From bad to worse

From bad to worse

Lewis Hamilton had a torrid weekend in Monaco and won’t look back on the Grand Prix with many fond memories. His poor result will be especially disappointing given McLaren’s speed around the narrow bumpy streets of the principality. Lewis came up against a constant parade of obstacles and his problems continued well after the race had actually finished.

Hamilton’s weekend began to unravel on Saturday. One wrong decision during qualifying started a chain reaction of events that snowballed into a dismal Grand Prix.

McLaren opts for the wrong strategy

Lewis Hamilton was fastest throughout Q1, Q2, and was arguably the favourite for pole position. Interestingly, given Hamilton’s form, McLaren decided to give Lewis just one run at pole late in the third session and this proved to be a mistake. Lewis was the only leading driver who didn't set a confidence-building banker time early in Q3, and this put him at a disadvantage even before the drama that followed. Monaco is a hard track to get right in qualifying, and McLaren will now regret giving Lewis a limited opportunity to do so.

Held up by Massa

Hamilton came up behind Felipe Massa on his first flying lap shortly after the Ferrari had exited the pitlane. In reality, Massa was not an obstacle and was more of a distraction, but it was enough to throw Lewis off his game. Hamilton made an unfortunate decision when he abandoned the lap, because even if he felt that he had been delayed by Massa, he would still have been able to complete a banker before pushing hard later in Q3.

Perez goes into the wall

Sergio Perez's big accident at the chicane could not have come at a worse time for Lewis. The red flags rendered his qualifying efforts invalid and gave him just two and a half minutes to set a quick time once the session restarted.

McLaren was keen to ensure that Lewis was not held up on his outlap so he would be able to push hard and generate heat in the brakes and tyres. To guarantee this, Lewis was sent down the end of the pitlane a few minutes before the session restarted. Those few minutes proved crucial because Lewis had difficulty recovering the heat that he lost from his car whilst sitting idle. After 30 minutes of inaction the track had dramatically slowed down and Hamilton was unable to improve his time.

Cuts the chicane on his hot lap

Lewis still pushed hard on his solitary flying lap, but misjudged his braking for the chicane and cut across the corner. His lap was cancelled by the stewards, which dropped him from 7th to 9th on the grid. It was his first driving mistake of the weekend.

Slips backwards on lap one

Lewis was beaten off the line by Vitaly Petrov, and lost another position on lap one to Michael Schumacher. The Mercedes driver made a nice overtaking manoeuvre at the hairpin and it proved costly for Hamilton. He was held up behind Michael as the Mercedes chewed through its Pirellis, and although he got back ahead on lap ten, Lewis had already lost valuable time and tyre life.

Tyres aren’t ready in the pitlane

Hamilton made his first pitstop at the end of lap 23 but, amazingly, McLaren did not have all of his tyres ready. What makes this even more astonishing that Red Bull had made the exact same mistake just minutes earlier. The ten second pitstop cost Hamilton the likely chance to jump ahead of Petrov and Pastor Maldonado who were directly in front.

Collides with Massa, receives a penalty

In his efforts to recover lost ground, Lewis made an audacious overtaking manoeuvre on Felipe Massa on lap 34. Lewis was hounding Felipe who felt compelled to go defensive into Mirabeau, giving Lewis a better run heading towards the hairpin. Hamilton launched down the inside of the Ferrari, but Massa turned in and they made contact. Since this corner is the tightest in F1, both cars were interlocked until they reached the exit and could straighten out.

Blame for the accident is hard to place. Massa could certainly have given Lewis more room and Hamilton has a right to feel aggrieved that the Ferrari turned in on him. Massa did appear to take an unusually defensive line into the corner. It's also understandable that Felipe would feel upset as such a manoeuvre was always going to be very risky. The stewards sided with the argument that it is an attacking driver’s responsibility to make a clean pass, and handed Lewis a drive through penalty.

Hamilton later overtook Massa going through the tunnel, and whilst some felt that he pushed Massa wide, Felipe simply didn't take into account the loss of grip on the outside of the corner and slid into the wall by himself.

The drive-through penalty dropped Lewis down the order.

Hit by Alguersuari

Hamilton continued pushing and passed Vitaly Petrov going into Tabac on lap 69. However, he might’ve been better off staying behind the Renault.

Directly in front of them, Pastor Maldonado made an overtaking manoeuvre on Adrian Sutil who copied Massa's mistake and slide wide into the barrier. Sutil was able to continue with a puncture but arrived at the next corner travelling much slower, and although he tried to get out of the way, he crossed the racing line. Hamilton had to brake to avoid contact with the Force India, and Alguersuari (who had also made it past Petrov) went straight into the back of his McLaren. Hamilton’s rear wing mounting was destroyed by the impact.

At this stage of the race, Lewis must have been wondering what else could possibly go wrong.

The Safety Car was despatched and Lewis stayed out on track despite the heavy damage. It was an inspired decision because the race was later red flagged and McLaren was given the opportunity to repair the car. Interestingly, there was a rumour on twitter that Lewis was told to pit when it was clear the wing was broken, but declined to do so. If true, Lewis made the right decision, but you could understand if McLaren's management were upset at the time that one of their soldiers had disobeyed a clear command, particularly when it was being made on safety grounds.

Collides with Maldonado, receives a penalty

After the red flag, Hamilton restarted the race in 7th position behind Pastor Maldonado. Five laps from the end he threw his car up the inside of the Williams at Ste Devote but found there wasn't enough room to get through. Lewis hit the right rear wheel of the Williams and spun Maldonado around into the wall. He escaped without any serious damage, but later earned yet another penalty.

The clash with Massa could be considered a racing incident, but Lewis had more of a case to answer against Maldonado. Lewis said that Pastor simply turned in on him, but Lewis probably wasn't far enough alongside the Williams at the point of contact. It's not always fair to judge a racing incident using slow motion replays - given how quickly the drivers are forced to react - but the television footage suggests Lewis might have been more in the wrong than Maldonado.

Despite his second penalty, Hamilton finished the race in sixth.

Interview after the race

After such a horrid weekend Lewis was understandably frustrated. When the Grand Prix finished he was interviewed by the BBC and, whilst he should be applauded for speaking his mind, it's a shame that some of his comments weren't given more thought.

Lewis said that both Massa and Maldonado were "absolutely frickin’ ridiculous" which was a rather unfortunate personal attack because the incidents in question were debatable. Hamilton has since apologised to both drivers via twitter.

He also suggested that he was being victimised, which opened him to criticism that he is unable to admit mistakes or handle disappointment. Hamilton’s ability to learn from his errors was first questioned after the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix when he was reluctant to accept full blame for driving into the back of Kimi Raikkonen. He has done a lot since then to prove that he is a mature and sensible Grand Prix driver, but left himself open to attack from his critics for seemingly taking little responsibility for his difficult weekend.

Hamilton generated the most controversy when he suggested the stewards were targeting him because he was black. It was a light hearted joke - but a very poorly chosen one. Those unfamiliar with the Ali G reference could potentially find it offensive, and it's never particularly wise or to make light of racism. Lewis apologised for his comment (at the request of the FIA) but he shouldn’t have gone down that road in the first place.

Towards the end of the interview Lewis said "I’ll just try and keep my mouth shut and enjoy the rest of the season". He would have saved himself some trouble had he done exactly that only 30 seconds earlier.

It certainly would’ve avoided a bitter end to a weekend that continuously progressed from bad to worse.

Posted by Martin Porter. - Follow him on twitter @mpondaweb.

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