Will Mercedes slip-up in Monaco? Why life is tough on the streets

Dig back through recent history in this hybrid era and despite the team’s dominance, Monaco has not always been kind to Merc. The team has tripped up on more than one occasion and hasn’t won in the Principality since 2016.

Given that its record-breaking run of one-twos, Lewis Hamilton or Valtteri Bottas will probably win this Sunday. Then again… we’ve thought that about Mercedes in the past.

2014: Did Rosberg ‘do a Schumacher’?

That was the question after the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix, when Nico Rosberg gained pole position under the suspicion of gamesmanship. Having set his time, he went off at Mirabeau, then reversed back on to the track – in effect, stopping team-mate Hamilton setting a time…

He was cleared by the stewards, who could find no evidence of underhand play, but there lingered the strong feeling he’d deliberately ‘parked’ his Merc in a manner similar to Michael Schumacher’s infamous Rascasse moment in 2006.

The next day, Rosberg converted his pole position into a second consecutive Monaco GP victory and claimed the championship lead. Angered by Rosberg’s qualifying antics, Hamilton’s demeanour made for a frosty podium – and tension seethed between the former friends.

2015: Merc mistake costs Hamilton dear

Hamilton has always prided himself on his speed at Monaco. The trouble was, during his years of rivalry with Rosberg his team-mate also proved pretty handy around the Principality. But on this occasion it was his team that ‘beat’ him with an uncharacteristic miscalculation.

Somewhat surprisingly, 2015 marked Hamilton’s first F1 pole position at Monaco and he looked set to make the most of it. But during a safety car period, his race unravelled as the team chose to call him in for fresh tyres, thinking it could return him to the track still in the lead. Wrong. He came back out disastrously in third place, with Rosberg leading and Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari causing him further angst.

Thus Rosberg completed his Monaco hat-trick – only the fourth driver to achieve one after Graham Hill, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna – even if it had been down to luck. Or more precisely Hamilton’s bad luck.

Remember what we said about even the best teams making mistakes?

2016: Fate turns for Hamilton

A year on, those who believe in Karma might say Lewis got his payback for Merc’s mistake. This one, which followed hot on the heels of his controversial collision with Rosberg in Spain, was sweet – and perhaps surprisingly marked only his second F1 win in Monaco. The first was way back in his second season, 2008, with McLaren.

Lewis only qualified third after a loss of power delayed him in qualifying, as Daniel Ricciardo took pole position for Red Bull – the team that always fancies its chances in Monaco. But this rain-affected race came back to Hamilton.

Strangely, given he was striving for a fourth consecutive win around the streets, Rosberg lacked pace early on, to the point that Mercedes stepped in and ordered him to allow Hamilton past so he could chase Ricciardo. Painful.

Then it was Red Bull’s turn to let its driver down, with a sticky stop in which the crew didn’t have the right tyres waiting for Daniel. He lost the lead and the victory he wanted more than any other right there, and could only watch in anguish as Hamilton benefitted.

Human sport. That’s why we love it.

2017: Ferrari outshine the silver cars

Hamilton was never at the races this time, as Ferrari dominated the Monaco Grand Prix.

Kimi Räikkönen’s first pole position for nine years was the talk of the town on Saturday, but team-mate Vettel ran a longer stint in the race and jumped the Iceman at the stops to thwart the fairy tale.

As for Lewis, he qualified a dreadful 14^th and raced to a lowly seventh, the best he could do in such circumstances.

The result stretched Vettel’s championship points lead as F1 contemplated what appeared to be the growing possibility of Ferrari ending its barren title streak. It didn’t turn out that way, of course – and such dominance for the reds seems an awful long time ago right now.

2018: Ricciardo’s finest moment

The same is probably true for Ricciardo too, just one year on from the race that must be right up there among the greatest days of his life. Now at Renault, the cheerful Aussie seemingly stands no chance of a repeat.

After the pain of Red Bull’s pit error robbing victory from him in 2016, last year was particularly sweet, especially as he was forced to manage a loss of power from an MGU-K failure. For 50 laps. OK, overtaking at Monaco is tough, but this was mightily impressive.

Hamilton was only third behind Vettel, who chased Ricciardo hard for the win, as Mercedes once again found itself overshadowed at the highest profile race of them all.

Will it happen again on Sunday? On current form, it’s hard to see how. The team’s two-year Monaco hoo-doo really should come to an end.

Then again, around this F1 anachronism of a grand prix, you just never know. If anywhere can inspire a surprise, it’s Monaco.

Photography courtesy of Motorsport Images.