“I hoped it would go away and then they told me to not leave the pit lane”, he said.
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World champion Lewis Hamilton ended his six-months wait for a win today when he secured an unexpected and skilful victory for Mercedes in an incident-filled Monaco Grand Prix. “I know how quick I am round Monaco, but it was only my second win”, he said.
Ricciardo pulled out a 13.1-second lead in seven laps before Rosberg let Hamilton through and the Briton then pulled out 10 seconds in five laps once he was into second place.
“Having seen Mercedes put the ultrasoft on Lewis Hamilton’s vehicle, the call was made in plenty of time to go one step harder in compound with the supersoft because we believed it had a better range”, explained Horner.
The German, who won the first four races of the season and had led by 39 points before Sunday, had his advantage over Hamilton slashed to 24 – less than a race win – with 15 grands prix remaining.
In an attempt to gain track position over the long-time race leader, Hamilton and his Mercedes team chose to extend his opening stint on wet tyres on a drying track in order to avoid an additional stop for intermediate tyres like Ricciardo, before eventually moving straight onto slicks.
A distraught Daniel Ricciardo said he has been “screwed” out of two certain victories by his Red Bull Racing team. As a result of that, I got traffic so I had to hold – and lost even more time and places as cars just went by.
Red Bull played their part, too, after they called Ricciardo in for slick tyres one lap later that Hamilton.
Following technical problems with Hamilton’s vehicle in a number of the early races this season, Mercedes assured their fans that there was “No A or B team here”.
Hamilton said: “He drove phenomenally all weekend”.
Hamilton was snapping at the heels of his Mercedes teammate from lap eight, before eventually passing him on lap 16 to set up his enthralling duel with Ricciardo.
Ricciardo said: “I guess, from the outside, we put on a show, but it shouldn’t have been exciting”. The incident was subsequently investigated by the stewards, who took no further action. It must be a great relief for them and Im grateful to them for sticking with me.
“But I felt I earned it and the next one is a good race for me generally”.
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“I am sitting here and everything is quiet, and a bit tiresome, not particularly exciting, but when I leave here it is going to be super exciting”.
