It was a shining day for team Ferrari at the Monaco circuit where they outperformed everyone else. Kimi Raikkonen had a face that could curdle milk. The Finn tends to display roughly the same emotional spectrum as a block of ice but his expression on the podium was a diagram of rage as some crafty Ferrari tactics propelled Sebastian Vettel to the team’s first Monaco Grand Prix win for 16 years.
Even the victor, sitting pretty on a 25-point championship lead after arch rival Lewis Hamilton finished seventh, had the decency to be sympathetic. “I can understand that Kimi is not happy,” Vettel said. “I would feel 100 per cent the same.”
There is little doubt that Ferrari’s strategy, which so clearly favoured Vettel by giving him five laps of clean air to over-cut his rival after the first round of pit stops, cost Raikkonen dearly here. All weekend this inscrutable cult figure, whose wife Minttu has recently given birth to the couple’s second child, seemed to have a fresh burst of energy, showing dazzling pace to achieve pole position and keep his team-mate at bay off the start line. But from there Ferrari reverted to extreme pragmatism, bringing Raikkonen into the pits first and giving Vettel all the space and time he needed to vault into the lead and sustain his quest for a fifth world title.
The German’s take on the events was that it had not been arranged by his team. “From the team point of view there was no plan of any team orders or anything,” he said. “When Kimi stopped I was just going flat out as fast as I could. I was surprised when I came out ahead. It worked well for me to stay out longer. We’re racing, we get on well but I can understand that Kimi’s not entirely happy today. He drove well in the first stint and then got the message to go in. You do the pit stop and then you push. Obviously it’s a bad surprise when somebody comes out ahead. I’ll take it, there’s no reason to lie or anything. I’m very happy about it today but I can understand he’s upset.”
The win puts Vettel 25 points clear of Hamilton in the championship after the Mercedes driver, having struggled putting his tyres into their temperature operating window all weekend, had to accept damage limitation as his role here. He and his team-mate Valtteri Bottas remain free to race and Ferrari have said the same applies to their drivers but Hamilton claimed this proved they were now favouring Vettel.
“It’s clear to me that Ferrari have chosen their No1 driver,” he said. “They are pushing everything to make sure Sebastian will maximise all his weekends. In strategy that just doesn’t happen. For the leading car it’s very hard for him to get jumped by the second car unless the team decide to favour the other car – so that is very clear.”
