Within a week of the Spanish GP which saw championship leaders Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg take a 1-2 finish for Mercedes AMG Petronas, the whole Formula 1 circus moved to what was easily the most glamorous yet the most difficult of all the venues on the Formula 1 calendar.
Round six of the 2014 Formula 1 world championship, in fact, took placed at Circuit De Monaco which is a 3.34 kilometer-long street circuit. The race start saw pole sitter Nico Rosberg leading the pack, ahead of team mate Lewis Hamilton who manages to keep former world champion Sebastian Vettel on his tail. However, racing around the tight confines of Monaco means safety car is deployed on lap 1 itself.
Drama unfolds early into the race as Quadruple World Champion Sebastian Vettel is forced to retire, with only eight laps into the race. Lack of power following an issue with the power unit of the car is later reported. The Mercedes duo, meanwhile, continue to battle at the front and pull clear of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in third place.
26 laps into the race and the safety car is deployed again as a result of Adrian Sutil’s crash. Four laps later, the safety car is called in and it’s Rosberg leading from Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. Lap 32 saw the most impressive overtaking move of the day by Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg who slid past McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen on a double right-hander called Portier, just before the famous tunnel.
With more than half the race distance covered, Rosberg maintained his lead over team mate Lewis Hamilton, but only just. The latter looked rather closer to Rosberg on a few occasions but eventually ended up dropping the pace. So much, in fact, that Daniel Ricciardo - running third - soon closes in on Hamilton's tail. The Brit, however, holds on to the second position from Ricciardo.
In the end, it was Nico Rosberg who led the way from pole en-route to winning what was a pretty exciting Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, finished second after a hard-fought battle with Ricciado who took the final podium spot. Further down the grid, Fernando Alonso finished fourth, ahead of Nico Hulkenberg and Jenson Button with fith and sixth postiions respectively.
Image source: MercedesAMGPetronas
