2021 Monaco Grand Pix: Post Race Analysis
Sadly the Monaco Grand Prix remains perhaps the most boring race in the world. But there was brief moments of interest. Unfortunately the director for the broadcast feed did not get fired, as he cut away from the only true action in the entire race. The opening stint of saving tires and nobody even trying to pressure other drivers made the fast forward button a necessity.
Red Bull had a perfect race, even if a large portion was down to misfortune of others. As expected, if Leclerc could not keep his pole position, Max would run away. Despite a poor start, once Max had position out of turn 1, it was game over from there. Perez had a fantastic stint to leapfrog into 4th.
Ferrari deserved a good result as they proved to be fast since the opening practice. Carlos Sainz drove as good as he could. 2nd place could be the highest finishing position Ferrari gets all season, so he and the team should be proud. As for Leclerc, the team is saying it was not a gearbox problem, and that the problem came from the left rear of the car and was not a result of the crash in Qualifying. Either Ferrari have found some new incompetence, or something is a little bit fishy. A very sad moment as I think Leclerc had a legit shot for a win, or at least it would have been very exciting to see the battle against Max.
McLaren has to be thankful to have Lando Norris. Even when he complained the car was awful on hard tires, he stayed quick, and kept the car out of the wall and earned a podium. Daniel Ricciardo I think is starting to suffer from confidence in the car, and at Monaco if you don't have confidence and can't find your rhythm, you are likely going to struggle... and he did.
Aston Martin had a great result. Both drivers in the points, Vettel showed the best moments of driving of anyone. His laps before pitting were fast, and his exit out of the pits was incredible and vital to finishing 5th. Stroll made his strategy work very well and the team executed the strategies beautifully for both drivers.
AlphaTauri relied on Gasly for a result and he really came through. Yuki had some struggles in the race, but it didn't mean anything as he was the last car to stay ahead of the Williams and Haas cars.
Mercedes had a dreadful race. It's not often that they make mistakes, but when they do they really bugger it up badly. Hamilton's poor qualifying put him in a bad position, and their strategy to undercut was absolutely wrong and cost him 3 positions. Fortunately for Hamilton, the team was not able to secure a lug nut on Bottas' car before the race which locked up and forced a DNF. I can understand cross threading a lug nut during a pitstop, but not before the race.
Alpine was much better in the race than in qualifying. The team said they could not fire up the tires in qualifying, but it meant they were easy on the tires in the race. Unfortunately for them, Monaco is all about qualifying. Ocon earned his points, Alonso had no where to go because of his poor qualifying performance.
Alfa Romeo could be team of the race. Generally speaking they are the 8th best team on a good day, sometimes getting beaten by Russell in a Williams. But today 10th and 11th. That point could almost feel like a win to them.
Williams were in a race of their own. Not even Russell could show anything amazing.
Haas had a double finish... a success! Mick Schumacher may have had the only on track pass in the entire race, which he did on his teammate on lap 1. What was strange was Schumacher had a decent lead over Mazepin, then all of a sudden he was behind. Did the team give Mazepin a favorable strategy and pit him last, was there a mistake we didn't see? I'd like to know.
Driver of the Race: Sebastien Vettel. The only driver that had to push to the maximum to take a position. As mentioned earlier, his hot laps going into the pitstop, and his attack out of the pit lane and aggressive driving up the hill secured that position. Not only did that get him in front of Gasly, but without Vettel's hard driving, he could have landed behind Hamilton.
