It's not as simple as that ! We all know that mandatory pit stops completely alter the landscape in a race. If Vettel was faster than Kimi, why didn't he caught up BEFORE the pit stop?
He was 8 tenths behind Kimi on the pit lap, and Kimi for the three previous laps was in the 1.17s or more
When they saw Seb starting to close on Kimi they had 5 choices: 1 Pit Vettel,who would probably have refused. 2 'Kimi Seb is faster than you ' aka move over! Kimi would probably have refused. 3 Pit Kimi, the easiest choice ,too bad the traffic problem resulting for Kimi. 4 Pit Kimi , when they sure he would come out clear of traffic.....hmmmmm 5 Do nothing . Seb starts to throw toys out the pram big time.
Then blame the pit stops, not Vettel or "team orders". So, back to reality: "Kimi . . . . Sebastian is faster than you".
For ****s sake, we are talking about Scuderia Ferrari! Scuderia Ferrari invented team orders. Have you guys just been born or something. Every single year of Michael Schumacher's years at Ferrari were all run under strong team orders, even from the first race of the year. Why the **** would you honestly think anything has changed? Scuderia Ferrari hired Vettel to win what they consider important, the World Drivers Championship. They did not hire Kimi to do this, this time. Scuderia Ferrari had Alonso, whom many consider the best current driver, and they only let him go because they had Vettel already committed to the team. And clearly, based on Kimi's lack of motivation most of the time, did the right thing for the WDC. God give it a rest guys. Sounding like a bunch of naive British newspapers. Pete ps: If Kimi doesn't like, pull the de-motivator out of his arse and stick his ****en car on pole every single race and do every race like you mean it, instead of seemly struggling to stay awake for the whole race. Only an idiot would put the usual de-motivated, I don't give a stuff, Kimi before Vettel for a race to the WDC.
More exactly: he wasn't fast enough. So he put his chances for victory in the Hands of Fate; or at the mercy of the tyre change, or the team's whims, or whatever. Had Kimi been "fast enough", he would have built a buffer, or a margin, of say 15 seconds over Vettel, and the race would have been his, and in the bag whatever overcut, undercut, lapping the cars, etc...15 seconds in 30 laps is half-a-second a lap, which is something. But this is what would have been necessary: staying between one and two seconds in front of Vettel was not good enough on a track when the pit stop is the key. And I am a GREAT Kimi fan. The truth is that he wasn't quick enough. Rgds
When to call for the mandatory pit stops is part of team strategy. Ferrari had the big picture and knew where Raikkonen would end up after the pit stop.
And by that then simply state Kimi is #2 and be done with it. They wont as that would affect fans/participation/viewing and bring Liberty into play with unwanted attention from the owner of F1. So the charade goes on.....utterly silly. Id rather just know the truth and status of the grid and move along. Such as it is.....
You are aware of mandatory pitstops, correct? They weren't under threat from Mercedes or Red Bull, so the only risk was losing kimi a place and Vettel gaining one....exactly what they wanted!
Come on, are you seriously asking this question? Everyone, and I mean everyone, knows that Vettel is Ferrari's number 1. Undisputed statement of fact. Ferrari PR can say otherwise, and some on here can challenge for clarification all day long, but it is utterly obvious. Re the Kimi / Vettel switch in Monaco, I personally don't believe Kimi coming in had anything to do with 'giving' Vettel the win. It had everything to do with Ferrari defending from Red Bull with Ricci closing fast. This kimi / vettel switch noise is just that. Noise.
When Bottas pitted, which is who the team would have primarily wanted to "cover" he was less than 5 seconds behind. But I've always enjoyed a good conspiracy theory For me I think Seb earned the win and the team hadn't interfered at that stage. There was no way they could possibly have timed Seb's stop to get him that close in front of Kimi. Conversely, had Kimi been able to shave even a tenth more off a few of his laps while Seb stayed out, Kimi would have come out just ahead of Seb.
Forgive me but isn't Bottas driving that Mercedes, a car that couldn't switch any tire on within 3 laps? They had nothing to worry about. In the laps before Bottas pitted Kimi was lapping faster than him. Kimi wasn't able to shave off more time because Ferrari put him in traffic. Simple as that.
Yeah, I just don't buy it mate. If you decide to cover you do it straight away, can't let a SC screw things and it was Monaco. I do agree that the Merc doesn't switch the tires on as fast as the Ferrari, but, Bottas has done a way better job on that side than Lewis. Kimi had enough clear laps to make up the minuscule difference that ended up splitting 5 & 7. Also, I just don't believe that Ferrari could judge things to get Seb out that close in front of Kimi - it just doesn't stack up to me. But what would I know
meh, the Ultrasoft was very consistent and able to deliver still similar performance compared to new Supersoft, even well after had pitted (drivers such as Hamilton made them work long enough and the tire kept giving performance). Kimi may have had enough clear laps after he passed Button/Wehrlein, but the damage was done...those 2 where in a (pointless) battle of their own, so getting by was always going be a struggle.
Or being involved in a crash in traffic...as one could see later! Why would you do that on purpose? So all the year you are banging on Ferrari for not making the right calls and having a lack of strategy and all of the sudden their timing is perfect just to **** Kimi??? Come on...
They've been making very dubious strategy calls with Kimi for a lot of the year, yes. China, they pitted Vettel before Kimi, who was on the radio already a few times begging for a stop. Fair enough, Vettel was the lead driver. But instead of pitting Kimi the lap after, they pit him 5 laps after, losing over 2 seconds a lap! Ferrari are good at focusing on the car they want to win, not the one they don't want to. This also works very well getting their ''less favourite'' driver out in traffic, as it's still focusing on the one car. Look at the time sheets. All Kimi needed was 1 ****ing lap and he'd have cleared the traffic, 2 if playing it safe. Might help if you watch the race
I watched the highlights and I doubt that watching the full race would change my opinion... Did they screw it for Kimi? Yes, never questioned that Did they do it on purpose as you say? I doubt!!! I do not get the conspiracy theory you are making up...As far as I can see the same happened at Red Bull, do you think they did it on purpose as well? Edit: When Vettel was stuck a few races ago behind Kimi as far as I remember you were complaining as well...Back then did they "focus on the car they wanted to win"?
MAY 31, 2017 Ferrari did not favour Vettel says Alesi Jean Alesi does not believe Ferrari acted deliberately to disadvantage Kimi Raikkonen in Monaco. Some suspect that with Sebastian Vettel leading the world championship, the Italian team's pit strategy was an obvious ploy to drop Raikkonen behind his German teammate. Team boss Maurizio Arrivabene denies it. "Kimi drives not only for Ferrari -- he also wants to win races," he said. "Both are fabulous, so I stress again that Ferrari does not give team orders." Alesi, most famous for driving for Ferrari in the 90s, agrees: "I can understand Kimi's disappointment -- he had a great weekend. "But Vettel won with a clear victory. It reminded me a bit of the final at Roland-Garros: when one wins, the other is always unhappy. But everything was decided on the track," the Frenchman is quoted by Canal Plus. "The team did nothing to favour a driver and I have nothing to add," said Alesi. Another former Ferrari driver and Frenchman, Alain Prost, commented: "We did not know how Ferrari would react at Monaco, especially in comparison to Mercedes with its long wheelbase but also relative to Red Bull who perform very well. "Now we have the answer: Ferrari are good everywhere. They have a great chassis and two great drivers. Both drivers are able to be ahead, even Kimi Raikkonen, so I do not believe there is a number 1 driver in the team," he said. "I would just say that Sebastian is a notch above as he is very consistent and will be very hard to beat," Prost added.