• Lewis Hamilton was on course to win in Monaco but had to settle for third after a poor decision from his team 
• Mercedes chose to call Hamilton into the pit-lane in the closing stages after the safety car was deployed 
• But their decision cost the Briton his fourth win of the campaign as he re-joined the track behind Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel… neither of whom pitted 
• Hamilton was visibly distraught after the race with Rosberg narrowing the gap in the championship to 10 points  

By

Jonathan McEvoy for the Daily Mail

Published:
13:58 GMT, 24 May 2015

|
Updated:
01:07 GMT, 25 May 2015

Lewis Hamilton lost the Monaco Grand Prix in circumstances so extraordinary they will live long in the memory of all who witnessed them.

It was Nico Rosberg who was ultimately cast as a human Foinavon, the unfancied horse who came from nowhere to win the most famous Grand National of all, in 1967.

Then a loose horse caused the carnage. Here it was Hamilton’s own team wrecking it. 

Lewis Hamilton sportingly offers race winner Nico Rosberg his hand as he makes his way on to the Monaco Grand Prix podium 

Hamilton was hauled into the pits in the closing stages of Sunday’s race… a decision which cost him his first win in Monaco since 2008 

The drama erupted towards the end of what had been a soporific race when the 17-year-old Dutchman Max Verstappen crashed his Toro Rosso hard into the red and white barriers at Sainte Devote, the first corner, on the 64th of the 78 laps.

The safety car was called out. Hamilton, then in a 25-second lead over Rosberg, inexplicably came into the pits. He had no need to stop for new tyres.

Hamilton re-emerged in third place, behind Rosberg and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel – unthinkable after the Briton had driven peerlessly from pole position.

‘I’ve lost this race, haven’t I?’ said Hamilton, crestfallen. He harried hard for the eight laps that remained once Verstappen’s debris had been cleared and the safety car withdrawn. But there was to be no redemption. He finished third, with his championship lead over Rosberg halved to 10 points.

Hamilton had been on course to win from pole position until a tactical howler by Mercedes scuppered his race 

Hamilton was unable to hide his emotions on the podium after he finished behind Rosberg and the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel 

Rosberg joyously shouted down the radio. He has now won three Monaco Grands Prix on the trot, only the fourth driver ever to do so. Graham Hill, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost are the others.

The team apologised to Hamilton as he returned to the pits slower than a taxi chugging along the Strand at rush hour. He even stopped at Portier. He did not do all his usual press briefings so he could not be asked why, but I strongly suspect he was thinking of walking home to his nearby apartment.

That is precisely what his hero Senna did in 1988 when he crashed there after dominating the early stages of the race, and Hamilton admitted in an immediate post-race interview that the Brazilian was in his mind at several points during the afternoon.

Max Verstappen crashes into the back of Romain Grosjean’s Lotus as he attempted to pass the Frenchman for 10th place 

The 17-year-old is helped out of his Toro Rosso by marshalls after crashing on the run down to Ste Devote in the latter stages of the race

Verstappen reflects on his crash which resulted in the safety car being deployed in the closing stages of the grand prix 

He decided against heading home and instead trundled back to the third-place board, which he nudged with the front of his car as he came to a halt.

As he got out of the car, he moved no faster than a frame-by-frame replay. He walked, helmet on, towards the podium just as deliberately.

Prince Albert of Monaco’s guard, standing to attention in a smart white uniform with ostrich feathers in his hat, moved faster than the champion, who wore a mask of gloom.

Hamilton generously, using two hands, congratulated Rosberg. That was exemplary behaviour in the turmoil of the moment.

The German national anthem played. Rosberg smiled the winner’s smile. The trophy lay at his feet. Hamilton played with his cap, his eyes cast down.

Rosberg let off the champagne and started spraying. Hamilton walked off the stage carrying his full unsprayed bottle.

Rosberg poses with his team and his trophy after claiming his third win on the bounce in Monaco… Hamilton was notable in his absence

Hamilton emerged from the pit-lane behind both Rosberg and Vettel and was unable to find a way past either despite being on fresher tyres

Rosberg crosses the line to win the Monaco Grand Prix… he is now just 10 points behind Hamilton in the race for the title 

Now the inquest could begin. Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ team principal, asked himself ‘what the hell happened there?’

‘The simple answer,’ he said, ‘is we got the maths wrong. We thought we had a gap we didn’t have (to get in and out in front) when the safety car came out. The calculation was simply wrong. That’s what happened.’

The gap was 25.7seconds at the time of Verstappen’s accident, but perhaps not that much by the end of the lap, when Hamilton came in. The reason would appear to be the ‘virtual safety car’ – introduced as a reaction Jules Bianchi’s serious injury last year. Virtual safety cars slow the field down before the point where a real safety car comes out.

Had Mercedes factored this in by the time, 50 yards before the pit entry, his race engineer Peter Bonnington told him to come in?

Wolff appeared to suggest not satisfactorily, saying: ‘In Monaco you have no GPS and that makes the whole exercise more difficult, when it switched from virtual safety car to safety car.’

But why change tyres at all? Here Hamilton, who was loyal to the team afterwards, explained that he thought changing tyres would give him extra speed in the closing stages.

How it all went wrong for Hamilton in Monaco as he missed out on winning Grand Prix due to team error

‘I saw a screen and it looked like the team was out in the pits,’ he added. ‘It looked like Nico had pitted (which he had not). 

‘I thought the guys behind were pitting, so when the team said stay out, I said the tyres were dropping temperature, and I was assuming that (Rosberg and Vettel) would be on the softer tyres and I would be on the harder (slower and older) tyre.

‘They said to pit. I did that and came in thinking with full confidence that others had done the same.’ No such luck.

The crowd here gave him the most sympathetic of cheers afterwards. Rosberg admitted it was the luckiest win of his life and said he felt for his team-mate.

Hamilton was nearly dumbstruck, saying: ‘I can’t really express the way I’m feeling at the moment, so I won’t attempt to.’

One theory suggested maps, not maths, was at the root of it all: a German team pulling for a German driver in front of German board members, rather than for the Brit.

‘There is no favouritism here,’ insisted Wolff, and I believe him. It was just a stinking error. 

British model Cara Delevingne holds Hamilton’s number on the starting grid prior to Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix 

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