Heading into the Monaco GP weekend Lewis Hamilton will be looking to achieve his second win at the historic race. He will be hoping for a race far less dramatic than his first win there, which is what this article covers, the highly dramatic 2008 Monaco Grand Prix.
Heading into the sixth round of the 2008 Formula One season, momentum was certainly with Scuderia Ferrari. From the perspective of a McLaren and Hamilton fan it was concerning times. They had won the previous four races in a row and had a commanding lead in both Championship fights. Both McLaren-Mercedes and BMW Sauber were hot on their heels though: McLaren had won the first race of the season in Australia and BMW showed that they were serious contenders by taking three podiums and a pole position in the opening five rounds. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) was leading the Championship with 35 points, followed by the winner of the previous race Felipe Massa (Ferrari) on 28, Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) also on 28, Robert Kubica (BMW) on 24 and Nick Heidfeld (BMW) on 20 points. It was shaping up to be a three-horse race between the two Ferrari drivers and Lewis Hamilton with the BMW drivers having an outside shot too. Ferrari led the Constructors’ Championship on 63 points, with McLaren on 44 and BMW on 42, not far behind.
Prior to the previous round, the Turkish Grand Prix, the popular backmarkers Super Aguri withdrew from Formula One, leaving just 20 cars on the grid. Ferrari were looking for their first win at Monaco since 2001 with Michael Schumacher and McLaren were looking to make it two wins in a row on the tight street circuit. BMW were simply looking for their first win, their target that season.
On Thursday practice, Heidfeld suffered an engine failure and the Renaults of Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet Jr. both crashed. The first session was also halted by a loose drain cover. Heading into qualifying, however, Kimi Raikkonen seemed to be the man to beat, with Lewis Hamilton having a good shout too. On Saturday, though, the rain fell. In the Final Practice session, which was wet, Heikki Kovalainen, Lewis Hamilton’s teammate, set the pace. The track had dried up before qualifying and the beautiful V8 machines were ready to tackle one of the toughest circuits at full speed.
The first part of qualifying saw Massa take the top spot. The Red Bulls and the Williams of Nico Rosberg showed strong pace, however, being well into the top 10. Knocked out were the two Force Indias, the two Toro Rossos in their new STR3 chassis and the Renault of Nelson Piquet Jr. Felipe Massa was the pacesetter again in the second part of qualifying, while Heidfeld struggled to break into the top 10 and was subsequently knocked out. The Hondas of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello (now F1’s most experienced driver), the Williams of Kazuki Nakajima and the Toyota of Timo Glock also fell. The final part of qualifying was ended somewhat abruptly when David Coulthard crashed his Red Bull on the fastest part of the circuit. This left Massa on pole, ahead of teammate Raikkonen for a Ferrari lock-out, the McLarens of Hamilton and Kovalainen 3rd and 4th respectively, Kubica in fifth, Rosberg an excellent sixth, followed by Fernando Alonso, Jarno Trulli in the Toyota, and then the two Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Coulthard, though the latter took a grid penalty for changing his gearbox. Perhaps at that stage of the season, Ferrari just had the edge over McLaren, obviously going into the race I was hoping for the best for Hamilton, but with how unforgiving Monaco can be, I would have settled for a podium or two.
Twenty minutes before the race, the rain fell once again. The track was quite damp but not soaked, leaving all bar Piquet on the standard wet tyre (or intermediates as we now call them). Heikki Kovalainen stalled from fourth and was forced to start from the pits. The five lights went out and Massa pulled away from pole well. Hamilton managed to jump Raikkonen before Saint Devote to move into second place. Alonso got a great start and moved up into fifth behind Kubica. There was no chaos into turn 1, as is sometimes the case there. Jenson Button broke his front wing on the first lap after hitting the wheel of Heidfeld.
On lap 6, was arguably the moment that decided the race. With the rain coming down even harder, Hamilton brushed the wall coming out of Tabac corner, resulting in a puncture. McLaren immediately decided to pit him but put on another set of intermediate tyres with a healthy amount of fuel. He re-joined the track in fifth place. On lap 8, Fernando Alonso suffered a puncture too as he hit the wall at the end of Beau Rivage, one of the fastest sections on the circuit. David Coulthard wasn’t so lucky and he suffered race-ending suspension damage before being rammed by the Toro Rosso of Sebastien Bourdais. This brought out the Safety Car.
The Safety Car was only out for one tour though as the fantastic Monaco marshals cleared the battered cars up very swiftly. After this, Kimi Raikkonen was given a drive-through penalty for not having his tyres fitted at the right time before the race. This was a huge setback as he would have to do some overtaking on the most difficult circuit to overtake on, and as the field was bunched up, he would be moved to the rear of the pack. Meanwhile, a very racy Alonso attempted a pass into the Loews Hairpin on Heidfeld, which only resulted in a collision; Webber was also caught up in this and this caused a traffic jam briefly. On lap 16, Massa ran wide into turn 1 but avoided any walls, he performed half a spin, and re-joined, although he had lost the lead to Robert Kubica.
11 laps later, Kimi Raikkonen went off at the same place Massa went off, just as Kubica came out of the pits for fresh tyres and fuel. Like his teammate, Kimi kept going, but with a flappy front wing. At the halfway point, the teams were noted that rain was due in 15 minutes, just as Glock spun into the wall, but kept going. In the lead for the race, Hamilton, on a different strategy, was absolutely flying, going seconds faster than Massa and Kubica each lap, bringing himself back into the race despite hitting the wall early on.
Three-quarters of the way into the race, the track was dry enough for slicks, and that is what Hamilton’s team put on. Slightly down the order, Adrian Sutil and a young Sebastian Vettel were doing a great job by running in the points for Force India and Toro Rosso respectively. Sutil at this point had never finished a race higher than eighth. Kubica pitted and eventually Massa did too, both for slicks, but the Polish driver came out ahead into second place behind Hamilton before the Safety Car came out again, this time for Rosberg, who had a mighty shunt in the swimming pool section. At this point, the two-hour rule came into play, and the race had twelve minutes to run as the Safety Car came in. The order at this point was Hamilton, Kubica, Massa, Sutil, Raikkonen, Webber, Vettel and Barrichello rounding out the top 8. Disaster then struck for both the smallest team on the grid and the biggest as Raikkonen, trying to be cautious, lost control on a damp part of the circuit and rammed Sutil. Sutil was out of the race from fourth place but Raikkonen was able to pit and put on yet another front wing.
After the time limit expired, Lewis Hamilton took the chequered flag on the circuit where his hero Ayrton Senna won six times: he won ahead of Kubica, taking an excellent second for BMW; Massa somewhat disappointed to only be third; Webber a fine fourth; Vettel to take his first of many points that season; Barrichello sixth to give Honda something to smile about; likewise for Nakajima with his seventh in the Williams; and Kovalainen rounding out the top eight. This put Hamilton top of the Drivers’ Championship in a seesaw battle that went down to the last corner.
I can remember watching the race all those years ago. It was a fantastic win for Hamilton, his second of the season. He had also retaken the lead in the championship, which was important. He took five race wins that season, with Kovalainen taking one, and they were all great from my perspective. This epic season-long battle was reminiscent of the titanic battles between Michael Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen a few years before. Monaco was one of the many turning points, and was one of many dramatic wet races that year.
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