The Official 2016 Monaco Grand Prix Thread ***Spoilers***

Perez owes Massa a beer for slowing Vettel down, that did secure him 3rd. In general it seemed both Perez and Vettel had the pace of the top two, to bad they were stuck behind Rosberg for too long.

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

The outright pace was a bit hard to follow at times, probably in part due to the tyre saving and traffic, it really fluctuated a lot amongst the top 4

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X (@ed24f1)

EC83 Wrote:
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> I feel for Ricciardo here. To do everything right
> and then have a Monaco win taken away from him
> because the team @#$%& up his pitstop... Pathetic
> of them, especially if they'd made the call.
> After Barcelona too, I thought he controlled his
> emotions very well on the podium.

Ahh yeah but the frustration is seething through. He's been epic again all year and had results snatched away from him through no fault of his own. He must be really pissed because he's not simply irritated he's visibly angry. And usually he's this jovial slightly cocky guy who's always laughing. He'll have to be careful though as it wouldn't do well to get on the wrong side of Marko. With or without Verstappen Red Bull is going to the best place for him to be for quite a while yet.

Verstappen was a bit disappointing this time round... three accidents throughout the weekend. Reminds me of Grosjean before Boullier finally succeeded in calming him the @#$%& down. Sainz in the car by Silverstone? Gasly in by Spa?

Good stuff by Force India, although Hulkenberg must be spitting feathers, beaten to the podium by Perez again.

The Ricciardo situation reminds of Vettel. Everyone loved him in the Toro Rosso and initially at Red Bull as he was a young, jovial, fun German with a British sense of humour, but when it came to a title fight they started to dislike that he occasionally came across as all serious and stuff.

I think Ricciardo is now approaching Vettel's situation - not in as strong a position, but potentially an outside bet for the championship (this weekend will tell with the straightline speed just how much Renault have caught up) and with a scary new teammate, Daniel's got his serious head on, and Red Bull have cost him a good few points just when the pressure is cranked up.

The situation isn't directly comparable of course, but it will be interesting to see if the perception changes should Ricciardo get a car capable of winning consistently.

Interesting comparison I hadn't made that link.

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X (@ed24f1)

I'd rather think Ricciardo is in a Webber situation when Vettel arrived at RB : a good driver with occasional wins (meaning when the car was good enough for allowing it), and then all of a sudden bad luck crossing his way and impressively avoiding Vettel's car. Your comparison is good though, that's exactly what happened to Vettel when Ricciardo replaced Webber, hence his departure for Ferrari. The difference was RB was not yet such a brilliant team when Vettel arrived in it, while the focus was on them after their four WC titles when Ricciardo came in.

Interesting to see if the same scheme will repeat after the three crashes of Verstappen at Monaco.

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