilton’s pitstop to be completed.

This should not be allowed in my opinion is an act of unsportsmanship. The only thing that you can be penalised for in Bottas’s situation is for driving “unnecessarily slowly” but this in itself is very vague. We have seen this before in F1 with Kimi Raikkonen in Belgium and Giancarlo Fisichella in China. When Raikkonen did it, there was no rule for it but Fisichella did get penalised for doing what Bottas did on Sunday. I was surprised it wasn’t investigated.

Verstappen’s pitstop was slightly quicker than Bottas’s so Red Bull tried to jump the Mercedes. In doing so, they unsafely released Verstappen into the path of Bottas. Now, in some motorsport series this is a slam dunk drive through penalty but in F1, the penalty is inconsistent. Firstly, some kind of penalty is deserved.

You can argue that the Red Bull crew could not see Bottas because the Ferrari pit crew were obscuring their view, you can argue that they should have waited but it all happens so quickly and had they waited, Vettel would have jumped Verstappen. Also, you can’t pre-empt if someone is going to have a bad stop.

It is what is it really and Red Bull were just unlucky that they weren’t a tenth or two quicker or else it would have been a brilliant move. They were given a 5-second time penalty. In my opinion, that is extremely lenient. The problem is, is Verstappen managed to take the lead and build a five second gap to the rest of the field, yes it would have been an incredible drive but it is not a harsh enough punishment, in fact in this situation you won’t have been punished at all.

On Sunday, it just happened to be that two cars were within five seconds of him which bumped him off the podium but had it been any other race, he would have remained on the podium.

Don’t forget that to give the most lenient penalty (other than a reprimand) for an unsafe release is a rather strange decision from the stewards. Leave five second time penalties for cutting a corner or for constant abuse of track limits or something, the penalty needed to be bigger. In the very same race on Sunday, Romain Grosjean got a five second time penalty for going a few centimetres outside of the yellow line on the exit out of the pits. Now that, is not the same as an unsafe release!

Verstappen also moved over slightly on Bottas which some took no notice to, I don’t think it was intentional but it was right on the limit as a piece of debris did fly up in the air and the pitlane should be a safe environment for everyone. I was again surprised the stewards did not look into this as someone could have been hit with the debris that flew, thus I ask why a bigger penalty was not given?

Bottas was initially put on the medium tyres but his one of his tyres was losing pressure (unsure if down to the Verstappen contact or not) so Mercedes opted to pit him again a lap later onto the hard tyres.

The order now at the safety car restart was Hamilton (on medium tyres), Verstappen, Vettel and Bottas (all on the hard tyre). Mercedes put Hamilton on the wrong tyres with hindsight. It took a supreme drive from Hamilton to keep the pace up.

Tyre Gripes and Radio Tropes

Mercedes probably thought that given the cooler track conditions and what they saw during Thursday practice, that the medium tyre was the right tyre to be on. As it turned out, the hard tyre was the tyre to be on.

Hamilton made multiple radio calls saying he “can’t hold these guys off”, “you are looking for a miracle” – endless messages that the tyres were not going to make it. Some will find it annoying but you have to put yourself in Hamilton’s shoes.

It is his race to lose. The one driver you don’t want behind you, is constantly applying pressure and after all it is the Monaco Grand Prix. I also think that the puncture he suffered in China 2007 which was one reason as to why he did not win the championship in his rookie season acts as some sort of post traumatic stress disorder and that is why whenever he is in these situations, he genuinely gets worried.

Part of the radio messages may be mind games but he was in a bit of trouble, just not as much as he made out to be. I do feel as if Peter Bonnington (Hamilton’s engineer) is seriously underrated to keep himself and Hamilton under control. If I was Hamilton’s engineer I would say something like “if we pit you, we will lose to just stay out and drive” but Bonnington kept so calm and kept Hamilton in a good frame of mind.

Verstappen never really got close enough to challenge until the latter stages. He remained constantly within a second of Hamilton and the pressure was unrelenting from the Dutchman. To stay within a second for 65 laps is incredibly difficult and Verstappen’s drive was equally as impressive as Hamilton’s. He did have the tyre advantage but he had to contend with the dirty air which would have hurt a lot in the high speed turns. I was surprised Verstappen did not drop away because you would think his tyres would be damaged due to how close he was behind Hamilton but he just stayed there and remained a threat.

I know they were not pushing anywhere near 100% but it was so good to see an intense battle between Hamilton and Verstappen. The streets of Monaco do bit but neither put a foot wrong. Vettel was unable to apply the same amount of pressure to Verstappen and Bottas too but Verstappen forced Hamilton to drive at a pace Hamilton was not comfortable with.

It was nose to tail racing really and although an overtake was unlikely, you just knew Verstappen would try something. That is another reason why Hamilton got so agitated. I am no racing driver but there were several laps where Verstappen was nearly pushing Hamilton around the turn six hairpin and he was very close through the next two corners. Nico Hulkenberg made a great move work into the 90 degree right hander of Portier and I was adamant that Verstappen was close enough on a few occasions to throw the car in there and force Hamilton to give way.

This never came and it would have taken a surprise move like that to come out on top. Anyway, I’m not a racing driver. Verstappen did have a go into the Nouvelle Chicane, a more common overtaking place. People on social media have called this move “dumb” or “stupid” but it really wasn’t.

That was the closest Verstappen had been to Hamilton coming out of the tunnel and although he locked up, I do think he was in enough control to call it a valid overtaking attempt. Contact was made and both cars were lucky to get away with it to be honest. Both cars cut the chicane too.

Interestingly, Hamilton did move over slightly on Verstappen and I feel as if he was always going to cut the chicane as a get out of jail free card, hence why he did not defend all the way to the left hand-side. Even if Verstappen did not cut the chicane, I cannot see how you can give a penalty to Hamilton or Verstappen. Verstappen gave it a fair go and the move did not pay off.

Had the consequences been different there would have been an outpouring of anger in the paddock and in the F1 world. In a way, I’m glad no damage was done as both had put on a pretty good race and we need more battles like this, this year.

Toro Rosso Take Command in the Midfield

In the midfield, it was all about luck. Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz and both Toro Rosso drivers elected not to pit during the safety car, nor did the Alfa Romeo drivers. And it was Kimi Raikkonen who held up the likes of Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris, Kevin Magnussen and Sergio Perez, creating a pitstop’s buffer to Gasly, Sainz, Albon and Kvyat allowing them to make their pitstop and emerge ahead of everyone who pitted under the safety car.

Ricciardo and Magnussen should have scored big points but they rolled the dice the wrong way and it was Toro Rosso and Sainz who had a great day. Magnussen said he “wished his engine blew up” due to being stuck behind the Raikkonen train. His frustration is understandable after he and Ricciardo drove excellent qualifying laps but with very little reward.

Those were the main talking points from the Monaco GP, it wasn’t a bad race after all and probably the 2nd best race of the F1 season – just showing how average this F1 season has been. To those who still called the Monaco GP boring, would you rather see a race which had 2-3 second gaps between all the cars or would you rather see a nose to tail fight at the front and in the midpack, even if you know that an overtake is unlikely?

I know which one I would pick and for a Monaco GP, the 2019 race was a stand out.