Monaco GP 2008: Hamilton wins in the rain after hitting the wall

Lewis Hamilton won the 2008 Monaco Grand Prix for McLaren, even though he brushed the barrier early on and picked up a puncture. Robert Kubica in the BMW Sauber and pole-sitter Felipe Massa in the Ferrari followed him home. The race was decided by how McLaren responded to the mishap: during the unscheduled stop, the team filled the tank for a long stint. On a drying track, that is exactly what carried Hamilton to the front.

On race day it had already rained in Monte Carlo in the morning. Showers returned shortly before the start, and it kept raining on and off throughout the afternoon. Almost the entire field therefore started the race on standard wet tyres. Only Nelson Piquet Jr. in the Renault opted for extreme wets.

Things went wrong for two of the favourites before the start. Heikki Kovalainen had qualified fourth, but his McLaren stalled as he set off on the formation lap. He had to take a pit lane start. In the case of Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari fitted the tyres on the grid too late, and the world champion was handed a drive-through penalty for it.

From pole position, Massa held the lead into Sainte Dévote. Hamilton passed Räikkönen at the start to run second. On lap 6, however, the McLaren driver ran wide at Tabac and hit the barrier with the rear of his car. His right-rear tyre was punctured. Hamilton later blamed a stream of water running across the track. He made it back to the pits and rejoined in fifth. McLaren used the stop to put in enough fuel for Hamilton to stay out for a long time.

The conditions soon claimed their first victims. On lap 8, David Coulthard in the Red Bull and Sébastien Bourdais in the Toro Rosso went off at Massenet. The two accidents happened within seconds of each other, and Bourdais also hit the Red Bull. The race was over for both: the official reason is listed as an accident for Coulthard and a collision for Bourdais. Massa had built a lead of around twelve seconds, but the Safety Car that followed wiped it out. Fernando Alonso had already tangled with Nico Rosberg at the hairpin in the opening phase and later slid off at Massenet as well. He switched to extreme wets. Rosberg needed a new front wing after the contact.

The leader didn't stay error-free either. Massa outbraked himself into Sainte Dévote and slid into the run-off area. According to Grandprix.com, his radio also failed for around 20 laps. From lap 16, Kubica was in front. Running light on fuel, the Pole set a strong pace and led until his stop. From lap 26, Massa was back in the lead.

Now McLaren's tactics paid off. Massa had to pit, so from lap 33 the lead belonged to Hamilton, who could keep going thanks to his full tank. On the slowly drying track, he reeled off quick times lap after lap. According to Wikipedia, his lead grew from around 13 to 37 seconds before his next stop. As a dry line emerged, he pitted on lap 54 for dry tyres. He rejoined with a lead of a good 13 seconds.

Ferrari reacted too late. Massa only switched to slicks two laps after Hamilton. Kubica's strategy had already put him on dry tyres earlier, which moved him ahead of the Brazilian. Massa later admitted the team had made a small mistake with the strategy (Wikipedia).

Piquet, by contrast, switched to slicks too early. Shortly after the change he ended up in the tyre barriers at Sainte Dévote and retired after lap 47 (accident). Giancarlo Fisichella had already parked his Force India after lap 36 with a gearbox failure.

Things got tense again when Rosberg crashed heavily in the Swimming Pool section. His Williams was classified as a retirement after lap 59. The Safety Car came out and bunched the field up behind Hamilton once more. At the restart, though, the McLaren driver immediately pulled away again.

The bitterest moment of the day belonged to Adrian Sutil. He had climbed from grid position 18 to 4th place, a sensation for Force India. Shortly after the restart, Räikkönen lost control under braking at the tunnel exit and ran into the back of the Force India. Sutil had to retire after lap 67 with damaged rear suspension. Afterwards he said it felt “like a pain in my heart” (Wikipedia, translated). Räikkönen took on a new front wing and only finished ninth, out of the points. He still set the fastest lap of the race, though.

The race was so slow overall that it hit the two-hour time limit. As a result, only 76 of the scheduled 78 laps were completed. Hamilton picked up a slow puncture on the final lap but still won by 3.064 seconds from Kubica. Massa was 4.811 seconds back (Wikipedia).

Sebastian Vettel gained the most places, going from grid position 19 to 5th, a gain of 14 positions. They were his first points of the season. According to Grandprix.com, he battled Piquet along the way and later Barrichello and Nakajima. Mark Webber went from grid position 9 to 4th. 6th and 7th places went to Rubens Barrichello in the Honda (from grid position 14) and Kazuki Nakajima in the Williams (from 13). Kovalainen, forced to start from the pit lane, still grabbed the final point in eighth.

Among the losers were Ferrari and above all Räikkönen, who dropped from grid position 2 to 9th. Pole-sitter Massa only finished third. Rosberg had started sixth and came away empty-handed. At Toyota, Timo Glock finished twelfth and Jarno Trulli thirteenth, each a lap down, so there were no points for Toyota. Alonso was tenth, Jenson Button eleventh. Nick Heidfeld, Kubica's team-mate at BMW Sauber, came home fourteenth, four laps down.

With the win, Hamilton took the lead in the 2008 standings. He now had 38 points, Räikkönen 35, Massa 34 and Kubica 32, meaning the top four were separated by just six points. In the constructors' standings, Ferrari stayed ahead on 69 points, followed by McLaren on 53 and BMW Sauber on 52.

It was Hamilton's first win at the Circuit de Monaco and his second of the season. According to Grandprix.com, that made him the first Englishman since 1969 to win in Monaco. In a race with rain, wall contact and two Safety Car periods, McLaren had picked the right strategy, while Ferrari's gamble had failed. Hamilton summed up the conditions by saying he couldn't explain “how difficult it was for all of us” (Wikipedia, translated).