2014 Formula One Monaco GP: the heat is on at Mercedes

The 2014 season seemingly has taken its toll on early favorites Mercedes AMG F1. Their highly touted drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, who play the part of “friends” in front of the media, now are showing their true colors.

In Saturday qualifying, Nico Rosberg took provisional pole and in the closing stages took to the circuit for another flying lap. Behind him was Lewis Hamilton in the other Mercedes AMG F1 car. As luck would have it, Rosberg made a mistake near Mirabeau, overshot the corner and slowly backed out onto the track. This move necessitated the marshals to bring out the yellow flags, thus ruining Hamilton’s hot lap and preserving Rosberg’s P1 for the race. This didn’t sit well with the Brit and even his body language during the post qualifying interviews showed that he was not pleased.

The stewards quickly investigated the “mistake” by Rosberg, but eventually found no reason to strip him of pole. Thus Rosberg started on P1. Next to him was Hamilton, followed by Daniel Ricciardo on 3rd, then Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, and Kimi Raikkonen in 4^th to 6^th respectively.

As the lights went out to start the Monaco GP, Rosberg took off the line quickly, followed by Hamilton.  Vettel jumped Ricciardo into Turn 1, while Raikkonen leapt from 6th to 4^th. After the first corner, Ricciardo was relegated to 5th, with Alonso back in 6th.

Monaco has always been known to bring out the safety car, and in this race it showed up in Lap 1, after Sergio Perez in his Sauber was clipped by Jenson Button.

When the safety car was brought in, Rosberg once again shot off into the distance with the rest of the field running behind him. Raikkonen, who also had a great re-start, was up to 3rd. Sebastian Vettel, who had a string of car problems, again was hit when his turbo malfunctioned. When he pitted for a check, his car became stuck in first gear on his way out of the pits, thus bringing an early end to his race.

While all of this was going on behind them, both Mercedes drivers just kept their heads down and went about racing, with Rosberg having about a 1.5 second lead on Hamilton. Raikkonen was running 3rd albeit a few seconds off, and looking to get his first podium of the season.

As the cars went in for their scheduled pit stops, Toro Rosso’s Jean Eric Vergne had a near miss with McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen, prompting those in the pits to cringe with expectations of a massive disaster on pit road. This was only avoided by a good reaction from Magnussen on seeing the Toro Rosso appear from his pit box.

Meanwhile, Kimi Raikkonen, who was driving the wheels off his Ferrari after his scheduled stop, had to go back in for a set of tires when the lapped Marussia of Max Chilton clipped him. The incident caused a slow puncture, thus ruining the race for the Finn.

At the closing laps, both Mercedes drivers kept their station, giving the team their 5th consecutive 1-2 finish this season, with Nico Rosberg winning easily and an unhappy Lewis Hamilton in 2nd after fending off a late charge by Ricciardo who managed to salvage his bad start to take 3rd.

Rosberg now leads Hamilton 122 points to 118. Far back in 3rd is Alonso with 61 points.

Lewis was still visibly upset with everything that transpired this weekend.  Whether intentionally or unintentionally, he did not shaking Rosberg’s hand for the win, and he even exited quickly after the awarding ceremonies.

The body language says it all. Hamilton, the 2008 champion is not happy. Let us see how the team reacts. Will everything be ironed out before the Canadian GP on June 8, or will it be another inter-team rivalry with disastrous results?