5 of the Most Interesting Radio Messages from Monaco Grand Prix
One can only imagine the thoughts racing around the bubble of Lewis Hamilton's crash helmet in the latter stages of last weekend's Monaco Grand Prix.
The championship leader was on course to take his fourth victory of the 2015 Formula One season in Monaco when Mercedes' strategy mishap dropped Hamilton to third and gifted a second successive win to his team-mate and title rival, Nico Rosberg.
It was one of the most mournful afternoons in the recent history of grand prix racing.
But the team radio messages on both sides of the Mercedes garage offered a fascinating contrast as well as an insight into the inter-team emotions, as Hamilton's camp came to the realisation that they'd cost their driver victory and Rosberg's team lucked into first place.
Joining the Mercedes pair on the podium for the fifth time this season was Sebastian Vettel, who continued his successful start to life at Ferrari. But the German considered himself fortunate to be stood alongside Rosberg and Hamilton, having aired his concerns over tyre temperature behind the safety car.
Vettel's former employers, Red Bull Racing, also fancied their chances of a podium in Monaco.
The four-time constructors' champions forced their drivers, Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo, to swap positions not once but twice as they chased their best result of the campaign, proving team orders can be tolerable in the right circumstances.
Further back, McLaren-Honda secured their strongest finish of the campaign in Monaco, but Fernando Alonso endured another frustrating afternoon, retiring from a second consecutive race.
Alonso had earlier been handed a penalty for a collision with Nico Hulkenberg, and the team's management of the situation was one of the more peculiar aspects of the race.
With a look at how Lotus and Romain Grosjean worked together to tackle one of the biggest challenges of the event, here are five of the most interesting team radio messages from the Monaco Grand Prix.
Contrasting Emotions at Mercedes After Lewis Hamilton's Pit Stop Gaffe
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After his second, supposedly precautionary pit stop of the race on Lap 65, it didn't take long for Lewis Hamilton to realise his Mercedes team had cost him victory in the Monaco Grand Prix.
The reigning world champion had led every lap of the Monte Carlo event until the safety car was deployed, when Mercedes decided to pit Hamilton. The team, however, misjudged the gap between the British driver and the chasing pack led by Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel, meaning Hamilton rejoined the track behind his two chief rivals.
With it being notoriously difficult to overtake on the twisty Monaco street circuit, and with just a handful of laps remaining, a mortified Hamilton knew it would be impossible to reclaim the lead from third position and, as the field trundled behind the safety car, demanded answers.
"What's happened, guys?" Hamilton said, according to the FIA television feed on Lap 67, with a particularly nervous, incredulous tone to his voice.
"We're just reviewing the video, just reviewing the video," replied his equally flustered race engineer, Peter Bonnington, suggesting that Mercedes' focus at that point was not to explain where it all went wrong but to reclaim second place from Vettel, whom Hamilton rejoined alongside, ahead of the restart.
As Vettel had reached the safety car line just centimetres ahead of the Mercedes, he forced Hamilton to remain in third. And that was where he remained for the rest of the race as he struggled to overtake the Ferrari, leaving Rosberg to take an unchallenged, if extremely fortunate, win.
The German, who surely couldn't believe his luck, celebrated the triumph like any other—yelling, "Woohoo! Yes!" down the intercom—but his race engineer, Tony Ross, who clearly hadn't anticipated making a victory speech, opted to focus on what Rosberg had achieved rather than how he had achieved it.
"Er, well done! Three wins in a row, well done mate!" exclaimed Ross, referring to his Rosberg's milestone of becoming the first driver to win three consecutive Monaco GPs since Ayrton Senna.
Rather tellingly, Ross, on this occasion, decided against praising Nico for how well he had driven throughout the race and how he deserved the victory.
Because he hadn't. There was no doubt that Hamilton merited the win, and it was left to Bonnington to offer the first of many post-race apologies to his driver on the slow-down lap.
"I'm really sorry about that Lewis, mate," he sympathised. "Erm, I'm just gonna have to have a word with the pit wall."
Lewis chose not to reply as he crawled back to parc ferme, but the silence was deafening.
Sebastian Vettel Gets Irate Behind the Safety Car
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The late-race safety car period allowed Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel to jump Lewis Hamilton into first and second place, respectively, but the safety car itself could have cost the leading pair dearly.
Mercedes' decision to pit Hamilton from the lead was, of course, why the British driver lost the Monaco Grand Prix, but team boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports' James Galloway that the reason the team did so was to ease concerns over tyre temperature at the restart.
And while Hamilton had fresh, super-soft tyres fitted to his W06 behind the safety car, Vettel and Rosberg both had an ageing set of the slower, soft-compound tyres, which were harder to bring into the optimum operating window.
Fearing he would be almost defenceless at the restart on cold rubber, Vettel, whose Ferrari SF15-T is easier on its tyres than the Mercedes car driven by Rosberg and Hamilton, urged the safety car to up its pace before the race was resumed.
"This is like sending swimmers to swim with weights on their legs—it makes no sense," the four-time world champion cried on Lap 70, according to the FIA TV feed. "We need at least two or three laps at better pace to get a bit of temperature. I mean, this is a joke."
Charlie Whiting, the FIA race director, clearly wasn't listening to Vettel's reservations, however, and restarted the race the following lap.
Although Vettel later told the post-race FIA press conference how he was "handicapped for two or three laps" in "extremely slippery" conditions, the German managed to resist Hamilton's charge to secure his fifth podium finish in six races for Ferrari and his best result since his victory in March's Malaysian Grand Prix.
Red Bull Enforce Friendly Team Orders on Daniel Ricciardo, Daniil Kvyat
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While Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes were caught out by the safety car, Red Bull Racing and Daniel Ricciardo exploited it to give themselves a fighting chance of a first podium finish of 2015.
Ricciardo dived into the pit lane along with Hamilton on Lap 65, taking a set of super-soft tyres, and after quickly disposing of Kimi Raikkonen for fifth place, he found himself behind team-mate Daniil Kvyat in fourth.
Since the Russian had made his solitary stop of the afternoon for prime tyres on Lap 28, Red Bull encouraged Kvyat to play the team game on Lap 73, asking him to move aside in a surprisingly subtle way, considering there are no longer any restrictions on team orders.
"Daniel (is) behind on fresh options on a different strategy. OK?" Kvyat's race engineer told his driver, according to the FIA TV feed, with Ricciardo also being told: "OK Daniel, we will be released to attack the cars ahead. We will be released to attack the cars ahead."
Kvyat had refused to move aside for Ricciardo in April's Chinese Grand Prix but, to his credit, instantly got out of his team-mate's way in Monaco, letting the Australian attack Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.
Yet the 21-year-old's anxieties were obvious when, on the penultimate lap, he requested an update on how Ricciardo was faring in his podium pursuit, asking: "Is Daniel making any progress?"
"You don't need to worry about that at this stage, Danny," came the sharp response. "You focus on getting to the end as quickly as you can."
Alas, Ricciardo was unable to make an impression and after being asked to "give the position back to Kvyat," slowed his pace on the pit straight on the final lap and filled in behind his team-mate, letting the Russian take a timely career-best finish.
Although most F1 folk hate the very thought of team orders, Red Bull's strategy—letting Ricciardo and Kvyat take it in turns to challenge the car ahead—is one of the very few examples of the ploy being considered remotely acceptable, giving both drivers a fair shot at securing a strong result for the team.
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McLaren Keep Bad News from Fernando Alonso
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For the second successive Monaco Grand Prix, a McLaren collided with a Force India at Mirabeau on the opening lap.
And while Jenson Button emerged unscathed from his clash with Sergio Perez in 2014, both Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg suffered as a result of their contact this time around.
As the field hurled down the hill from Casino Square on Lap 1, Hulkenberg was threatening Alonso around the outside. But the Spaniard lost control of his MP4-30 under braking and inadvertently nudged Hulkenberg's car, pushing the German off-line and into the crash barrier, losing his front wing.
Alonso was duly handed a five-second time penalty for his role in the incident, but McLaren appeared to decide against telling the two-time world champion of his punishment.
That no doubt left Alonso confused when he pulled into the pits for his first stop of the afternoon on Lap 32 to find his mechanics waiting five seconds before changing his tyres, forcing him to launch a full enquiry as he threaded his car around the twisty streets.
"Why (did) we have a penalty?" Alonso asked, according to the FIA TV feed, on Lap 36.
"It was the incident with Hulkenberg at the start," his race engineer clarified. "But thanks to your pace, it hasn't affected us, so great job."
"OK...(inaudible)."
Although, to many, it may seem strange that McLaren kept such a vital piece of information from Alonso, a driver renowned for reading a race from the cockpit, the team's handling of the situation was arguably the best possible approach at a circuit as unforgiving as Monaco.
Had McLaren told Alonso of his penalty as it was announced, there would have been an increased risk of the Spaniard overdriving his car in an effort to minimise its effect, heightening the chances of him losing control and crashing out.
It also highlighted the benefits of the new, lenient penalty system, first introduced in 2014, which means a driver's race is only hindered, not ruined, by a punishment, allowing teams to handle the situations differently.
Lotus and Romain Grosjean Keep Max Verstappen at Bay
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With its tight, twisty corners and narrow track surface, the Monaco Grand Prix is the most challenging race of the season when it comes to negotiating traffic for both the leaders and the lapped.
For lapped drivers in particular, it is almost impossible to wave the leaders through without compromising their own race against their direct opponents.
That was the situation in which Romain Grosjean found himself on Lap 58 when, running in 10th, he was forced to move aside for Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel but at the same time keep 11th-placed Max Verstappen behind.
And the Frenchman's race engineer, Julien Simon-Chautemps, was at pains to stress the importance of restraining the Toro Rosso.
"OK, Romain," he said, as per the FIA TV feed. "(The) situation is you have Rosberg and Vettel behind. And behind them is Verstappen, and you are racing Verstappen. Be careful when Vettel passes you. ... And Verstappen is on new super-softs and very fast, so you are racing Verstappen."
Having let Rosberg by without difficulty, Grosjean tactically slowed on the approach to the Grand Hotel hairpin, the slowest corner in F1, on Lap 60, allowing Vettel past.
But as Verstappen tried to follow the Ferrari through around the outside, Grosjean squeezed the Dutchman out of room and hugged the inside line, leaving the rookie with no option but to back out of the move.
It was arguably the most impressive piece of driving across the entire race, illustrating how drivers must work in harmony with the pit wall to ensure they lose as little time, and as few positions, as possible in traffic.
Unfortunately, Grosjean's manoeuvre proved to be worthless as, just three laps later, Verstappen hit the Lotus as the pair approached Sainte Devote, taking himself out of the race and ending the Frenchman's hopes of a fourth consecutive points finish.
"He's a (inaudible), that Verstappen," Grosjean said, according to the FIA TV feed, while asking about the damage sustained to his car. "That was stupid."
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