IT was an unlucky race in Monaco for Lewis Hamilton, who led from pole position almost to the finish.
A heavy accident, from which Max Verstappen was lucky to walk away, resulted in the safety car coming out.
Mercedes mistakenly called Hamilton in for a change to fresher tyres, expecting him to keep the lead, but this was not to be and both Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel roared by before Hamilton was back on the track.
After being forced to settle for third position, he really threw his toys out of the cot and his body language told it all. He will have to learn to take the good with the bad in future!
Monaco lived up to its usual name, where it is almost impossible to overtake and the Verstappen incident was probably caused by just that, when the youngster was trying to overtake Romain Grosjean.
He took a gap that just wasn’t there and perhaps Grosjean braked a little earlier than expected and that was that.
Verstappen went into the barrier at high speed while Grosjean was lucky after contact to only spin off. We were all very happy to see young Verstappen step out of his car unscathed.
Rosberg was lucky to inherit the win but had driven a very good race, holding off a determined effort by Vettel in his Ferrari.
The Prancing Horse stable still needs to do something to be on a par with the Silver Arrows and it will be interesting to see how they both fare at the next race in Canada.
Behind Hamilton in third was the rapid Russian Daniil Kyvat, this time for a change in front of his super-quick teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
The Red Bulls performed well at Monaco but where horse power is more important in Canada they are unlikely to shine.
Kimi Raikkonen was just not in the same league as teammate Vettel but did well to bring his Ferrari home in sixth position.
Sergio Perez drove another good race in his Force India Mercedes into seventh spot and it was very good to see the McLaren Honda of Jenson Button well inside the top 10 at eighth position.
Felipe Nasr in his Sauber Ferrari and Carlos Sainz in his Toro Rosso, who were ninth and tenth respectively, kept up the name of the youth brigade after Verstappen’s unfortunate incident.
Verstappen was blamed by the stewards for his accident and will receive a grid position penalty in Canada.
In the driver’s championship Hamilton now leads with 126 points to Rosberg’s 116 while Vettel is third with 98 points.
There is a fortnight’s gap before the Canadian race, on June 7.
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