GP Monaco: Donkeys and Knights

[A FONDO]

My donkeys listed with reducing donkey-ness:
Grojan
Maldonado
Perez
Button
Hamilton+McL pit crew
Kimi

Knights (with reducing mightiness):
Webber
Rosberg
Alonso
Vettel
the two Indias

[gm99]

Donkeys: The STR crew for throwing away a sure 7th place finish

[Dave B]

Donkeys: The STR crew for throwing away a sure 7th place finish

I have a feeling they were pawns in a larger Red Bull experiment.

[F1boat]

Knights - Mark and Seb
Donkey - Jenson

[AndyL]

Donkeys: The STR crew for throwing away a sure 7th place finish

Think Vergne was one of the earliest to pit, they probably had no choice but to stop again, which would put them out of the points anyway so worth a gamble.

[wedge]

Driver of the Day: Kovy

Donkey of the Day: Maldonado

[ShiftingGears]

I have a feeling they were pawns in a larger Red Bull experiment.

If that was the case I think they would have made the call with Ricciardo, who I believe was still in the race at that point.

[N4D13]

Think Vergne was one of the earliest to pit, they probably had no choice but to stop again, which would put them out of the points anyway so worth a gamble.

But he stopped just a few laps before the end of the race. Even if he was going to lose time, he would have probably been able to keep the car on the track and avoid losing many positions. In the end, it didn't really make a difference.

My donkey of the weekend is Maldonado, for rather obvious reasons. As for DotD, I'd give it to Mark, Fernando and Vettel. SlowSon has pointed at the McLaren pit crew, but I don't see what they've done wrong. Hamilton didn't lose track position to Alonso due to a poor pitstop, but because Alonso put in a magnificient lap and broke the S1 and S2 records before pitting. In the end, he rejoined the track clearly in front of Lewis, so much that Hamilton's pitstop didn't really make a difference.

[AndyL]

Donkey of the race: the rain gods, half an hour late

[Dave B]

Donkey of the Weekend must be Maldonado: he was moronic taking a swipe at Perez and then drove into the back of an HRT on the first lap.

Button gets an honourable mention for making such a hash of passing Heikki's Caterham, the director seemed to miss him finally going off into the escape road.

Grosjean is also a candidate for his collision with Schuey but in his defence he did appear to be squeezed out by Alonso. Perez, too, should be mentioned for his last-moment change of direction into the pitlane, which rightly earned him a drive-through.


Driver of the race must be Webber, he drove no faster than he needed to and managed his tyres and fuel perfectly. Vettel benefited from clever strategy to go from 8th to 4th, and Rosberg and Alonso deserve credit for hanging on to Mark and finishing within a few seconds.