Mixed emotions for Vettel and Raikkonen after Ferrari one-two

2017 Monaco Grand Prix

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Sebastian Vettel has hailed a ‘fantastic weekend’ for Ferrari, while Kimi Raikkonen ‘wishes he got more’ after the Monaco Grand Prix.

Raikkonen led from pole position at the start of the race, but lost the lead and the race to his team mate after Vettel stayed out longer than him, taking advantage of clear air to stay ahead after his pit stop.

Despite Ferrari securing a one-two victory to take the lead in the constructor’s championship, Raikkonen says the result ‘doesn’t feel good’.

“It’s hard to say, really,” says Raikkonen. “Obviously it’s still second place, but it doesn’t feel awfully good.

“But this is how it goes sometimes. We go for the next race and try to do better. But it’s one of those days where you wish you get a little bit more.”

Vettel, on the other hand, hailed the performance of Ferrari over the Monaco Grand Prix weekend as ‘fantastic’ as he extended his championship lead over Lewis Hamilton to 25 points.

“I think it was a very intense race,” says Vettel. “I don’t think we could’ve planned much.

“The plan was to try and pull away, which we did. Then Valtteri (Bottas) had really good pace. I think we were struggling both a little bit with our rears. At that point, the window opened. So as soon as Valtteri pitted, I think Kimi responded. For me, I think I still had a bit of a gap and had nothing to lose in P2, so pushed as hard as I could and within two laps I was surprised myself to pull a gap to come out in front.

Vettel admits he had hoped to have passed his team mate at the start and was forced to stay patient and wait for an opportunity to present itself during the pit stops.

“there was a phase in the first stint that was really tricky, the tyres started to slide. It was quite uncomfortable,” explains Vettel.

“I think Valtteri and the pack were catching up a bit, we were facing some traffic. But then I had like, I don’t know, a second attempt – a second set of tyres. I had a couple of laps where the car was really, really good. I pushed everything I had, because I knew that there is a chance and then that’s it. So I was able to use that window and come out ahead.”

Once ahead, Vettel quickly opened up a gap of over 12 seconds to Raikkonen behind, which was negated following the late Safety Car intervention.

“After the restart, it was really tricky with the cold tyres,” says Vettel. “I think every one of us was struggling – Daniel (Ricciardo) said he hit the wall at turn one on the first lap.

“So it was really difficult but after a couple of laps I was able again to control the gap to behind. So fantastic job. The team has done really well. Great thanks to them and a fantastic weekend for Ferrari.”

2017 Monaco Grand Prix

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    Will Wood
    Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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    65 comments on “Mixed emotions for Vettel and Raikkonen after Ferrari one-two”

    1. The face says it all.

      1. Instant caption competition…

    2. I think traffic was what cost Kimi the win. Both Vettel and Kimi came into traffic after Kimi pitted, but Vettel’s traffic pitted immediately so that Vettel did not lose much time. I don’t think it was an intentional switch of position by Ferrari, although they certainly accepted the risk that it would happen. In any case, I think pitting Vettel first would have meant that he may have been able to undercut Raikkonnen.

      1. Michael Brown (@)
        28th May 2017, 15:53

        Did Vettel have enough space? He would have been close to Sainz before they hit the traffic, and once the Ferraris cleared the traffic, they lost 10 seconds to Sainz.

      2. The undercut worked because I don’t think Ferrari duly informed Kimi when to pit and give him the normal two laps to push now. I believe he was told to pit when he was in sector two while Vettel had two laps of clean air. Favoritism is the word of the day. But another classic “train” race.

        1. LOL. Basing all that opinion on what you think Ferrari might have told Raikkonen and you have no access to team radio.
          They did the same think Red Bull did in this race. They also did it in Spain 2016, are you saying they favoured Raikkonen and Verstappen over Vettel and Ricciardo?

          I mean Verstappen-Bottas fight was an undercut, so apparently they didn’t even know which one would work anyway.

          1. The timing of the stops is what jars.
            Ferrari would have know when they pitted Raikkonen that he would come out in traffic – simple to calculate. They then gave Vettel five laps to make the overcut work.
            Even then he came out only just ahead of Raikkonen.

            I find it quite difficult to see how this wasn’t loading the dice somewhat in favour of Vettel.

            1. Kimi, I think, would agree with you.

            2. You do realize they adapt their strategy based on what others around them are doing, right… So they react according to that. They don’t just roll the dice to decide when to pit. It’s triggered by people pitting behind them.

      3. Kimi’s reactions from the moment he stepped out of the car all the way through the victory ceremony really says it all. Ferrari had two objectives; the first and most important was to get the 1-2 finish for the constructor’s, second was to maximise Vettel’s points haul with an eye to the DWC and both were achieved. Although Kimi had lots left, as soon as the team managed the swap he dropped back to manage the gap to the 3rd placed car. It was very well done by Ferrari, quite subtly managed and most important of all: it is not against the rules!

        Kudos also to RBR for how they outfoxed Mercedes and got one car on the podium. Merc had to respond to Verstappen’s pit stop or Bottas would have been undercut but that opened the door for Ricciardo to overcut him with the same end result.

      4. I think RAI fans have it wrong.
        Let me explain. RAI was struggling to build gap. At one point RAI to BOT gap was 7sec and then it came down to 4sec.
        When VER and then BOT pitted, Ferrari did not know undercut does not work. So as a rule they pit leader who at that point is RAI. But as it turns out RAI on SS was slower than VET on US tyres.
        We saw same with RBR. VER and RIC switched.
        Now imagine Ferrari not responding to BOT and undercut actually works. Both BOT and VER would be ahead.
        Now imagine Ferrari pitting VET instead of RAI and undercut works, VET would gain plave on RAI. Fans will again be unhappy.
        Get hatred out and use Brain to think.

        1. @Ninad, let me explain it to you – it’s called lapping backmarkers, that’s when the gap to Bottas came down. Second, Kimi was pitted so that he came out amongst backmarkers he had already lapped and lost time while Vettel could put the hammer down to overcut him after pitting for his set of SS. Third, when Vettel came out he did not have to overtake those same backmarkers, job done. It was very cleverly managed by Ferrari in order to maximise their haul in both CWC as well as DWC and not illegal.

          1. Completely overlooking other stuff so that what you pick and choose suits the narrative you want… You do realize Vettel had traffic when he was supposed to be putting the hammer down, right… He was lucky the Sauber pitted.

            Some people just wanted Ferrari to do whatever’s necessary to keep them in the same order apparently. (Despite the fact that Vettel was half a second, a second, even two seconds faster at times anyway.)

      5. I think traffic was what cost Kimi the win.

        Yes, I think that was more or less what happened. I felt the swap in places was because Vettel took advantage of the situation before him better than Raikkonen did, meaning it came down to the driver not the team, which is about as fair as it could be. The Ultra Soft tyre was supposed to be faster than the Super Soft, so there was the possibility Vettel could do an overcut and gain a place in the few laps between their pit stops, but equally he could have encountered a Yellow Flag, his tyres could have degraded to have less performance than the Super Soft tyre, he could have pushed too hard and crashed, or he had a problem with his own pit stop, and so returned to the track behind Raikkonen.
        As difficult as it is, I think Vettel simply drove better here than Raikkonen did, meaning for Raikkonen to have won Ferrari would have had to engineer that result, and wouldn’t Vettel and his fans feel at least as much aggrieved by that result?

    3. Prince Albert’s new girlfriend is NICE.

      1. You mean the blonde one who is his wife ?

      2. You mean the crowned princess who is his wife for couple of years now.

      3. I think she might be a LYON.

    4. Vettel had a lot of pace and we could see it when he was in clear air.
      If Kimi was faster he would have opened a gap to Vettel.

      If vettel pitted first he would have also past kimi.

      VERSTAPEN got past by RICCARDO because of Bottas behind traffic.

      1. You did see when opening up the gap he came across traffic right? You know he was 2+ seconds ahead when he hit traffic. That maybe killed his tires, who knows…

        It was his fault not to open up the gap further but he nursed his tires and didn’t get the push now message in regards to pitting. Kimi could of most definitely won the race.

    5. Ferrari was disgraceful (again).
      Mercedes managed drivers fairly through the years.
      Regional Team vs. World Team.

      Worst than a F1 race without overtakes, is one where they are cooked in the pits!

      Ferrari shamed F1 today (again)!

      1. Hope you had the same feeling when Rosberg was asked to move over for Hamilton last year. Or are these reserved only for the team in Red? Mind you, Rosberg and Hamilton were the championship contenders whereas Kimi isn’t.

      2. I’ve never heard such utter nonsense

      3. Damn right! They think because they’re the most historic team they can treat drivers with disrespect which I don’t think is good for the sport, let them race…they are racing drivers after all. I like that about Mercedes, they let the drivers race as long as its clean, no favorites or #1 driver.

        1. And not any driver. Just the last champion for Scuderia.

      4. Ferrari was as disgraceful as Red Bull this race.

        You are also implying that Spain 2016 was also a disgrace.

      5. Nonsense.

      6. Ferrari was disgraceful (again).
        Mercedes managed drivers fairly through the years.

        What color is the sky in your world? Really, could you at least make an effort to pretend to be fair, impartial, and reasonable? Mercedes have used team orders numerous times just in the first six races of this season, while Ferrari have yet to do so.

        1. Ferrari was disgraceful (again).
          Mercedes managed drivers fairly through the years.

          Kimi: “It doesn’t feel awfully good – that is how it goes sometimes. One of those days we should have had a bit more.”
          Nico: “Yeah I know how that feels…” REFFERING TO: Hamilton vs Rosberg in the past 2 years…

          Besides, there’s only 1 man to blame for this and that’s Kimi himself, he said it himself:
          “Today as a team we wanted a one-two, it happened, but for myself, I could have done a bit better.”

          And NO that’s not because he is supposed to tell this to the media. Both have the same cars, both are equal. Kimi had time to push, didn’t push away, he lost badly during lapping cars (I saw how he lost badly when he was supposed to pass button but didn’t…)… In other words, Seb/Ferrari should not punnish themselves because Kimi did badly.

          HOWEVER: I do want Kimi to win 1 GP and if the time is right, I hope Ferrari will give him this win…

          1. Sorry this was in reply to “WIN7GOLF”

          2. @phil9079: “Both have the same cars”. Wow, I’m most impressed! You have access to confidential information about Ferrari’s cars. As far as I know, the specs of F1 cars are top secret. You must be one of Ferrari’s engineers to know that both cars are the same. Careful there, though, Ferrari can fire you for publishing their confidential information ;)

            1. ahahah you’re right man.
              Nobody could ever know if two cars are exactly the same or if two drivers are given the same material.
              People must be blind if they think so. Or maybe they do work at Ferrari :-)

      7. Agree 100%. It is a disgrace. I think we are supporting the wrong team.

      8. Although we are not Mercedes fans, they definitely interfered the least in the drivers competition. Ferrari is renowned for the opposite.

        1. Mind you; the team order in 2010 was given by Stefano. He left the ferrari team ages ago… And, what happend now wasn’t a team order either

        2. Hilarious. Vettel has to overtake Raikkonen on track, Bottas gets told multiple times to give way to Hamilton or even hold Vettel up, but Ferrari’s disgusting because yesterday Vettel managed putting in laps that was 2 seconds faster than anything Raikkonen had managed up until that point.

      9. @win7golf
        They should be ashamed of their 1-2 finish, their fast car and the way Kimi had clear air for 35 laps to build a gap to protect himself from an over or undercut, so I agree with you.

    6. Lets face the facts.
      If Ferrari would have pitted Sebastian immediately after Kimi, they would have given Kimi the win as a gift.
      Seb was just faster.

    7. Michael Brown (@)
      28th May 2017, 15:59

      No, no! Don’t you understand? It was a conspiracy! I heard it on Sky!

    8. Raikonnen was slower than Vettel but it has to be said that given that Button and Wehrlein took over 2 laps to receive the blue flag before the pitstop, the team should have considered if Raikonnen would encounter back-markers again after his pitstop. Also, if the commentators were talking about the overcut being the only viable strategy that would have enabled a gain in track position, surely the engineers would have foreseen Vettel coming out in front of Raikonnen? Did not like that phase at all.

      Saying that, Vettel and Ricciardo (and Hamilton) all did great first stints and Vettel just outclassed Raikonnen in the second stint. Vettel deserved the win even with the biased strategy.

    9. I think RAI fans have it wrong.
      Let me explain. RAI was struggling to build gap. At one point RAI to BOT gap was 7sec and then it came down to 4sec.
      When VER and then BOT pitted, Ferrari did not know undercut does not work. So as a rule they pit leader who at that point is RAI. But as it turns out RAI on SS was slower than VET on US tyres.
      We saw same with RBR. VER and RIC switched.
      Now imagine Ferrari not responding to BOT and undercut actually works. Both BOT and VER would be ahead.
      Now imagine Ferrari pitting VET instead of RAI and undercut works, VET would gain plave on RAI. Fans will again be unhappy.
      Get hatred out and use Brain to think.

      1. Don’t lump me in with them, the only anomaly I see is Ferrari running a 1-2 strategy successfully at all.

      2. Its plain simple. Pit 2nd 1 lap after the 1st and they run on equal terms. Did Ferrari follow this practice? You only see such a strategy in competing teams.

        1. Why a team should do that when the one not pitted can go way faster?

          Should Red Bull pit RIC after they pit VER?

      3. @Ninad, let me explain it to you – it’s called lapping backmarkers, that’s when the gap to Bottas came down. Second, Kimi was pitted so that he came out amongst backmarkers he had already lapped and lost time while Vettel could put the hammer down to overcut him after pitting for his set of SS. Third, when Vettel came out he did not have to overtake those same backmarkers, job done. It was very cleverly managed by Ferrari in order to maximise their haul in both CWC as well as DWC and not illegal. Fourth, at no point was Bottas a threat as it took the Merc three or four laps longer to get into the window of optimum tyre performance so your claim that Bot could have undercut is dead wrong. Before you accuse others of not using their Brain (yes, you did semi-shout), why not engage your own? :-)

    10. The biggest factor in the win for Vettel was doing more laps on the US tires in clean air while Kimi was mired in traffic after his pit stop for SS tires. That was where the race was won. Same thing happened with Verstappen and Ricciardo.

      What were Ferrari and Red Bull to do otherwise? The strategies were logical, not really a conspiracy against Kimi or Max. It is easy to see why both Kimi and Max are not pleased with their results. Had the safety car come at at different time or a bunch of other what-ifs, the result could have been different.

      I wanted Kimi to win as badly as anyone. It was fairly obvious when he was bogged down in traffic while Vettel was able to do fast laps in clean air before his stop that was not going to happen. What amazes me is people bagging on Kimi for being too slow and that Vettel was going to win all along because he was so much faster. Did we watch the same race? What about the same thing happening to Max? Is he also too slow?

      As a F1 fan for 50 years I do have my favorite drivers and Kimi is one of them. But, I also try to apply some logic and objectivity when evaluating what happens in a race.

      1. RAI was on clean air, VER no

      2. You people only talk about laps around pit stop but don’t say a word about Raikkonen’s pace when he was leading for the first 33 laps. Why wasn’t he able to pull away from Vettel? That’s actually where he lost the race.

      3. Looks like you and I watched the same race then, like many others @bullmello. Although it almost looks like some people watched something different altogether :-)

        Yeah, as soon as Kimi (and Bot and VER) came out in traffic, it was clear that that strategy would probably not work out. When Vettel was shown to pull out quite a few FLAPS in the laps following it was more or less done and dusted.

        In other circumstances however it might have worked out for them.

        1. Exactly my thoughts @bascb Right, same for Verstappen too.

          And I don’t blame Ferrari for leaving Vettel out to put the hammer down while he could in clean air. It made sense given the situation.

          I do feel gutted for Kimi though. Almost had his first win since 2013. It’s just the way things worked out. No early safety car, strategy skewed by Pirelli having only one grade of tires that worked halfway decent at this circuit.

    11. Imagine if they pitted Vettel before Raikkonen, the lead driver. Regardless of whether that undercut would’ve worked, even more people would be crying foul play to try and give Vettel the advantage. Vettel was just plain quicker today.

      Also, even if Ferrari came out and said they deliberately favoured Vettel over Raikkonen….so what? It’s exactly what Mercedes have done in Bahrain and Spain this year already.

      1. Was Ricciardo just plain quicker than Verstappen too?

        1. @bullmello
          Hard to tell as I do t think they were ever line astern in the race. Ricciardo’s pace when Bottas pitted was mesmerising to watch though. When Vettel was behind Raikkonen in the first stint right before the stops, you could clearly see Vettel was quicker, and his laps thereafter were amazing. Additionally, when he got out in front of Raikkonen, he built up his lead so easily.

    12. I think it’s hard to say who “deserved” the win. Kimi was faster on quali, and Seb was faster on race day. Ferrari had a choice to make on who they wanted to hand the win to, and they went for the championship contender. Simple as that. And you can’t fault them for that. Having a WDC means more exposure, which means more funds for your team, more development, bonus for your staff, and so on.

    13. The positive from all this is that Kimi expressed dissatisfaction with the result. He still has some desire in him. If he’d been indifferent, than clearly he shouldn’t been in F1 or at Ferrari.

    14. MG421982 (@)
      28th May 2017, 18:52

      Kinda wished RAI to win it, but I wanted even more to see a Ferrari win Monaco after 16 years and I want even more to see Ferrari win any of the titles in 2017. Unfortunately, RAI simply doesn’t have “it” anymore to be a true contender in the WDC fight. Highest hope is to see him do a job good enough to help the team grab the WCC too. Anyway, that being said, I think VET won on merit, he was simply faster than RAI over 78 laps. After both Ferrari drivers pitted, VET lapped like 1second faster than RAI, while RIC closed the gap to RAI almost completely by the moment the SC was deployed. Dunno if Ferrari “played” RAI at the pit-stop, but even so… it’s not something that obvious, it’s more like only suspicions. Let’s not forget BOT made room for HAM and let him past like 3 times already this season. That was obvious. Crofty from Sky was reeeaaally ridiculous, a true joke, never impartial, implying multiple times that Ferrari messed up RAI’ race to get VET in front, that RAI must be quite upset for being behind VET after pit-stops, that RAI is just a no.2 bla bla bla. Absolutely nothing about HAM and BOT, that BOT is even more obviously a no.2 than RAI, simply because he always let HAM overtake him without any fight. So far, this season, there was absolutely no moment where RAI made room for VET on-track. I’m more than sure that Mercedes would have made something to get HAM in front of BOT by the time the race was over. It was just unfortunate that HAM was too far behind, must have been something more than obvious to mess BOT’s race in order to get him behind HAM. Otherwise, had HAM been right behind BOT, I have no doubts it would have been “arranged” somehow to get HAM in front.

      1. Absolutely nothing about HAM and BOT

        You should listen to what he said during FP2 this week. He spent the majority of the session vehemently arguing that there was no team play whatsoever with Mercs in Barcelona. Even the usual pro-Hamilton Ted was pointing out it was obvious. Di Resta next to him disagreed with him. Croft even read several tweets from fans that explained why he was wrong but he didn’t budge at all. Ted later brought up Bottas’ own post-race comment that admitted their tactic plain and simple. In the end none of them worked and Croft was as convinced as ever. It was excruciating.
        Then of course, he began talking about how Ferrari would favor Vettel well before the pit stop and wouldn’t shut up about it afterwards, despite the fact that it wasn’t even a clear case. To top it all off, Hamilton’s comment on Ferrari’s alleged team order was as laughable as Crofty’s obsession.

    15. Right pace at the right time- what a great drive Seb.
      And welcome back conspiracy and sabotage theories, missed ya lol

    16. One fact that noone seems to say here,
      VET was just going to get in the back of ERI one lap after RAI pitted. but ERI went to the pits just when VET was getting close. Therefore there were another 10 sec to the next car (STR) and VET could push for another lap or two.

      RAI was quick in the first stint, the backmarkers that pitted early (BUT and WHR) was the biggest reason why RAI lost victory today. Both Ferrari cars lost alot of time behind them and after that RAI tires seemed to slow to build a gap while VET had saved some tires earlier.

      Nice to see a Ferrari 1-2 again in F1.

      I really want to se RAI win a race, but he was just not fast enough around when the pit window came.
      Ferrari did the strategies right for once! Giving car 1 on track first pit stop and acting right after what happened to BOT and VER.
      If they had been faster on the SS tire it would had been a disaster not pitting RAI, i was afraid both BOT and VER would undercut VET at first utill the swedish commentary said that ERI went to the pits just before VET got to him.

      Side note: Terrible day for WEH and BUT. Pitting early was clearly not a good move, they lost sooooooo much time when people started to laping them.

    17. Have you noticed how drivers have become perfect PR answering machines that never say “i”, but instead always say “we”.
      Kimi: “This is clearly not the result WE wanted”. Yes it is, Ferrari got a 1-2.
      Just say: “This is clearly not the result I wanted”.

    18. However a Vettel win happened unless it was with an on track overtake some will say Ferrari managed it. Overcut or undercut some will cry it was fixed. That was jus one car being faster than the other simple. Merc however have made Bottas move over once already this year and compromise his race in Spain so he could slow down Vettel to Hamiltons benefit. All fair but funny how Ferrari are called out fo un sporting conduct.

    19. Kimi looks so sad. You know what would cheer him up? He should meet Kimi.

    20. I hate Ferrari. Sixth race and they already stab Kimi in the back. Maybe they were afraid the win would have boosted his confidence for the rest of the season and won the championship. Nah, it’s so easy to screw up a car. What does it matter who wins as long as they get their points? Another easy one for Seb. He’s had so many. Kimi had a great weekend for a change and BAM….. Well, at least he showed everyone he can still do it. I don’t know why everyone wants to race for Ferrari.

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