Vettel Takes Monaco GP with Wrong Tires

The gap between Sebastian Vettel (who now has five wins in the six races of the season) and Lewis Hamilton is growing bigger and bigger, after the Red Bull driver clinched a new victory in Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix, after a mix of skilled driving and some mistakes at the pits.

Having proven to be decisive in the end, Vettel's tire strategy came as a result of a mistake by the Red Bull pit crew. On the first pitstop of the race, the team put on the wrong tires, because of a communications error with the garage. An error which cause the pit crew to accidentally change the super soft rubber for his second stint with soft rubber.

"The plan was to box both the drivers on that lap, but unfortunately the radio got jammed so the guys in the garage did not get the call. They didn't know what tyres they were supposed to be putting on the car,” Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner was quoted as saying by Autosport.

"In the end, a set of primes went onto Seb's car and that wasn't the plan. We were going to stick a set of options on to cover Jenson but in the end, we said, 'okay, this isn't a disaster we need to engineer our way out of it.' And after a bit of number crunching we managed to get our way out of it."

 "For me it was a world champion's drive today."

The race was not without incident, a collision involving Vitaly Petrov, Jaime Alguersuari and Hamilton sending red flags flying on the street circuit. With six laps to go, Adrian Sutil was passed by Pastor Maldonado, the former hitting the wall and puncturing his tire as a result. Trying to avoid him, Petrov hit Alguersuari, who in turn was propelled into the McLaren driven by Hamilton.

The Monaco GP, considered until that point the best race of the year, saw F1 legend Michael Schumacher ending the race without passing the finish line, because of a problem with his Mercedes on lap 33.

1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault     2h09:38.373
2. Alonso Ferrari    + 1.138
3. Button McLaren-Mercedes    + 2.378
4. Webber Red Bull-Renault     + 23.100
5. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari     + 26.900
6. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes     + 27.200
7. Sutil Force India-Mercedes     + 1 lap
8. Heidfeld Renault     + 1 lap
9. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth    + 1 lap
10. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari     + 1 lap
11. Rosberg Mercedes     + 1 lap
12. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes     + 2 laps
13. Trulli Lotus-Renault     + 2 laps
14. Kovalainen Lotus-Renault     + 2 laps
15. D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth     + 2 laps
16. Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth     + 3 laps
17. Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth     + 3 laps
18. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth     + 5 laps