Monaco – Race: Synthesis of Strategies

Nico Rosberg claimed his first victory with Mercedes this year, ahead of Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), who extends his lead in the championship. Rosberg led the race from start to finish; he started with P Zero red super-soft tires and then switched to P Zero yellow soft tires during the safety car period. An accident on lap 45 brought out the red flag, and under current rules, drivers were allowed to change tires during the stoppage. Rosberg finished the race with the super-soft tires, following another safety car period 15 laps from the end.

After the first start, Mark Webber (Red Bull) was the first driver to stop on lap 25 and changed his super-soft tires for soft ones. But the race became complicated with the safety car intervention on lap 29 – for the first time this year – causing a series of pit stops. Both Mercedes cars stopped consecutively to fit soft tires two laps later, with Lewis Hamilton dropping from 2nd to 4th place.

After the interruption of the race due to an accident, the teams were able to choose the tires they wanted for the second start, 25 minutes later. The majority of drivers resumed with the already used super-soft tires. Kimi Räikkönen, in his Lotus, was best positioned to restart on soft tires, in 5th place. However, the Finn had to stop in the pits to switch to super-soft tires following a collision. By overtaking six cars in the last five laps, he still managed to score a point.

Paul di Resta (Force India), who started in 17th place, planned a two-stop strategy. He switched from super-soft to soft tires on lap 9, moving up to 11th place at the time of the race interruption. This offered him a stop and he eventually finished the race in 9th place.

Paul Hembery, Pirelli Competition Director: Once again, we saw a Monaco Grand Prix where safety cars and the red flag played a major role. They had a direct effect on the strategy, with all pre-race plans going up in the air. Nevertheless, we experienced the expected low levels of tire wear and degradation: in fact, the race leader managed an extra lap this season on his first supersoft stint, even though the compounds are generally softer. After the race was stopped, most drivers opted to resume on used supersofts and thus had to make them last 32 laps to the end of the race – although they were undoubtedly aided by a second safety car intervention. Congratulations to Nico Rosberg and Mercedes, who dominated all weekend sessions and led a Grand Prix full of action from start to finish. We also saw some good performances from drivers further down the order; they used their tires and adopted strategies very wisely, despite the extremely unpredictable race circumstances.

The best times of the day by compound:

– Super Tendres: Vettel en 1:16.577 devant Räikkönen en 1:17.392 et Hamilton en 1:18.133

– Tendres: Webber en 1:19.190 devant Button en 1:19.335 et Hülkenberg en 1:19.853

Longest stint in the race:

– Super Tendres: 38 tours par Vergne (Toro Rosso)

– Toro Rosso: 37 tours par Di Resta (Force India)

[From the official statement published by Pirelli]

To better understand this graph, you can use the FIA lap-by-lap by clicking here.