Mercedes, in Sunday’s race at the Monaco Grand Prix robbed Lewis Hamilton of what could have been the perfect race weekend due to a strategic error in pit stop. Nico Rosberg was handed the win on a silver platter who gladly accepted it to be now recorded in history as the fourth man to win three consecutive Monaco Grand Prix races.

Nico Rosberg grabs Monaco F1 GP win after Mercedes pit Lewis Hamilton

Nico was visibly excited about the sudden turn of events as he leapt out of the car and was celebrating punching the air with joy after the finish. “That was the luckiest thing in my career. They all count, no doubt, but this is one of the stranger wins”, Nico tweeted after the race.

Lewis Hamilton who started from pole dominated the race for 65 out of the 78 laps before Max Verstappen crashed to bring out the Safety car. Mercedes called Lewis in for a pit stop to change into the super soft red Pirelli which was supposed to be faster. However, as he exited the pits he ended up behind not only Nico Rosberg but Sebastian Vettel as well and could not recover from there till the end of the race.

“We’ve lost this, haven’t we?” Hamilton remarked after he emerged from the pits behind Vettel and still under the Safety car. Hamilton after the chequered flag stopped his car on the Portier corner trying to gather himself and coming to sync with the reality that his brilliant drive and this weekend had all been in vain. His team engineer, Peter Bonnington was heard over the radio saying, “I’m sorry about that Lewis. I’ll have to have a word with the pit wall”.

Lewis knocked down the third place banner with the front of his car as a sign of disgust and misery that had befallen upon him. He took his own sweet time to gather himself out of the car and make his way upto the podium for collecting the trophies. Lewis was clearly disappointed at losing out on the race win from such a strong position and with no mistake of his own.

Lewis’s third place at Monte Carlo this season means that his record of 12 consecutive top-two finishes comes to a halt. Had he won this race, it would have been the 13th one, the second longest streak ever in Formula One. “I cant express how I feel right now so I wont attempt to”, he said after the race, “But you live to fight another day. I am sure we will sit down afterwards and try to think of ways we can improve. I’ll come back to win the next one”.

Red Bull had a successful weekend with Daniil Kvyat finishing in fourth and team mate Daniel Riccardo in fifth position. This is the best result for Red Bull in this season yet. Kimi Raikkonen came in sixth ahead of Force India’s Sergio Perez and Jenson Button. This is McLaren’s first championship points of the season. Fernando Alonso too was on course to earn his first points of the season despite a five second penalty for crashing into Nico Hulkenburg. However, he retired due to gearbox failure on lap 42 crashing hopes of McLaren to finish both their cars in the points table.

The 17 year old rookie, Max Verstappen impressed everyone with his drive at the Monaco circuit as he pulled off some amazing overtaking moves which some might also term cunning. He followed the faster car of Kimi Raikkonen around the track and overtook Williams’s Bottas when he moved over to let Kimi lap him. He tried to pull the same move on Romain’s Lotus but was not successful as Lotus team had warned Romain about Max’s cunning move. Max misjudged an overtaking move, crashed into the back of the Lotus and went into the barrier head-on at the first corner. It was a sad end to Max’s weekend but not before winning hearts and entertaining people watching the race.

Tags: F1, Formula One, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Monaco Grand Prix, Motorsport, Motorsports, Nico Rosberg