After Race 6: Monaco

     Monaco weekend: Glitz, glamour, rain-affected sessions, tyre controversy, crashes, safety cars, a red flag, a 14-car crash in the first corner of the GP2 race and so on... We have a new leader atop F1 Power Rankings after a chaotic weekend that again saw the criticisms of the Pirelli tyres take centre stage.

The incredible Maldonado/Chilton/Bianchi crash brought out the red flags
Source: PlanetF1

1.   Sebastian Vettel (last week: 3^rd, up two spots) (Season high: 1^st, low: 4^th)

For the first time this season, the triple-reigning champion rises to top of F1 Power Rankings. Although we still won’t let him forget his Malaysian antics, the plain fact is that Sebastian Vettel has finished in the top four in every race this season, and his consistency has seen him open up a 21 point lead in the standings.

2.   Nico Rosberg (last week: 6^th, up four spots) (Season high: 2^nd, low: 12^th)

It was a case of third time lucky for Nico Rosberg, who finally converted a pole position into a race victory. A flawless weekend from Rosberg but the proverbial storm clouds gathered over Mercedes-Benz as news came to light over their tyre test with Pirelli. Whether the team have simply found a loophole or whether they will in fact face sanctions, Rosberg did what he needed to do and handed Mercedes their second victory since returning to F1. Perhaps more importantly for Nico, he beat Lewis Hamilton to their first win as team-mates.

Nico Rosberg took his second career victory
Source: AFP

3.   Kimi Räikkönen (last week: 2^nd, down one spot) (Season high: 2^nd, low: 12^th)

A disappointing end to a solid, if unspectacular, weekend from the Flying Finn; having qualified fifth and circulated in that position for the majority of the first seventy laps, he found himself 16^th with only a handful of laps to go after the hugely opportunistic Sergio Pérez collided into the back of him. Having pitted for a new set of boots, a simply mesmeric final few laps saw Räikkönen educate the second half of the field on ‘how to overtake’ in Monaco, including a superb last lap pass on Nico Hülkenberg. (We’ll just gloss over the fact Valtteri Bottas inexplicably let his countryman through into the hairpin on the penultimate lap thinking he was being lapped.)

4.   Fernando Alonso (last week: 1^st, down three spots) (Season high: 1^st, low: 13^th)

A strange weekend for Fernando Alonso, who sees his three-week stay atop the F1 Power Rankings come to an end. Normally always in contention around Monaco regardless of what car he drives, the Spaniard only managed to qualify sixth and found himself going backwards in the second half of the race, losing out to Pérez, Adrian Sutil and Jenson Button. Although he was affected by debris, the telling comment from Alonso post-race was how he was unsurprised by Pérez’ ‘nothing-to-lose’ attitude – so perhaps Fernando was a tad more cautious around the Monegasque streets in a rather underwhelming Ferrari.

5.   Mark Webber (last week: 8^th, up three spots) (Season high: 1^st, low: 15^th)

A quiet weekend for Mark Webber who, like his fellow podium finishers, had a distinctly uneventful 78 laps around the Principality. However, he was again outqualified by Vettel and finds himself trailing his team-mate by 50 points. Nevertheless, Webber rises up the rankings after his solid outing.

6.   Lewis Hamilton (last week: 9^th, up three spots) (Season high: 3^rd, low: 9^th)

In a similar way to Webber, Hamilton’s fate was virtually sealed in qualifying. Outqualified for the third race running by Rosberg, he then found himself strangely losing his runner-up position during the Safety Car period after he apparently slowed down too much. It was more annoying than anything else for Lewis, who remains 4^th in the championship standings thanks to a very consistent start to the season (Spain aside).

7.   Paul di Resta (last week: 5^th, down two spots) (Season high: 5^th, low: 17^th)

A frustrating weekend for PDR after his team failed to react to the Q1 weather conditions, leaving him eliminated early on. An aggressive, but clean, Sunday performance saw di Resta recover brilliantly to pick up a couple of points, and he has now scored at all but one race this season. While the team accepted responsibility for the Q1 gaffe, I still feel PDR could have brought his car into the pits by his own accord – he is not a rookie, and surely he realized he was never going to improve his time with such little traction?

=8. Jean-Eric Vergne (last week: 16^th, up eight spots) (Season high: 7^th, low: 19^th) & Daniel Ricciardo (last week: 10^th, up two spots) (Season high: 5^th, low: 18^th)

Quite simply, I find it impossible to separate the STR drivers! JEV finished a career-best 8^th for the fifth time in his career after having made Q3 for the first time ever. He had a ‘boring’ race, spending the day constantly in traffic, but a fine result after two DNFs. Daniel Ricciardo found himself rear-ended by Romain Grosjean while running solidly in the midfield. The Aussie qualified 12^th and ran 13^th for almost the entire race until his demise. Ricciardo rises up the F1 Power Rankings almost by default, as other drivers around him had poor performances and because over the course of the season, he has done well. JEV is this week’s biggest mover and both drivers seem well matched at the moment.

Grosjean driving into the back of Ricciardo
Source: F1.com (TV image)

10. Adrian Sutil (last week: 14^th, up four spots) (Season high: 5^th, low: 20^th)

Sutil started the season off with a bang in Melbourne before going AWOL until the Spanish Grand Prix. Having shown impressive speed in Catalunya, he maintained that form into Monaco, qualifying eighth and finishing an impressive fifth after some superb overtaking manoeuvres. The only blemish of his 2013 Monaco weekend was a crash in Massanet in practice but, luckily for Sutil and Force India, it had no impact on the rest of his weekend.

11. Sergio Pérez (last week: 12^th, up one spot) (Season high: 8^th, low: 17^th)

Checo stays ahead of Button in the rankings after a highly entertaining drive from the young Mexican. Even if Räikkönen says that Pérez deserves “a punch in the face”, it cannot be ignored that Checo has simply outperformed Button in the last few races; much to the latter’s frustration as shown by his team radio. Like Sutil, Pérez made some impressive overtakes but he also made an arguably reckless attempt at passing Räikkönen that went wrong. Brake failure ended his charge to fifth place in closing stages, which was a great shame.

12. Jenson Button (last week: 13^th, up one spot) (Season high: 5^th, low: 13^th)

The sole highlight of JB’s race was his late move on Alonso into the final corner as Pérez caused chaos with his brake failure. A decent sixth-place finish for Button but, as mentioned above, he has become a tad agitated by his team-mate.

The McLaren boys were wheel-to-wheel once again
Source: Team Vodafone McLaren Mercedes via speedhunters.com

13. Jules Bianchi (last week: 11^th, down two spots) (Season high: 6^th, low: 13^th)

A highly eventful weekend for Jules Bianchi in his home race. He saw his Marussia fail to set a lap in quali as smoke billowed out of his airbox, his car failed to get away at the start of the formation lap with electrical issues, he then found himself getting caught up in the big crash between his team-mate and Pastor Maldonado and then eventually retiring with brake failure. It is fair to say none of this was his fault so he avoids a steep drop down the rankings.

14. Felipe Massa (last week: 4^th, down ten spots) (Season high: 3^rd, low: 14^th)

Felipe Massa suffers a steep drop down the rankings after twice crashing at Ste Devote in two eerily similar incidents considering one was driver error and one was suspension failure. The driver error proved especially costly in FP3 (Free Practice 3) as it ruled him out of qualifying. On second thoughts, I might be being a tad harsh on Massa this week but I shall keep him at #14 for now (mainly given none of the drivers above him made such a costly error). In truth, from the Toro Rosso drivers downwards, it is very, very, close in the F1 Power Rankings.

 

Massa's race-ending shunt
Source: Sky Sports F1

15. Charles Pic (last week: 7^th, down eight spots) (Season high: 7^th, low: 19^th)

After spending a couple of weeks at the dizzying heights of P7 in the F1 Power Rankings, Charles Pic slips back after being outperformed by Giedo van der Garde in qualifying before an early gearbox failure ended his race. The latter was unlucky but Pic will be gutted to have made the headlines for being the Caterham driver into Q2. Nonetheless, he remains above his rookie team-mate in the rankings thanks to comprehensively beating him before Monaco.

16. Nico Hülkenberg (last week: 19^th, up three spots) (Season high: 9^th, low: 19^th)

The Hulk’s miserable 2013 continues. Having just missed out on Q3, he then had a point-scoring finish mugged from him by a resurgent Räikkönen on the last lap. It is clear that Hülkenberg made the wrong decision in leaving Force India for Sauber but he must hope that it is not the decision that sees his F1 career stagnate in the midfield. He is doing the best he can do with the machinery he has and he must be devastated at its capabilities.

17. Giedo van der Garde (last week: 21^st, up four spots) (Season high: 17^th, low: 21^st)

Having only ranked either 20^th or 21^st so far, VDG shoots up the F1 Power Rankings to 17^th after brilliantly making Q2 in the inclement weather conditions. It is on days like that when the smaller teams have to seize the opportunity to steal some limelight and it was Giedo who took full advantage. His race was as mixed as Saturday’s weather conditions – contact with Maldonado saw him need a new front wing after the opening lap which stranded him at the back of the field before he was able to make a charge after the Safety Car period. He ultimately fell behind Max Chilton towards the end of the race as Caterham failed to manage his tyres correctly.

18. Valtteri Bottas (last week: 20^th, up two spots) (Season high: 11^th, low: 20^th)

Bottas rises two spots to 18^th amidst the chaos at the bottom of the F1 Power Rankings. A trouble-free race from the young Finn is about the best he could have hoped for – as mentioned repeatedly throughout this blog, Williams and Sauber are having disastrous seasons. Strange end to his race saw him inexplicably allow Räikkönen past, thinking he was being lapped.

19. Esteban Gutiérrez (last week: 17^th, down two spots) (Season high: 15^th, low: 22^nd)

Not much to say about Guti’s race, really… Much like his team-mate and Bottas, he brought the car home without a scratch but in a rather uninspiring fashion.

20. Max Chilton (last week: 22^nd, up two spots) (Season high: 18^th, low: 22^nd)

Chilton moves off the bottom of F1 Power Rankings after propping them up for one week. He accepted responsibility for the huge crash with Maldonado, and rightly so, although one has to wonder what Pastor was doing and where exactly he thought he was going by positioning his car on the outside of Tabac. Rookie mistakes will happen, they will just be accentuated in Monaco. A bright note was the late overtake on van der Garde, which made Chilton the highest-finishing Caterham-Marussia driver.

21. Pastor Maldonado (last week: 18^th, down three spots) (Season high: 17^th, low: 22^nd)

For a while during qualifying, it looked as if Maldonado was going to rocket up the rankings. A traditional Monaco-specialist from his days in junior formulae and into his rookie F1 season, he topped Q1 in fine fashion before ending up bottom of the pile in Q2, which left him exposed to the inevitable first-lap contact. The crash with Chilton was discussed above – you have to question Maldonado’s positioning… He is not a rookie.

22. Romain Grosjean (last week: 14^th, down eight spots) (Season high: 6^th, low: 22^nd)

Truly one of the worst weekends a driver has ever experienced in F1 history, and the worst part is, Romain Grosjean looked seriously fast around the streets of Monte Carlo. He twice wrecked the car in Ste Devote, the second incident resulting in the team frantically completing an impressive rebuild before qualifying. Grosjean again demonstrated his pace in Q1 before exiting in Q2, and he then decided to run into the back of Ricciardo midway through the race; for which he has been given a ten-place grid drop (which will likely leave him in the danger-zone in the notoriously crash-enticing opening corners in Montreal). It truly was all-or-nothing for Grosjean this weekend, he hopefully won’t stay bottom for long…

The most common sight of the weekend
Source: Octane Photographic

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