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Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg has
won the Monaco Grand Prix using a one-stop strategy, starting on the P Zero
Red supersoft tyre and then switching to the P Zero Yellow soft. The German
now becomes only the fourth driver in history to win the Monaco Grand Prix
for three consecutive years, after claiming his second consecutive victory
of the 2015 season to close up the fight for the championship.
The race was turned on its head by a safety car period close to the finish,
during which Lewis Hamilton lost the lead that he had held from pole
position, after making an extra pit stop to change to the supersoft.
The majority of drivers stopped just once after starting on the supersoft
tyre, although Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, McLaren’s Fernando Alonso,
Williams driver Valtteri Bottas and both Manors started on the soft tyre.
Temperatures were generally cool throughout practice and qualifying but
warmed up during race day, peaking at 42 degrees centigrade on track, which
improved the grip from both compounds. As usual, wear and degradation was
minimal on the least abrasive and slowest circuit of the year. This made
maintaining tyre temperature crucial after five laps of the safety car.
A particularly impressive drive came from the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz,
which started from last place following a penalty post-qualifying. The
Spaniard got up to a points-scoring 10th on his Monaco debut, using a
one-stop strategy. Crucial to his strategy was a 66-lap stint on the soft
tyre at the end of the race.
Rosberg set his fastest lap of the race just two laps from the finish, when
his final set of soft tyres were already 39 laps old.
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director: “I was as surprised as
everyone else to see the final pit stop that decided the outcome of the
race. But that shouldn’t take anything away from the great job that Lewis
Hamilton did throughout the entire weekend. It just goes to show that it’s
never over until the chequered flag falls in Formula One: a fact that Nico
Rosberg clearly appreciated today! The long safety car period at the end of
the race obviously made maintaining tyre temperatures important at the
re-start. In the end, we saw a spectacular finish, with the one-stop
strategy that we predicted for the race used by the vast majority of
competitors.”
Truth-O-Meter:
We predicted a one-stopper as the most likely winning scenario for the
78-lap race, and this is what Hamilton chose. Our prediction said that after
starting on supersoft, the best time to put on the softs would be from lap
27 onwards. In the end, the drivers ran longer on the supersoft than
expected: Rosberg made his sole stop on lap 37. |
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