Monaco GP: The Story of the Race

   

26 May 2014


Monaco is an unforgiving track, where every mistake is punished and only the best performances rewarded. To come away with a brilliant fifth place - equalling our best ever result in the Principality - is a great conclusion to the weekend. It was not, however, an easy result to obtain. It required hard work and the dogged tenacity of the whole team, testament to the continued good start of our 2014 season.

Our drivers started in 10th and 11th following Saturday's qualifying, and the start saw them switch positions, with Nico edging Checo in the opening stages of the lap. Sergio's race, however, was destined to be short-lived. A contact with an over-enthusiastic Jenson Button at turn 5 sent our car number 11 spinning and into the barriers - the cruel law of Monaco, with no run-off meaning even the smallest contact can be race-ending.

Nico survived the first lap unscathed and set about to make a different strategy from the rest of the field work. Mounting soft tyres instead of everyone else's choice of supersofts - an upside of starting outside the top 10 - he was able to control the field behind him and capitalise on Sebastian Vettel and Daniil Kvyat's retirements to go up to P8.

The second safety car, called in for Adrian Sutil's crash, threatened to put in jeopardy our strategy: with only one stop planned, Nico was required to make the supersoft tyre last an ambitious 51 laps. Even considering the VJM07's soft touch on tyres, it was going to be a big ask of the driver: it was, however, one that Nico took on eagerly, producing one of the best overtakes of the season, on the inside of the Portier corner - not a typical spot for passes - on McLaren's Kevin Magnussen.

Having gained P5 after Massa's stop, Nico had to resist the assault of cars mounting tyres in much better conditions for the last 20 laps. With Magnussen first and Button then threateningly showing in his mirrors, Nico was able to keep his cool and cross the line in fifth for a total ten points - a haul that would have surely been bigger for the team had Checo still been part of the race.