Red Bull Slip-Up Allows Lewis Hamilton Through for Monaco Win

From Road & Track

The tone for the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix was set when the race started in the rain behind the safety car, and the slippery surface-fueled attrition that followed met exactly the expectations set by the unpredictable wet Grands Prix of the past. This year's race didn't quite match the craziness of Oliver Panis's unprecedented 1996 victory, but the sheer number of mistakes made at the least forgiving track in Formula 1 came close.

The race started when the safety car came in seven laps in, and it took just a lap for Joylon Palmer to become the first retirement of the race after going off in his Renault. Two laps after the ensuing restart, Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen joined him among the retirees, and in the kerfuffle that followed, Lewis Hamilton passed teammate Nico Rosberg to move into second behind polesitter Daniel Ricciardo. The next incident came in the penultimate hairpin, where the recently demoted Daniil Kvyat caught Kevin Magnussen, resulting in Kvyat's retirement and the beginning of a series of headaches for Magnussen. Spanish Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen met his reputation as a talented hothead a couple of laps later, wrecking at Casino Square after driving into the top ten from the pit lane, nearly overcoming a poor start forced by a mistake in qualifying.

While one Red Bull driver's race was coming to a dramatic end on-track, leader Daniel Ricciardo would suffer his own misfortune at the same time as he stopped for a scheduled tire change as instructed only to find his team completely unprepared, with no tires laid out for the generally quick change. The move left Ricciardo behind a blocking Lewis Hamilton at perhaps the hardest track to pass at in all of auto racing in drying conditions that didn't particularly aid overtaking. With just a minor incident between Sauber teammates left to shake things up, Hamilton was able to successfully hold off Red Bull Racing's veteran-by-team-standards driver for nearly 40 laps to take what would be his first win of 2016.

The race marks the second in as many rounds that Ricciardo would have likely won if not for the strategy decisions of his team. While he was simply put on the less ideal strategy of a team split in Spain, today his team blatantly let him down, and he had no issue voicing his displeasure. Despite his frustrations, the second place finish was the best of his season, and with Sergio Perez rounding out the podium, Hamilton would have to look pretty far down the order to find Nico Rosberg's finishing position, seventh. It means that he's already taken out most of Rosberg's once-massive lead, leaving him now just 24 points behind his teammate, who followed up seven straight wins with just two points scored over two races.

Formula 1 takes a break from its long Summer in Europe for the Canadian Grand Prix, the first of two in North America this season, in two weeks.