For the first time ever, the race started with a safety vehicle as rain poured at the principality all morning.
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Ricciardo finished 7.3s off the Mercedes by the chequered flag with Perez – who moved ahead of Vettel and Rosberg with a pit stop for slicks on lap 22 – just over six seconds behind in the Force India.
Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate and championship leader Nico Rosberg finished seventh – 93.2 seconds behind – after being told to let the Briton past early on.
Rosberg was forced to let by team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the rain-hit early laps, with the reigning world champion going on to clinch his first win of the season.
Indy 500 pole sitter James Hinchcliffe took a moment before the start of Sunday’s race to send his best wishes to Andrew Palmer, a sports vehicle driver who was involved in a serious wreck on Saturday. By lap 15 Ricciardo’s lead was out to 11.6sec.
Hamilton closed the gap on Rosberg to 24 points, while Ricciardo is in third spot.
“I took Barcelona on the chin and then took it well but (that’s) two in a row now”, Ricciardo said. Raikkonen “slid straight into the barriers coming into the hairpin on lap 11, immediately after the virtual safety auto prompted by Palmer’s shunt had been with withdrawn”.
“I can’t put it in words”, Michael Andretti said as Marco’s auto was being pulled onto the starting grid.
“I think we had the speed in the wet on the start”.
It’s not an expression you’ll often here in Monte Carlo, but it’s fair to say, all bets are off.
McLaren’s Fernando Alonso was fifth, on the 50th anniversary of his team’s race debut in Monaco in 1966, with Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg snatching sixth from Rosberg at the very end. “I prayed for a day like this and it came through, so I feel truly blessed”.
Instead, the Red Bull pit crew were not ready for him and lost agonising seconds getting his tyres out, and he came out behind Hamilton.
Hamilton could only cut two seconds from Ricciardo’s advantage until Red Bull’s decision to fit intermediate tyres to Ricciardo’s vehicle on lap 23 gave Hamilton the lead. Max Verstappen was among the drivers making progress through the field and made up four places in the space of two laps as he picked off Felipe Nasr, Kevin Magnussen, Pascal Wehrlein and Valtteri Bottas.
“So the call was made to go to the super-soft tyre and based on how we are set up here in Monaco, the tyres are on heaters both in the garage and behind the garage, and unfortunately the set of tyres that were called for weren’t readily to hand and were at the back of the garage”.
A stewards inquiry resulted in “no further action” as the pair diced for the lead before another VSC pause when the squabbling Saubers, ignoring team orders, collided at Rascasse.
When the Mercedes pitted for dry tires, Ricciardo and Red Bull’s mission was simple: put down one fast lap and one fast pit stop, trying to jump the Mercedes in the pits and regain the lead.
“I haven’t even thought about it just yet”, Hamilton added when asked about cutting Rosberg’s lead.
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On a track with scant overtaking opportunities, the 18-year-old impressively moved up to 10th, before another error saw the young Dutchman end up in the barriers on lap 35 to end his race.
