Sebastian Vettel’s Monaco Grand Prix win over Kimi Raikkonen raises questions of team tactics

You had to go back to July 2010 for the last time that Ferrari had enjoyed an one-two finish in a grand prix before yesterday in Monaco.

That day was hardly a joyous one for the Italian team after they were vilified by international media and Formula One fans across the globe for using team orders to get Fernando Alonso ahead of Felipe Massa with the infamous phrase used to the beleaguered Brazilian being “Fernando is faster than you”.

Given that history, it was perhaps unsurprising that there was a hint of team tactics once again rearing its head in Ferrari taking the top two spots on the podium in Monte Carlo as world championship leader Sebastian Vettel finished ahead of teammate Kimi Raikkonen.

The flashpoint was on Lap 34 of the 78-Lap event as Raikkonen, who had started on pole, pitted from the lead.

He came back out into traffic in the shape of Pascal Wehrlein’s Sauber that needed to be lapped.

A combination of the time lost as he passed Wehrlein – around two seconds – and then Vettel setting some rapid lap times as he stayed out for five more laps, ensured it was the German who stayed in front when he had made his lone pit stop.

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Vettel went on to claim his 45th win in F1 and third of the season, with Raikkonen following home in second, but the doubt in the legitimacy of the tactics came in the timing of Raikkonen’s pit stop.

Ferrari’s race engineers and pit strategists, thanks to modern technology, would have known exactly where Raikkonen would have fed out on track after his stop, namely behind Wehrlein.

The fact that it was Ferrari that made the decision to pit that lap, rather than it being Raikkonen’s call, stirred those of a cynical mind as if he had stayed out even one more lap he would have been ahead of the Sauber driver and in clear air.

The 2007 world champion said: “I was called in. That is about it. Obviously they had reasons for it, but it is not up to me to answer.”

Raikkonen’s stop opened the door for Vettel and to his considerable credit he took the opportunity with both hands, setting two fastest laps of the race, on ageing tyres, which allowed him to create the gap needed to stay ahead of his teammate.

Vettel, himself, said he was shocked to have got ahead of his teammate. He said: “We couldn’t plan much, but the plan was to pull away and as soon as the gap opened I took it. I was surprised myself.”

Only Ferrari’s senior management and the drivers will know if the team did look for a way to move Vettel ahead of Raikkonen at a track where overtaking is nigh on impossible, with only one clean pass all day yesterday backing that up.

Vettel’s performance should not be underplayed though. He did not allow Raikkonen to pull away in the first stint of the race, put in some great laps when he did have clear air, and then once he had pitted pulled away and controlled the rest of the race.

Ferrari could be credited in another view for allowing tactcial creativity that allowed Vettel to react to the fact that he still had good grip in his tyres to capitalise on Raikkonen’s stop.

Certainly, if it was team orders, it was done much more stealthily then in Germany 2010.

It was a first win for Ferrari in Monaco since 2001 and on a weekend when his main title rival Lewis Hamilton struggled it was a dream result for Vettel.

The four-time world champion gained 19 points on the Briton, who was only seventh, and is now 25 points clear at the top.

If he had finished second behind Raikkonen it would only be an 18-point lead.

Seven points does not seem much, but it could be decisive when the championship concludes at the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 26.

It may have been planned, or happened organically, but ultimately for Ferrari’s hopes of having a first drivers’ champion since 2007 this was the right result.

It was just ironic it came at the expense of the man who won them that 2007 title.​

gcaygill@thenational.ae

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