Bridgestone motorsport wrap for 26th May

Hamilton escapes Monaco madness

Lewis Hamilton celebrates his Monaco victory

 

Racing around the tight streets of Monte Carlo is tough at the best of times - but the weekend rain made Sunday's grand prix a lottery.

At the end, it was Britain's Lewis Hamilton who emerged victorious, taking his second win of the year and one of the best of his career - despite clouting the wall early in the race.

"As the rain came down, there was a lot of spray and coming into Turn 12 it was like a river," Hamilton said.

"I hit the river and just slid into the barrier. I knew I only touched it but I had a rear puncture. Thankfully the team acted quickly and I was able to resolve it. We changed the strategy and it played into my hands."

Most of the field started on the Bridgestone wet tyres, with Brazil's Felipe Massa making the most of his pole position to take the lead in his Ferrari. However, Ferrari gambled on more late rain in the race and lost, with their strategy meaning he could do no better than third place behind the BMW Sauber of Robert Kubica.

Australia's Mark Webber had an error-free race to take fourth for Red Bull ahead of the surprising Sebastien Vettel in the Torro Rosso, the Honda of Rubens Barrichello and the Williams of Kazuki Nakajima. The final point for eighth place went to Heikki Kovalainen, who had to start his McLaren from the pit lane after having trouble on the warm-up lap.

As usual at Monaco, there were plenty of hard luck stories, with several drivers suffering accidents including Nico Rosberg, who was taken to hospital for observation after his Williams crashed at high speed.

However, the unluckiest driver was undoubtedly German driver Adrian Sutil. A mix of clever strategy and hard driving saw the Force India driver running fourth in the closing stages and heading for the team's first points of the season when he was hit from behind by a struggling Kimi Raikkonen in the Ferrari. The reigning world champion was able to continue, but a distraught Sutil was out of the race.

All of Bridgestone's tyres were used in this race, with the wet and extreme wet, soft and super soft all seeing action. This was the first time that Bridgestone's modified super soft compound dry tyre was used in a race, and the first time this season that the softer compound wet tyre was used.

"We gained data from running with all our weather range of tyres today and each tyre worked well when used in the correct conditions and we are very happy with performance," said Hirohide Hamashima, Director of Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development.

"Of course, drivers were not always on the correct tyre in the changing conditions and this made for an exciting race. Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton for winning a difficult race. Hamilton had good patience in trying conditions and he showed strong pace on both a wet and dry track."

Hamilton now leads the drivers' championship with 38 points, ahead of Raikkonen on 35 and Massa is on 34. Round seven of the 18-race championship is the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal on June 6-8, where Bridgestone's soft and super soft compound Potenza tyres will once more be used.

In other results...

Bruno Senna (iSport International) and Mike Conway (Trident Racing) both took race wins in the third round of the Bridgestone-supported GP2 Series on the twisty streets of Monte Carlo. The European GP2 Series now has six different winning drivers and teams from the first three rounds.

The 92nd Indianapolis 500 was won by New Zealander Scott Dixon, who held off the challenge of Brazilian Vitor Meira and American Marco Andretti to take the historic win on Firestone tyres.

Meira appeared ready to take victory, but Dixon beat him out of the pits on the last stop for fuel and stayed in front for the final 29 laps. Dixon started on pole and led for most of the race to take his first Indy win. Meira came second, Andretti was third, while two-time winner Helio Castroneves finished fourth.