Race The GROAT - Round 1 - 2019 Interlagos vs 2019 Monaco vs 2016 Yas Marina
2019 Interlagos
Max Verstappen maintained his lead down into the first corner, while just behind, Lewis Hamilton overtook Sebastian Vettel for second. Apart from a few minor changes in the midfield, and Charles Leclerc steadily making upwards progress from fourteenth on the grid, the order remained generally stable for the first few laps. On lap 9 Daniel Ricciardo attempted an overtake on Kevin Magnussen, but Ricciardo locked his tyres, causing a collision which resulted in Magnussen going into a spin and Ricciardo suffering damage to his front wing. Ricciardo was later given a five-second time penalty for the incident. By lap 11 Leclerc had made his way up to sixth place.
By lap 18 the soft tyres were generally running out of life with Sergio Pérez the first to stop the following lap. On lap 20 Mercedes pitted Hamilton, hoping to undercut Verstappen. The next lap, Red Bull pitted Verstappen to try to cover off Hamilton. The pit stop broke the record for fastest pit stop with a time of 1.82 seconds, beating the previous time of 1.88 seconds which was made during the 2019 German Grand Prix. As Verstappen exited the pits the Williams of Robert Kubica pulled out in front of him, forcing the Red Bull to take evasive action; this resulted in Verstappen losing time and falling behind Hamilton. Verstappen and Hamilton quickly passed Leclerc, before Verstappen overtook Hamilton into turn 1. The two then passed Alexander Albon, Valtteri Bottas, and Vettel, who all pitted. At this point in the race, the cars outside the top six ran: Pierre Gasly, Kimi Räikkönen, Antonio Giovinazzi, and Sergio Pérez rounding out the top ten.
Over the next dozen of laps the wind started to pick up in speed. On lap 42 Bottas pitted for hard tyres, with his teammate, Hamilton, pitting two laps later to go onto the mediums. On lap 45 Verstappen pitted to prevent the undercut attempt from Hamilton. Further back, Bottas was unable to find a way past the Ferrari of Leclerc. Bottas retired on lap 52 with a hydraulics problem. His stopped car was adjudged to need a safety car to retrieve, initiating a round of pit stops. Hamilton was told to do the opposite of Verstappen, and so Hamilton stayed out whereas Verstappen pitted.
Further back, Leclerc and George Russell also pitted and any lapped cars were allowed to unlap themselves forcing the safety car to stay out for another couple of laps. At the restart, the order of the top ten was as follows: Hamilton, Verstappen, Vettel, Albon, Leclerc, Gasly, Romain Grosjean, Carlos Sainz, Räikkönen and Giovinazzi. Verstappen managed to overtake Hamilton into turn 1. Further back, the other Red Bull of Albon overtook Vettel for third, while Grosjean in the Haas started to have problems with his car, causing him to drop back. On lap 66 Leclerc overtook Vettel in turn 1, but Vettel, on the back straight, tried to take the position back. The two collided, with Leclerc suffering a broken suspension and Vettel getting a puncture. Both Ferraris retired from the race with terminal damage, and the safety car was called out again.
Mercedes then pitted Hamilton, still on lap 66, onto fresh soft tyres. This put him in line behind the safety car in fourth position, ahead of the McLaren of Sainz, but behind the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Albon, and the Toro Rosso of Gasly. During the safety car, Lance Stroll retired with front suspension damage. At the race restart, on lap 70, Hamilton passed Gasly, but later made contact with Albon while trying to pass him at turn 10. Albon was sent into a spin and was forced to rejoin the field in fifteenth position. Hamilton, too, was slowed by the contact, allowing Gasly to pass into second place. Verstappen came home to win his third race of the season. Six seconds behind him, Gasly beat Hamilton for second place by 0.062 seconds, meaning that this was the first time since 1991 that drivers using Honda-powered cars finished 1-2. Sainz, two seconds behind them both, finished fourth.
2019 Monaco
Before the race started, there was a moment of silence to pay respects to Lauda, with the majority of personnel and fans wearing red caps.
The opening lap proceeded cleanly, with Lewis Hamilton maintaining his lead from pole position. Charles Leclerc began to fight through the field after starting in 15th place. Leclerc had made it up to 12th by lap eight, but touched the inside wall at turn 17 during an overtake attempt on Nico Hülkenberg, sending his Ferrari into a spin. This contact caused a right-rear tyre puncture. Over the course of the next lap, Leclerc fell to last place as his tyre ripped apart and caused significant damage to the car's floor, spreading debris around the track. After emerging from the pits after a tyre change, he was a lap down on the leaders. A safety car was deployed on lap 11 for the marshals to clear the debris.
The leaders made their pit stops at the end of the lap, during the safety car period. Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel entered the pits all within one car length of each other. Verstappen's pit stop was faster than Bottas's, and Verstappen was released alongside, but slightly ahead of Bottas, with the two cars making contact. Bottas had no choice but to yield at the pit exit, losing second place to Verstappen. Bottas was brought into the pits again on the following lap for a switch from medium to hard-compound tyres and for the team to check for damage, emerging in fourth place behind Vettel.
Racing resumed on lap 15. On the same lap, Antonio Giovinazzi attempted an overtake on Robert Kubica at turn 17, making contact and sending the Williams into a spin. Kubica's car stopped whilst facing sideways at the exit of the turn, blocking the circuit and forcing Giovinazzi, Hülkenberg, Leclerc, Sergio Pérez and George Russell to stop on track and wait for him to move aside so that they could pass Kubica. Leclerc came into the pits on the following lap for a switch to soft-compound tyres, but on his out-lap, Ferrari decided that the floor damage caused by his lap eight incident was too great. Leclerc returned to the pits and retired from the race, continuing his streak of failing to finish his home Grand Prix, after retiring from the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix and from both races at the 2017 Monaco Formula 2 round.
On lap 22, Verstappen was issued a five-second time penalty for his unsafe release in the pits ten laps earlier. On lap 26, Giovinazzi was issued a penalty of ten seconds for causing the incident on lap 15. He later served his penalty in the pits. Verstappen spent the rest of the race attempting to overtake Hamilton, who was suffering on worn tyres, in order to build a lead and win the race despite his penalty. On lap 76, Verstappen mounted his only close challenge of the race, on the inside of turn 10. He made contact with the rear of the Mercedes, causing both cars to cut the chicane. Verstappen was unable to get close enough for an overtake on the subsequent laps, and Hamilton crossed the finish line to take victory. Verstappen's penalty saw him demoted from second to fourth, with Vettel and Bottas promoted to second and third respectively. This marked the sixth consecutive victory in 2019 for Mercedes, but the first time that season that the team did not take a 1–2 finish. Completing the top ten were Gasly (who set the fastest lap of the race), Sainz, Kvyat, Albon, Ricciardo and Grosjean (who was penalized from 9th), both Toro Rosso cars finishing in the points for the first time since the 2017 Spanish Grand Prix, and their best finish since the 2015 United States Grand Prix.
2016 Yas Marina
Lewis Hamilton held the lead from a cautious Nico Rosberg at the first corner of the race. Kimi Räikkönen gained third position from Daniel Ricciardo, with Vettel, Pérez, Hülkenberg, Alonso, Massa and Bottas completing the top ten positions at the end of the first lap. Max Verstappen spun and fell to 19th position after gently touching Nico Hülkenberg's Force India at the start. The RBR cars started the race on the more durable super soft tyres unlike the other top 10 cars who all started on ultra softs. By the 5th lap of the race, Verstappen had recovered to 13th position and only 19 seconds behind the leader, Hamilton.
Kevin Magnussen, who had pitted in the first lap with a broken nose after a touch in the start, retired from the race on lap 5 with suspension damage. The Force India and Williams teammates were fighting hard for 6th and 9th positions, respectively with Alonso holding position between the two teams' drivers. Bottas was forced to retire on lap 6 with a suspension issue.
Mercedes and Ferrari brought their lead cars (Hamilton and Räikkönen) in for their first pitstop on lap 7, and their following cars (Rosberg and Vettel) in subsequent laps. Red Bull also chose to react by pitting Ricciardo at this time, fitting the yellow-walled Soft tyres as did all the other front running cars at this point. The Mercedes of Rosberg had a 1.6s gap to the Ferrari of Räikkönen and maintained his position to the Ferrari after the pit stop, but now finding the yet to pit Red Bull of Verstappen between himself and Hamilton leading the race.
In what was at the time expected to be his last Formula One race, Jenson Button was forced to retire with broken right front suspension on lap 12 from 8th position. Daniil Kvyat was the next retirement from the race with gearbox problems on lap 14, from 16th position.
Meanwhile, Rosberg was advised by the Mercedes pitwall to not take any risks with Verstappen, believing that he will pit soon allowing Rosberg to emerge back into clean air. However, RBR took advantage of this conservative approach from Mercedes and chose to run Verstappen as long as they could in the first stint in order to complete the race on a 1-stop strategy and holding up Rosberg in the process. The risk posed by Verstappen's strategy to Rosberg became apparent soon, with Räikkönen following Rosberg close by and Vettel fast approaching this group. Rosberg was urged to attack and pass Verstappen on track, which he managed to do on lap 20 and began to catch Hamilton, with Räikkönen having pitted by lap 25 to cover for Verstappen and Ricciardo, who both pitted on laps 22 and 24 respectively.
The Mercedes drivers pitted on laps 28 and 29 for their final stint on the soft tyres. Rosberg now had a safe gap of 4 seconds to Verstappen, with Ricciardo and Räikkönen further behind. However, now Vettel was leading the race and going longer than all of the front runners with a view to driving a short final stint on the faster red–walled super soft tyres, while all other drivers were on the slower and older soft tyres. With Vettel yet to stop for the last time, Mercedes had concerns about the slow pace of Hamilton who was lapping as fast as Vettel who driving on much older tyres in the 1min46s, asking on lap 32: “Just wondering why you’re so slow? Currently unsafe to Vettel.” Hamilton immediately responded with a 1min45.3s, to which his race engineer replied that they were happy with this pace. Rosberg protested on lap 35 that this pace is too slow for a late race safety car. With 18 laps remaining, Vettel pitted to take the super soft tyres. He fell to 6th place, however his pace was alarming to Mercedes. At lap 41, Hamilton inquired the Mercedes pit wall about the pace of the cars around them. Vettel had lapped at 1min44.6s, and a 1-stopping Verstappen was much slower at 1min45.9s. Hamilton now began to slow the pace down much more dramatically, lapping in the 1min46s, in a bid to allow the chasing group to catch up to them while holding Rosberg around 1 second behind - the difficult to overtake layout of the track helping Hamilton not being overtaken himself. At this point individuals within the Mercedes pit wall, namely his race engineer and the team Executive Director Paddy Lowe began to issue repeated orders to Hamilton to increase his pace, but Hamilton continued to rebuff their requests.
Shortly after, as the leaders were lapping Carlos Sainz Jr and Jolyon Palmer, the Renault driver missed the braking point and rear-ended the STR of the Spaniard. Sainz Jr suffered problems due to this contact and retired from the race. Palmer was penalized with 5 seconds for the incident.
Vettel passed Räikkönen, Ricciardo and Verstappen and was less than a second behind Rosberg by lap 50. Hamilton’s actions also allowed Verstappen who was 3.5 seconds away from Rosberg to be 1 second behind Vettel by this time.
In the penultimate lap, Vettel attacked Rosberg, who defended his position, with RBR also encouraging Verstappen to push up to Vettel’s DRS to take advantage of a mistake by Vettel or Rosberg. Had Rosberg been passed for a podium finish, Hamilton would have won the World Championship Drivers' title and denied Rosberg his first title. Toto Wolff, the Mercedes Team Principal was able to see two sides to Hamilton’s actions, while not condoning his insubordination, understood the racer’s mentality in this situation. Others have supported him, going with the principle that "drivers are free to race".
Max Verstappen maintained his lead down into the first corner, while just behind, Lewis Hamilton overtook Sebastian Vettel for second. Apart from a few minor changes in the midfield, and Charles Leclerc steadily making upwards progress from fourteenth on the grid, the order remained generally stable for the first few laps. On lap 9 Daniel Ricciardo attempted an overtake on Kevin Magnussen, but Ricciardo locked his tyres, causing a collision which resulted in Magnussen going into a spin and Ricciardo suffering damage to his front wing. Ricciardo was later given a five-second time penalty for the incident. By lap 11 Leclerc had made his way up to sixth place.
By lap 18 the soft tyres were generally running out of life with Sergio Pérez the first to stop the following lap. On lap 20 Mercedes pitted Hamilton, hoping to undercut Verstappen. The next lap, Red Bull pitted Verstappen to try to cover off Hamilton. The pit stop broke the record for fastest pit stop with a time of 1.82 seconds, beating the previous time of 1.88 seconds which was made during the 2019 German Grand Prix. As Verstappen exited the pits the Williams of Robert Kubica pulled out in front of him, forcing the Red Bull to take evasive action; this resulted in Verstappen losing time and falling behind Hamilton. Verstappen and Hamilton quickly passed Leclerc, before Verstappen overtook Hamilton into turn 1. The two then passed Alexander Albon, Valtteri Bottas, and Vettel, who all pitted. At this point in the race, the cars outside the top six ran: Pierre Gasly, Kimi Räikkönen, Antonio Giovinazzi, and Sergio Pérez rounding out the top ten.
Over the next dozen of laps the wind started to pick up in speed. On lap 42 Bottas pitted for hard tyres, with his teammate, Hamilton, pitting two laps later to go onto the mediums. On lap 45 Verstappen pitted to prevent the undercut attempt from Hamilton. Further back, Bottas was unable to find a way past the Ferrari of Leclerc. Bottas retired on lap 52 with a hydraulics problem. His stopped car was adjudged to need a safety car to retrieve, initiating a round of pit stops. Hamilton was told to do the opposite of Verstappen, and so Hamilton stayed out whereas Verstappen pitted.
Further back, Leclerc and George Russell also pitted and any lapped cars were allowed to unlap themselves forcing the safety car to stay out for another couple of laps. At the restart, the order of the top ten was as follows: Hamilton, Verstappen, Vettel, Albon, Leclerc, Gasly, Romain Grosjean, Carlos Sainz, Räikkönen and Giovinazzi. Verstappen managed to overtake Hamilton into turn 1. Further back, the other Red Bull of Albon overtook Vettel for third, while Grosjean in the Haas started to have problems with his car, causing him to drop back. On lap 66 Leclerc overtook Vettel in turn 1, but Vettel, on the back straight, tried to take the position back. The two collided, with Leclerc suffering a broken suspension and Vettel getting a puncture. Both Ferraris retired from the race with terminal damage, and the safety car was called out again.
Mercedes then pitted Hamilton, still on lap 66, onto fresh soft tyres. This put him in line behind the safety car in fourth position, ahead of the McLaren of Sainz, but behind the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Albon, and the Toro Rosso of Gasly. During the safety car, Lance Stroll retired with front suspension damage. At the race restart, on lap 70, Hamilton passed Gasly, but later made contact with Albon while trying to pass him at turn 10. Albon was sent into a spin and was forced to rejoin the field in fifteenth position. Hamilton, too, was slowed by the contact, allowing Gasly to pass into second place. Verstappen came home to win his third race of the season. Six seconds behind him, Gasly beat Hamilton for second place by 0.062 seconds, meaning that this was the first time since 1991 that drivers using Honda-powered cars finished 1-2. Sainz, two seconds behind them both, finished fourth.
2019 Monaco
Before the race started, there was a moment of silence to pay respects to Lauda, with the majority of personnel and fans wearing red caps.
The opening lap proceeded cleanly, with Lewis Hamilton maintaining his lead from pole position. Charles Leclerc began to fight through the field after starting in 15th place. Leclerc had made it up to 12th by lap eight, but touched the inside wall at turn 17 during an overtake attempt on Nico Hülkenberg, sending his Ferrari into a spin. This contact caused a right-rear tyre puncture. Over the course of the next lap, Leclerc fell to last place as his tyre ripped apart and caused significant damage to the car's floor, spreading debris around the track. After emerging from the pits after a tyre change, he was a lap down on the leaders. A safety car was deployed on lap 11 for the marshals to clear the debris.
The leaders made their pit stops at the end of the lap, during the safety car period. Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel entered the pits all within one car length of each other. Verstappen's pit stop was faster than Bottas's, and Verstappen was released alongside, but slightly ahead of Bottas, with the two cars making contact. Bottas had no choice but to yield at the pit exit, losing second place to Verstappen. Bottas was brought into the pits again on the following lap for a switch from medium to hard-compound tyres and for the team to check for damage, emerging in fourth place behind Vettel.
Racing resumed on lap 15. On the same lap, Antonio Giovinazzi attempted an overtake on Robert Kubica at turn 17, making contact and sending the Williams into a spin. Kubica's car stopped whilst facing sideways at the exit of the turn, blocking the circuit and forcing Giovinazzi, Hülkenberg, Leclerc, Sergio Pérez and George Russell to stop on track and wait for him to move aside so that they could pass Kubica. Leclerc came into the pits on the following lap for a switch to soft-compound tyres, but on his out-lap, Ferrari decided that the floor damage caused by his lap eight incident was too great. Leclerc returned to the pits and retired from the race, continuing his streak of failing to finish his home Grand Prix, after retiring from the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix and from both races at the 2017 Monaco Formula 2 round.
On lap 22, Verstappen was issued a five-second time penalty for his unsafe release in the pits ten laps earlier. On lap 26, Giovinazzi was issued a penalty of ten seconds for causing the incident on lap 15. He later served his penalty in the pits. Verstappen spent the rest of the race attempting to overtake Hamilton, who was suffering on worn tyres, in order to build a lead and win the race despite his penalty. On lap 76, Verstappen mounted his only close challenge of the race, on the inside of turn 10. He made contact with the rear of the Mercedes, causing both cars to cut the chicane. Verstappen was unable to get close enough for an overtake on the subsequent laps, and Hamilton crossed the finish line to take victory. Verstappen's penalty saw him demoted from second to fourth, with Vettel and Bottas promoted to second and third respectively. This marked the sixth consecutive victory in 2019 for Mercedes, but the first time that season that the team did not take a 1–2 finish. Completing the top ten were Gasly (who set the fastest lap of the race), Sainz, Kvyat, Albon, Ricciardo and Grosjean (who was penalized from 9th), both Toro Rosso cars finishing in the points for the first time since the 2017 Spanish Grand Prix, and their best finish since the 2015 United States Grand Prix.
2016 Yas Marina
Lewis Hamilton held the lead from a cautious Nico Rosberg at the first corner of the race. Kimi Räikkönen gained third position from Daniel Ricciardo, with Vettel, Pérez, Hülkenberg, Alonso, Massa and Bottas completing the top ten positions at the end of the first lap. Max Verstappen spun and fell to 19th position after gently touching Nico Hülkenberg's Force India at the start. The RBR cars started the race on the more durable super soft tyres unlike the other top 10 cars who all started on ultra softs. By the 5th lap of the race, Verstappen had recovered to 13th position and only 19 seconds behind the leader, Hamilton.
Kevin Magnussen, who had pitted in the first lap with a broken nose after a touch in the start, retired from the race on lap 5 with suspension damage. The Force India and Williams teammates were fighting hard for 6th and 9th positions, respectively with Alonso holding position between the two teams' drivers. Bottas was forced to retire on lap 6 with a suspension issue.
Mercedes and Ferrari brought their lead cars (Hamilton and Räikkönen) in for their first pitstop on lap 7, and their following cars (Rosberg and Vettel) in subsequent laps. Red Bull also chose to react by pitting Ricciardo at this time, fitting the yellow-walled Soft tyres as did all the other front running cars at this point. The Mercedes of Rosberg had a 1.6s gap to the Ferrari of Räikkönen and maintained his position to the Ferrari after the pit stop, but now finding the yet to pit Red Bull of Verstappen between himself and Hamilton leading the race.
In what was at the time expected to be his last Formula One race, Jenson Button was forced to retire with broken right front suspension on lap 12 from 8th position. Daniil Kvyat was the next retirement from the race with gearbox problems on lap 14, from 16th position.
Meanwhile, Rosberg was advised by the Mercedes pitwall to not take any risks with Verstappen, believing that he will pit soon allowing Rosberg to emerge back into clean air. However, RBR took advantage of this conservative approach from Mercedes and chose to run Verstappen as long as they could in the first stint in order to complete the race on a 1-stop strategy and holding up Rosberg in the process. The risk posed by Verstappen's strategy to Rosberg became apparent soon, with Räikkönen following Rosberg close by and Vettel fast approaching this group. Rosberg was urged to attack and pass Verstappen on track, which he managed to do on lap 20 and began to catch Hamilton, with Räikkönen having pitted by lap 25 to cover for Verstappen and Ricciardo, who both pitted on laps 22 and 24 respectively.
The Mercedes drivers pitted on laps 28 and 29 for their final stint on the soft tyres. Rosberg now had a safe gap of 4 seconds to Verstappen, with Ricciardo and Räikkönen further behind. However, now Vettel was leading the race and going longer than all of the front runners with a view to driving a short final stint on the faster red–walled super soft tyres, while all other drivers were on the slower and older soft tyres. With Vettel yet to stop for the last time, Mercedes had concerns about the slow pace of Hamilton who was lapping as fast as Vettel who driving on much older tyres in the 1min46s, asking on lap 32: “Just wondering why you’re so slow? Currently unsafe to Vettel.” Hamilton immediately responded with a 1min45.3s, to which his race engineer replied that they were happy with this pace. Rosberg protested on lap 35 that this pace is too slow for a late race safety car. With 18 laps remaining, Vettel pitted to take the super soft tyres. He fell to 6th place, however his pace was alarming to Mercedes. At lap 41, Hamilton inquired the Mercedes pit wall about the pace of the cars around them. Vettel had lapped at 1min44.6s, and a 1-stopping Verstappen was much slower at 1min45.9s. Hamilton now began to slow the pace down much more dramatically, lapping in the 1min46s, in a bid to allow the chasing group to catch up to them while holding Rosberg around 1 second behind - the difficult to overtake layout of the track helping Hamilton not being overtaken himself. At this point individuals within the Mercedes pit wall, namely his race engineer and the team Executive Director Paddy Lowe began to issue repeated orders to Hamilton to increase his pace, but Hamilton continued to rebuff their requests.
Shortly after, as the leaders were lapping Carlos Sainz Jr and Jolyon Palmer, the Renault driver missed the braking point and rear-ended the STR of the Spaniard. Sainz Jr suffered problems due to this contact and retired from the race. Palmer was penalized with 5 seconds for the incident.
Vettel passed Räikkönen, Ricciardo and Verstappen and was less than a second behind Rosberg by lap 50. Hamilton’s actions also allowed Verstappen who was 3.5 seconds away from Rosberg to be 1 second behind Vettel by this time.
In the penultimate lap, Vettel attacked Rosberg, who defended his position, with RBR also encouraging Verstappen to push up to Vettel’s DRS to take advantage of a mistake by Vettel or Rosberg. Had Rosberg been passed for a podium finish, Hamilton would have won the World Championship Drivers' title and denied Rosberg his first title. Toto Wolff, the Mercedes Team Principal was able to see two sides to Hamilton’s actions, while not condoning his insubordination, understood the racer’s mentality in this situation. Others have supported him, going with the principle that "drivers are free to race".