Monaco Grand Prix: The most exciting and dramatic race of 2011 Formula 1 season so far
The 2011 Monaco Grand Prix weekend was full of drama, excitement and yes, pure Formula 1 racing.
The Monaco Grand Prix started off on Thursday as always as this is the only race which holds its first two practice sessions before Friday according to tradition. The results of these two practice sessions were mixed as the first session was led by Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull but the difference between his lap time and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was not much.
The second session was surprisingly led by Fernando Alonso which cleared up the fact that the Ferrari upgrades paid off and that the team would be competitive this weekend.
Nevertheless, Alonso led the third practice session as well which took place on Saturday after which it was believed that Ferrari would have a very good pace at the qualifying of the Monaco Grand Prix which was expected to take place after a couple of hours of the final practice session.
The qualifying session was completely different as Sebastian Vettel scored his 5th pole position of the season and was joined by Jenson Button surprisingly in row one. They were followed by Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso in row two while Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa started from row two on the grid for the Monaco Grand Prix.
Nevertheless, Sergio Perez was involved in a huge accident as a result of which he was unable to take part in the race and had to be taken to the hospital.
The beginning of the race was not as dramatic as expected as the drivers started off quite safely with mixed results. Lewis Hamilton had a terrible start while Alonso moved up to 3rd place as he overtook Mark Webber before turn 1 thanks to a quick start.
Everything was going normally until around the last 15 laps of the race. A huge accident which involved Vitaly Petrov mainly took place as a result of which the race had to be stopped due to the debris from the Russian’s Lotus Renault GP. The track seemed quite dangerous and since some of the other cars were involved as well in the incident, in order to ensure the safety of the drivers, the mechanics of each team were asked to check their respective team’s cars before the restart.
The race restarted safely and Fernando Alonso, who was inching closer to Sebastian Vettel, could not manage to overtake the defending champion since the race stewards allowed tyres to be changed during the stoppage. Vettel, who was on a one-stop strategy, benefited hugely from this and made sure that he stayed comfortably ahead of Alonso until the end. Jenson Button of McLaren finished in third place behind the duo.
Other than that, Lewis Hamilton hit Pastor Maldonado’s Williams just a couple of laps before the chequered flag as a result of which the Venezuelan driver was unable to score his first points of the season.
Nevertheless, Sebastian Vettel pretty much dominated the race until the very end and scored another 25 points to add to his championship lead. As a result, he is now leading the championship with 143 points and his closest rival Lewis Hamilton is now 58 points adrift.
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