Sebastian Vettel beat Ferrari team
mate Kimi Raikkonen to victory in Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco 2017, boosting
his title advantage to 25 points over Mercedes Lewis Hamilton, who finished a
distant seventh. Daniel Ricciardo completed the podium for Red Bull.
A longer first stint for Vettel
enabled him to get ahead of polesitter and early leader Raikkonen as he emerged
in front of the Finn following their first and only pit stops. It was Ferrari’s
first win in the Principality since 2001. Ricciardo similarly made use of the
‘overcut’ to pass Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas and his less-than-impressed Red
Bull team mate Max Verstappen, who duly took the chequered flag in fourth and
fifth respectively. Toro Rosso were ‘best of the rest’ with Carlos Sainz in
sixth, as Hamilton behind him climbed from 13th on the grid. Completing the top
ten were Haas’s Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen, separated by the Williams
of Felipe Massa.
The most dramatic moment of the
race came on Lap 60 when an ambitious passing attempt from McLaren’s Jenson
Button on Sauber Pascal Wehrlein went awry, tipping the latter’s car on to its
side against the Portier barriers, its mercifully unharmed driver unable to
escape his cockpit until help arrived. And as the safety car emerged, Button
got as far as the chicane before suspension damage forced him to halt his
one-race comeback. Raikkonen had won the start, and soon the two Ferraris
cleared off, though there was a period in the middle of the race when the
pursuing Bottas and the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Ricciardo were running
quicker as the red cars’ tyres started sliding.
But it was Vettel stop, on the 39th
lap, which put him ahead of Raikkonen, who had made his pit call five laps
sooner. That settled the race in his favor, extending his championship points
score to 129. For Ferrari the race marked a big step towards not only
the drivers’ championship, but also the constructors, as they move back ahead
of Mercedes with 196 points to 179 as they scored their first 1-2 since Germany
2010.
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