Monaco GP 2015: Mercedes blunder hands Rosberg a hat-trick

At the Monaco GP 2015, Nico Rosberg won for Mercedes ahead of Sebastian Vettel in the Ferrari. Pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton finished third. Hamilton had the race at the Circuit de Monaco firmly under control until the closing stages. Then Mercedes brought him in during the Safety Car period, and he dropped behind Rosberg and Vettel. For Rosberg, it was a third consecutive Monaco win.

Hamilton kept his pole position at the start, while Rosberg and Vettel held their places behind him. Daniil Kvyat got past his Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo at the first corner to run fourth.

Further back, the opening lap got rough. Fernando Alonso in the McLaren hit Nico Hülkenberg and pushed his Force India into the wall at Mirabeau. Hülkenberg had to pit and then rejoined at the back of the field. Alonso received a five-second penalty for the incident, which he served during his pit stop. Felipe Massa in the Williams also had to pit straight away for a new front wing after contact with Hülkenberg. Both came in at the end of the opening lap.

Carlos Sainz started his Toro Rosso from the pit lane. He had missed a call to the FIA weighbridge in the first part of qualifying.

From there, Hamilton extended his lead lap after lap. According to grandprix.com, he was around 4.1 seconds clear of Rosberg on lap 20 and already 9.0 seconds ahead by lap 30. The front-runners were on a one-stop strategy: Vettel pitted on lap 36, Rosberg on lap 37 and Hamilton on lap 38. The order stayed the same.

Pastor Maldonado was the first to retire. His Lotus had brake problems from the start, and the team parked the car after 5 laps. Alonso retired after 41 laps with a gearbox failure, ending a difficult weekend for him.

Max Verstappen was unlucky too. He was running seventh when he came in for tyres on lap 29. A problem with the right-rear wheel cost him 52.8 seconds in the pit lane and dropped him to P13. He then fought his way back up on fresh tyres.

The race was decided in the closing stages. Verstappen tried to attack Romain Grosjean on the start/finish straight. He ran into the back of the Lotus on the approach to Sainte Dévote, and his Toro Rosso hit the tyre barrier. Verstappen was unhurt, but his race was over after 62 classified laps. Race Control deployed the Virtual Safety Car for the first time in Formula 1, followed shortly afterwards by the full Safety Car.

According to formula1.com, Hamilton was around 25 seconds ahead at that point. Mercedes believed the lead was big enough to give him another set of fresh supersoft tyres on lap 65. But Rosberg and Vettel stayed out, and Hamilton emerged from the pit lane just behind Vettel. Rosberg took the lead. According to grandprix.com, team principal Toto Wolff explained the blunder like this: “we thought the gap was different to what it was.”

After the Safety Car period ended, Hamilton found no way past Vettel in the final laps despite his fresher tyres. Rosberg won from Vettel and Hamilton.

The stewards blamed Verstappen for the crash. He was handed a five-place grid penalty for the next race, the Canadian GP.

Kvyat was among the winners. He finished fourth, Red Bull's best result of the season so far. Ricciardo had taken fresh tyres under the Safety Car and passed Kimi Räikkönen on lap 72. The stewards ruled the contact a racing incident. Kvyat let his teammate through so he could attack Hamilton. When that didn't work, Ricciardo handed fourth place back. He was left with fifth place and the fastest lap.

Jenson Button finished eighth to score the first points for the new McLaren-Honda partnership. Felipe Nasr gained five places in the Sauber: he started 14th and finished ninth. Sainz made it from the pit lane to tenth and picked up a point.

The biggest losers were Hamilton, who lost a certain win, and Maldonado, who retired from eighth on the grid after just five laps. Little went right for Williams: Valtteri Bottas finished 14th, Massa 15th. Behind them, the two Manor Marussia cars of Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens finished two laps down.

In the 2015 standings, Hamilton was still the leader after the sixth race of the season with 126 points. However, Rosberg cut the gap to ten points with 116. Vettel remained third on 98 points. Kvyat jumped seven places to eighth. In the constructors' standings, Mercedes extended their lead over Ferrari (158) with 242 points.

The race went down in history as one of the best-known strategy errors of the Mercedes era. Hamilton had dominated Monaco all weekend and lost the win through a miscalculation on the pit wall. Rosberg, by contrast, completed his Monaco hat-trick. Verstappen's crash also marked the first time the Virtual Safety Car was used in a race.