2016 Monaco Grand Prix
The 2016 Monaco Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 29 May 2016 at the Circuit de Monaco, a street circuit that runs through the Principality of Monaco. It was the sixth round of the 2016 FIA Formula One World Championship, and marked the seventy-fourth time that the Monaco Grand Prix had been held, as well as the sixty-third time it had been held as a round of the Formula One World Championship since the series inception in.
Nico Rosberg was the defending race winner having won the past three Monaco Grands Prix in a row and entered the race with a thirty-nine-point lead held over Ferrari driver Kimi Räikkönen in the Drivers' Championship. Rosberg's team, Mercedes, held a 48-point lead over Ferrari in the Constructors' Championship.
During Saturday's qualifying, Daniel Ricciardo, who was driving for Red Bull Racing, achieved the first pole position of his career. In an eventful race, Mercedes's Lewis Hamilton took victory ahead of Ricciardo, who had lost time during a pitstop, when his engineers made a last second strategy call to swap to a different set of tyres while mechanics were already in the pit lane; as a result, the tyres arrived late to the car. Sergio Pérez completed the podium for Force India, the team's first appearance in the top three of the season and their first since the 2015 Russian Grand Prix.
Background
Following their controversial crash and double retirement at the previous race in Spain two weeks earlier, particular attention was on championship leaders Mercedes and their drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. The team was adamant that such an incident could not be repeated, with their head of motorsport Toto Wolff saying: "We cannot afford to drop the ball, so we must remain united, remain strong and hit back hard this weekend." With a win, Rosberg would have been able to become the only driver other than Ayrton Senna to win the Monaco Grand Prix four times in a row, while Hamilton had suffered a string of bad results at the circuit, having won only once in 2008. At the race the year before, Hamilton had lost what he felt was a certain victory by a wrong decision to pit him during a safety car period.Fernando Alonso received a new, revised combustion engine for his car, his third of five allowed over the course of the season without receiving a grid penalty. Power unit supplier Honda stressed that they had not used any development tokens, a set of limited allowed changes to the units, but had instead only improved reliability. The team also equipped both cars with new batteries and electronics control units, set to improve the reliability of the cars as well. During the two-day testing session that took place after the previous Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Renault introduced an updated version of their power unit, which was used during the test to the satisfaction of driver Kevin Magnussen, who declared that the new unit was a step forward in both power and driveability. He urged the team to pull the introduction of the power unit forward to the Monaco race, instead of the following Grand Prix in Canada as originally planned. Renault chose to do so, however, they were only able to hand out one updated unit to both their works team and Red Bull, who used them under the name TAG Heuer. The two units were eventually given to Magnussen at Renault and Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull.
The race saw the competitive début of Pirelli's new ultrasoft tyre compound, which was provided alongside the supersoft and soft compounds. Per the regulations of the season, every driver needs to set aside one set each of the two softest compounds for the race and one set of the ultrasofts for Q3. The drivers have freedom of what other compounds they choose for the remaining ten out of thirteen sets. From this race onwards, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile allowed drivers to choose alternative helmet designs for one race weekend per season, a practice usually prohibited as they have to wear the same design to make them more recognisable to spectators and television audiences. As a consequence, Felipe Massa's helmet featured extensive artwork by graffiti artist Os Gêmeos, teammate Valtteri Bottas featured casino-inspired imagery and Haas driver Romain Grosjean sported a tribute to the late Jules Bianchi on his helmet. The race marked a reason for celebration at McLaren, as the team had started their first ever Grand Prix at Monaco fifty years earlier.
Going into the weekend, Nico Rosberg led the Drivers' Championship with 100 points, followed by Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen with 61 points. Lewis Hamilton followed in third, a further four points behind, with Sebastian Vettel in fourth with 48 points, level with Daniel Ricciardo in fifth. In the constructors' standings, Mercedes led with 157 points, 48 points ahead of Ferrari, with Red Bull Racing in third with 94 points.
Free practice
Per the regulations for the 2016 season, two ninety-minute practice and one sixty-minute session were held before qualifying on Saturday. The first two usually take place on Friday, with Monaco being the single exemption, where those sessions are held on Thursday, in order to minimise road-closure disruptions to local residents. In the first session on Thursday morning, Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheets with a time of 1:15.537, one tenth of a second faster than his teammate Nico Rosberg. They were followed by Sebastian Vettel, almost half a second down on Hamilton, and the two Red Bull cars of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen respectively. Daniil Kvyat, driving for Toro Rosso, in sixth was the last driver to get within a second of Hamilton's time. He was the only one of the front runners to set his time on the supersoft instead of the faster ultrasoft tyres. There were several incidents during the session: After twenty-four minutes, Felipe Massa hit the barrier in turn one, damaging his car and leading to a virtual safety car period. Later, Lewis Hamilton had a brake lockup at the same spot, but was able to get into the run-off area without touching the guardrail. Several other drivers had dangerous moments in turn one as well, but the most severe incident of the session came three minutes to the end: A drain cover had come loose around the first corner, puncturing Rosberg's left rear tyre and damaging Jenson Button's McLaren MP4-31, causing the practice to be red flagged, ultimately ending the session.In second practice on Thursday afternoon, Ricciardo was fastest, setting a time of 1:14.607, more than half a second clear of Hamilton in second place. Rosberg and Verstappen, in third and fourth, were the only other drivers to get within a second of Ricciardo, while the two Williams drivers Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa struggled, ending the session 14th and 16th respectively. At Ferrari, Kimi Räikkönen was fastest in seventh spot. His teammate, Vettel, had an incident-packed session that eventually ended with him setting the ninth fastest time. He spun at Mirabeau corner, damaging his rear wing, only to hit the wall in turn one after coming back to the track, albeit continuing with wheel rim damage. A VSC period occurred after Romain Grosjean crashed into the outside barrier at the exit of the tunnel. Two more VSC periods ensued when Rio Haryanto touched the inside barrier at the same spot and later after Kevin Magnussen crashed at the final corner.
In the third practice session on Saturday morning, Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time, about one hundredth of a second faster than Hamilton. Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo followed, both also within two tenth of a second of Vettel. Max Verstappen was fifth fastest although he had a minor crash coming up to Casino square, clipping the wall. Toro Rosso were again quick, getting both drivers into the top ten. Renault had different fortunes, as both drivers had accidents, with Jolyon Palmer hindering one of Hamilton's flying laps as he crashed at the swimming pool section.
Qualifying
Qualifying consisted of three parts, 18, 15 and 12 minutes in length respectively, with six drivers eliminated from competing after each of the first two sessions. In the first part of qualifying, the session got interrupted shortly after it had started, as Felipe Nasr came to a halt at the exit of the tunnel, caused by an engine failure. A red flag came out while the car was cleared off the track. When the running resumed, all drivers except for the two at Force India went out on the ultrasoft tyres to set their first lap times. Max Verstappen was the last to set a representative time, but touched the guardrail at the swimming pool chicane and crashed into the wall, causing another red flag period. As the session got back under way, it were the two Manor cars of Rio Haryanto and Pascal Wehrlein, as well as Jolyon Palmer and Marcus Ericsson who joined Nasr and Verstappen on the sidelines, as they were eliminated. Kevin Magnussen meanwhile barely made it into Q2, but was under investigation for exiting the pit lane while it was closed.File:Ricciardo Monaco 2016.jpg|thumb|Daniel Ricciardo achieved the first pole position of his career.
In the second part, Lewis Hamilton quickly set a fast lap time, the quickest of the weekend up to that point, about half a second ahead of his teammate Rosberg. Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo set his fastest lap on the harder supersoft compound tyre, meaning that he would be able to start the race on them, should it have stayed dry. On the back end, Williams struggled for pace and both Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa missed out on Q3 by qualifying 11th and 14th respectively. Also eliminated were Esteban Gutiérrez, Jenson Button, Romain Grosjean and Magnussen.
As Q3 started, Lewis Hamilton stopped in the pit lane with a loss of power and was pushed back into the garage. He was eventually able to go on track and qualified third, after starting several quick laps only to abandon them to leave his final run to the last moment. He was however beaten to pole position by Ricciardo, who was almost two-tenths of a second faster than second placed Rosberg, with Vettel following in fourth almost a second slower. Nico Hülkenberg managed fifth ahead of Kimi Räikkönen, who was to serve a five-place grid penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change, leaving him eleventh on the grid. Carlos Sainz Jr., Sergio Pérez, Daniil Kvyat and Fernando Alonso rounded up the top ten. Ricciardo's pole position was the first for a Renault-powered turbocharged car since Ayrton Senna's front-of-the-grid start at the 1986 Mexican Grand Prix for Lotus.