Formula One 2011

[Fry_4000]

Lewis just exploded on F1 forum. Called the other drivers "fricking idiots" and that the stewards always call him in "coz 'e iz black".

Piss off you twat.

Lewis obviously sees things different to everyone else then. it's things like this which make me hate him, as much as i don't want to

[Lineker]

Links?

It'll be on Youtube later I'm sure. Search for it.

Sebastian Vettel further increased his World Championship advantage by claiming a gutsy victory in a chaotic Monaco Grand Prix that was restarted with only six laps to go following a red flag for a crash involving Vitaly Petrov at the Swimming Pool.

The Red Bull driver had opted against pitting during a mid-race safety car period, and ran a 56-lap stint on super soft rubber against all expectations, gaining track position over previous leader Jenson Button.

That left him ahead when the race was red-flagged, at which point he, second placed Fernando Alonso and Button, who had dropped to third after pitting just before a mid-race safety car, were all allowed to fit new tyres.

His eventual winning margin was 1.1 seconds ahead of Alonso, who was a similar distance clear of Button.

The race boiled down to a six-lap sprint following a red flag for a crash involving Petrov, Jaime Alguersuari and Lewis Hamilton, that was triggered by Pastor Maldonado passing Adrian Sutil for sixth place at Tabac.

The one-stopping Sutil, who had ran fourth for a long time but was dropping back on old tyres, smacked the wall exiting the corner and punctured his right-rear tyre. While trying to avoid the slowing Force India, Petrov ran into the back of Alguersuari's Toro Rosso, which in turn hit the rear of Hamilton's McLaren.

Alguersuari and Petrov hit the wall hard, forcing the race to be stopped with six laps to go and necessitating Petrov's extrication from the car by medical staff.

Prior to the red flag, the street circuit was staging the best race of the year. Having lost the lead to Button thanks to a sluggish opening pitstop on lap 16, Vettel opted against pitting when Felipe Massa's mid-race crash brought out the safety car.

Button, who had already stopped twice by this point, was clearly the faster driver on his fresher rubber, but had also lost track position to Alonso during the safety car period.

Button made a third stop on lap 48 after becoming stuck behind Vettel, but reduced an 18-second deficit to less than a second with eight laps to go. His problem, however, was that Alonso's Ferrari was in between them.

Button's hopes of victory rested with Vettel's and Alonso's tyres going off before his, as both switched their strategies and opted against making further stops. The stoppage and subsequent tyre changes put paid to that, however.

Mark Webber finished fourth, having dropped as low as 14th early on due to a 15-second stop as Red Bull pitted him on the same lap as Vettel. His two-stop strategy left him with fresher rubber than many of the cars around him during the second half of the race, allowing him to pass Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber, Sutil, Petrov and Maldonado within the final 15 laps.

Kobayashi ceded fourth to Webber after missing the chicane with two laps to go, but still collected the best result of his career. Maldonado kept up his status as a Monaco expert and looked like finishing sixth, but he crashed out of the race at Ste. Devote with five laps to go after contact with Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton's rear wing was damaged in the Petrov/Alguersuari accident, and took seventh after the McLaren mechanics fixed the right support during the stoppage.

The Briton's race was a frustrating one. Passed by Michael Schumacher's slow-starting Mercedes at the Loews hairpin on the opening lap, he lost a significant amount of time when the German's rear tyres dropped off at an alarming rate within the first 10 laps.

Even after passing the seven-time world champion at Ste. Devote, his pace was compromised as he became bogged down in a seven-car battle for fourth place behind Sutil.

He, Webber and Felipe Massa all came together at Loews on lap 34 - an incident that Hamilton was deemed to have caused and received a drive-through penalty for - but by that time Massa was out, the Ferrari driver having hit the wall in the tunnel as Hamilton passed seconds later.

Hamilton eventually finished sixth, ahead of the lapped Sutil, Nick Heidfeld's Renault, Rubens Barrichello (Williams) and Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso).

Paul di Resta finished 12th after receiving a drive-through penalty for the same reason as Hamilton . colliding with another car at Loews, but the Force India driver also damaged his car in the incident with Alguersuari and was force to pit for a new nose.

Schumacher did not make the finish, his Mercedes grinding to a halt just ahead of Alonso as the safety car came out for the Massa crash. Timo Glock was the only other retiree, the Virgin driver's right-rear suspension failing just before half distance.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS


The Monaco Grand Prix

Monte Carlo, Monaco, Monaco;

78 laps; 260.520km;

Weather: Sunny.


Classified:


Pos  Driver        Team                       Time

 1.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           2h09:38.373

 2.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +     1.138

 3.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +     2.378

 4.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +    23.100

 5.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +    26.900

 6.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +    27.200

 7.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +     1 lap

 8.  Heidfeld      Renault                    +     1 lap

 9.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth          +     1 lap

10.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap

11.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +     1 lap

12.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +    2 laps

13.  Trulli        Lotus-Renault              +    2 laps

14.  Kovalainen    Lotus-Renault              +    2 laps

15.  D-Ambrosio    Virgin-Cosworth            +    2 laps

16.  Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth               +    3 laps

17.  Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth               +    3 laps

18.  Maldonado     Williams-Cosworth          +    5 laps


Fastest lap: Webber, 1:16.234


Not classified/retirements:


Driver        Team                         On lap

Petrov        Renault                      68

Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari           68

Massa         Ferrari                      33

Schumacher    Mercedes                     33

Glock         Virgin-Cosworth              31

Perez         Sauber-Ferrari               DNS



World Championship standings, round 6:                


Drivers:                    Constructors:             

 1.  Vettel       143        1.  Red Bull-Renault          222

 2.  Hamilton      85        2.  McLaren-Mercedes          161

 3.  Webber        79        3.  Ferrari                    93

 4.  Button        76        4.  Renault                    50

 5.  Alonso        69        5.  Mercedes                   40

 6.  Heidfeld      29        6.  Sauber-Ferrari             21

 7.  Rosberg       26        7.  Force India-Mercedes       10

 8.  Massa         24        8.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari          7

 9.  Petrov        21        9.  Williams-Cosworth           2

10.  Kobayashi     19       

11.  Schumacher    14       

12.  Sutil          8       

13.  Buemi          7       

14.  Perez          2       

15.  Barrichello    2       

16.  Di Resta       2       


All timing unofficial[/code]


Vitaly Petrov has escaped injury following his crash at the end of the Monaco Grand Prix.


The Russian driver made contact with the barriers after crashing into the back of Jaime Alguersuari's Toro Rosso with six laps to go.


Although the impact was at relative slow speed, the Russian stayed in the car and reported pain in his left ankle.


He was taken to hospital for checks, and Renault said there was no swelling or broken bones.


The team said as a precaution, Petrov will undergo a full body scan but "he should be back in the paddock within a few hours".

[Katsuya]

Brundle and Eddie Jordan both said that Lewis was stupid in saying that and pointed out that it's never his fault as far as he's said.

[LUKIE]

He will have to get fined for saying something as stupid as that. Using the race card for something like that? The guys a moron.

[Lineker]

He's already on a reprimand no?

[DJ Ice]

He'll probably get a grid penalty for Canada (as is tradition).

That will be a great day for Canada, and indeed, the world

Can't believe I missed this race. Sounds like a great one. Vettel winning though is just so boring. I really wish Massa start winning a few races

[Lineker]

Highlights on BBC Three @ 7pm (Y)

[Lineker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD8T8_JR4Mw

[Gazz]

1.14 - You can actually hear some people's jaws hit the floor...

[Rich]

Lewis, you idiot.

[Katsuya]

He probably meant it as a joke, but the fact he then stuttered over his explanation behind saying it didn't help. I've never seen someone acting so spoiled.

Also, working it out: Kobayashi has now scored points in 14 of his 27 starts, which I think is pretty incredible considering he's been with Toyota and Sauber.

[LUKIE]

Maldonado clearly turned a car length early to stop me from over-taking!

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS! He was at the apex!

Fucking hell. I can't believe people used to defend this guy.

[Gazz]

On a lighter note, Fernando Alonso tries to join the Red Bull catering crew...

The Red Bull catering crew, one is not like the rest...

[Rich]

yeah, they only have one blonde!

[Summers]

Ah, Alonso.

&sounds like Shamilton is being a huge twat like always.

[Katsuya]

The past season or so has turned my opinion round on Hamilton and Alonso so much. I used to like Lewis, especially in his debut season and therefore turned quite heavily against Alonso. But now I can't stand Lewis and Alonso is one of my favourite drivers; I think he's calmed down quite a bit now compared to how he was, but he's also clearly out there because he loves driving and is loving driving for Ferrari.

[Lineker]

Lewis Hamilton has been given a penalty for having caused a collision with Pastor Maldonado in the Monaco Grand Prix.

The Briton, who got his qualifying time deleted on Saturday and got a drive-through penalty for causing a collision with Felipe Massa during the race, was handed another drive-through post-race after his crash with Williams driver Maldonado.

The McLaren star was given the penalty after the race, which means 20 seconds were added to his final time. Hamilton keeps his sixth place despite the penalty.

Hamilton was very critical of the stewards after the race, labelling their decisions as a "joke".

"Out of six races, I've been to the stewards five times. It's a joke," Hamilton told the BBC. "It's an absolute frickin' joke."

He added: "I went up the inside of Maldonado and you can see on the [TV] screen that he turned in a good car length too early to stop me overtaking him and he crashed into me.

"It's just ridiculous. These drivers are absolutely frickin' ridiculous. Just stupid."

Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi and Force India's Adrian Sutil were given reprimands post-race for incidents during the event.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Lewis Hamilton hit out at Monaco Grand Prix race stewards after being penalised for over-aggressive driving during the race.

Hamilton was given a drive-through penalty for causing an avoidable incident with Felipe Massa while the pair disputed 10th place.

He was then informed following the race that another incident - a collision with Pastor Maldonado's Williams - was being investigated.

"Out of six races, I've been to the stewards five times. It's a joke," Hamilton told the BBC. "It's an absolute frickin' joke."

When asked why he thought stewards had been paying attention to his driving this year, he joked: "Maybe it's because I'm black. That's what Ali G says. I don't know."

Hamilton said that he had not been to blame for the Massa incident, which occurred at the Loews hairpin on lap 34 as the two - and Mark Webber's Red Bull made contact.

"I was quite a lot quicker than Massa," he added. "I went up the inside, and the guy turned so early and just turned into me. So I tried to go over the kerb to avoid him and we were stuck together.

"And of course I get the penalty, which is usual. He [Massa] held me up in qualifying and I got the penalty. He turned into me, and I got the penalty."

He also denied that he was at fault for causing Maldonado to crash at Ste. Devote with three laps remaining in the race as the pair battled for sixth spot.

"I went up the inside of Maldonado and you can see on the [TV] screen that he turned in a good car length too early to stop me overtaking him and he crashed into me.

"It's just ridiculous. These drivers are absolutely frickin' ridiculous. Just stupid."

Hamilton's sixth place came after a frustrating weekend on which he had set the pace in the first two parts of qualifying, but then been caught out by McLaren's strategy in Q3 before he was dropped to ninth on the grid for missing the chicane on his best lap.

After being mired in the midfield for the whole race, he said that his determination to overtake rivals would not be dimmed by the events of the grand prix.

"It's not hurting my confidence as a driver. I just think the sport is... People want to see my racing, want to see overtaking and [then] you get done for trying to overtake. You get done trying to put on a show. You get done trying to make a move.

"Fair play, if I really feel that I've gone too late and hit someone, I'll put my hand up and realise [that] I really have caused an incident and I've been the stupid one, but it is not the case [today]."

Hamilton's result retained his second place in the championship, but dropped him to 58 points behind leader Sebastian Vettel, who won the race.

Sebastian Vettel admitted he opted for a "risky" one-stop strategy because he was determined to try to win the Monaco Grand Prix.

The championship leader decided to stay out while his rivals pitted during the opening safety car period, the German having to do a 56-lap stint on a set of soft tyres.

In the end, his cause was aided by the race being stopped with six laps to go, as he was allowed to fit new rubber to go the distance when Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button were right behind him with fresher rubber.

Vettel said the decision to not stop was his, as he thought it was his only chance to win the race.

"It is fantastic," said Vettel. "It was a very long race and a long way to the chequered flag and at some stage the victory seemed quite far away.

"The safety car came out and we got back in the lead but it was quite difficult to stay ahead. It is difficult to pass here but they had such better grip. I called to box and I said I wanted to stay out as it was the only chance to win the race.

"It was getting close and with six laps to go before we had a suspended race. Obviously I was struggling with my tyres but I think we could have made it to the end.

"Then I saw the red flag and it was good to hear Vitaly was fine, and we were able to change tyres as I could get rid of these old tyres and then had another short sprint race to the chequered flag.

"We took the risk. We wanted to win and we got the reward. I am happy and it is an extreme honour. It is one of the best grands prix all year and surely a nice one to win."

The world champion also conceded it would have been very hard to beat McLaren's Button if not for the first safety car period.

"I think at the end of the day, surely if there had been no safety car it would have been difficult to beat Jenson as he was so far ahead, but there was a safety car. We have been looking after our tyres, even under pressure.

"I had a race here two years ago where my rear tyres were gone. I stayed ahead of Felipe a long time, but then they found their way past. We learned from that. So last year the car was good, and this year it was good enough to win. I am very happy."

Vettel, who has won five out of six races this year, is now 58 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the standings.

Fernando Alonso believes that a late race stoppage could well have cost him victory at the Monaco Grand Prix.

The Ferrari driver finished just 1.1 seconds behind race winner Sebastian Vettel, but had far fresher tyres than the Red Bull driver and had reduced a 7s deficit to nothing in the time that elapsed between a mid-race safety car and the red flag on lap 72.

With every driver allowed to fit new tyres for the restarted race, Alonso's advantage was nullified. The Spaniard, however, feels that had this not happened, he could have overtaken the German and won the race.

"I think we gained one position with the first safety car [by overtaking Jenson Button for second place] and maybe we lose [the] victory in the last red flag," said Alonso.

"I really think in the last eight or nine laps, the tyres on the Red Bull were struggling a lot - certainly in the last part of the circuit.

"There was nothing to lose for me. I am not leading the championship. I will try and win the race and if we crash, we crash."

Alonso was nevertheless satisfied with his runner-up spot, which was the best result of the year for him and the Ferrari team.

He paid tribute to the team for bouncing back after a below-par performance in Spain last week, a race at which Alonso led for the first 18 laps, but finished fourth, a lap behind winner Vettel.

"Third in Turkey and now second here, so it was a good weekend for us," Alonso added. "We were quick on Thursday and quick in qualifying, so it was okay for us.

"I am extremely happy because the team needs this result and the podium after some weeks with difficulties. Seven days ago in Barcelona we were 1m30s behind the leader, so this is a much more normal weekend for us and a good motivation for the guys."

Alonso's result kept him fifth in the World Championship, but reduced his deficit to fourth-placed Button to seven points. He is 74 points adrift of Vettel.

Jenson Button admitted he was disappointed after being unable to win the Monaco Grand Prix, having looked like the favourite at stages of the race.

The McLaren driver opted for a three-stop strategy that looked to be working in his favour until the safety car periods hampered him.

In the end, Button had to settle for third position, and although he refused to consider himself unlucky, the Briton did admit he was hoping for much more.

"I don't know if you can call it unlucky," said Button. "We went for the strategy we did. On lap 16 we thought it was the right strategy to be pulling such a lead. It was great and the car felt good and I thought it would continue that way.

"The safety car mixed things up a little bit and in hindsight we should have put the hard tyre on, the prime tyre, but at that time the safety car hadn't come out."

He added: "It just didn't go our way today. It is disappointing as we didn't put a foot wrong, but it was fun. I still enjoyed the race, especially trying to pull a gap on these guys.

"It was good fun watching because when you are the third car it is good fun as the car in second has DRS. I was waiting for a move. It was either going to come off or not. Not a bad result but we obviously hoped for a lot more."

Rubens Barrichello welcomed his first points of the season after ending Williams's drought in the Monaco Grand Prix.

The Brazilian finished in ninth position, putting an end to Williams's worst start to a Formula 1 season, with the team having failed to score in the first five races.

Barrichello admitted he was sorry he gained a place after the retirement of team-mate Pastor Maldonado but was pleased to finally get some points.

"With six laps to go, I thought tenth was the best result we were going to achieve today," he said. "I ended up ninth, but not in the way I would have liked to as it was at the expense of my team-mate. We lost some really good points for the team so that is disappointing.

"I'm happy that I've broken my run of bad luck though. The safety car didn't help us as our one-stop strategy would have worked well had I not just done my pitstop before it was deployed.

"There are positives and negatives to take from today, the positive being we scored some points."

Maldonado, who was looking set for an eighth place finish, was very disappointed after retiring with six laps to go when he was involved in the Vitaly Petrov accident.

"The final result was not what we wanted but the rest of the race was good. My pace was strong but after the re-start Hamilton tried a very ambitious manoeuvre at the first corner and that was the end of my race. I'm really disappointed not to come away with any points today."

[LUKIE]

20 second penalty for taking out another driver. So effectively, he had 40 seconds added for taking out two drivers in the race. Brilliant. His points should have gone to Maldonado.

[Lineker]

Post-race press conference:

TV Unilaterals

Q. Sebastian, great race. Three different strategies in the top three positions, but the upshot is you are a Monaco Grand Prix winner. Describe your feelings?

Sebastian VETTEL: It is unbelievable and I think the race today was pretty entertaining from the inside of the car at least. I had a good first stint, a good start to the race, I could pull a gap to Jenson, so reasonably happy. I was targeted to go longer on the options, Jenson came in and we had a problem with the pit-stop, we reacted, so we lost the position. Went on the hard, he went on the soft and he was pulling away like crazy, pulling a gap. But then we were staying out a bit longer on the primes. With the safety car it was good to have a little break, Jenson behind, and he was much quicker on the soft tyres, but it is very difficult to pass here. I knew that. He came in for his final stop. He had to as he was three times on the softs so he had to go on the hards. Fernando was a bit on a similar strategy. Probably they were a bit more clever on the safety car to bring him in and he got a new set of hard tyres. But then the lap Jenson pitted, we initially wanted to react, to pit as well, but I said 'let's try to one-stop'. There were like 33 laps to go. I had quite a good feeling on the tyres I had. I had nowhere close to fresh tyres anymore. I saw the only chance to win this race was to try to stay out. It was really close. I think it was 20 laps under pressure with Fernando and Jenson behind. I know it is difficult to pass here but it was getting closer and closer and I think it would have been a difficult six laps. But then we caught the group. In fact they crashed in front of us, so another safety car and then a suspended race, which allowed us to change tyres. I got rid of these stones, of these old tyres, and the final, final attempt with everyone on a fresher set, it was easier to pull away a little bit and get a gap out of those corners that it really mattered. Extremely happy. At some stage I was P2 with 15 seconds behind Jenson and the victory seemed far away. But I have said it is a crazy place. The roulette spun a lot last night and it kept on spinning during this race. Crazy. I am really, really happy. Fantastic result and extreme honour to put my name down on the list of previous winners here, so a perfect day I guess.

Q. Fernando, you pitted under the safety car as Sebastian said. It was all set up really before that red flag. Did you think you were going to beat him in the closing stages before the red flag?

Fernando ALONSO: Well, you never know what is going to happen in the final result. But 100 per cent I was ready to try. He was having some more problems with the tyres in the last 10 laps of the race. We were managing the tyres when I pitted, as I knew that at the end of the race it was our time to attack but that last 10 laps didn't come as we had the red flag and the safety car. I was ready to attack. It is difficult here, there is not much space. There is the risk of 50 per cent you overtake 50 per cent maybe you crash, but this is Monaco and he is leading the championship so he has much more to lose than me, so I was ready to attack.

Q. Jenson, a three-stop strategy for you. How did you think it would play out in the end and how much fun was it for you?

Jenson BUTTON: Well, it was fun for quite a few laps until the first safety car came out. It was looking really good. But we went for the three-stop as I was struggling a little bit in the first stint with the rears and we thought we could probably jump Seb on the first stop, which we did. Then we had very good pace on the super-soft tyre. But then, later in the race, when the safety car came out, it hurt us a little bit as we had just pitted. Seb stayed out and as we have already said it is very difficult to overtake here. I suppose, Monaco Grand Prix, you always have to expect safety cars but you always hope they don't happen when you are on a three-stop strategy. Disappointed for the team and for myself as I thought we had a real chance of victory but congratulations to these guys. I think we put on a great show for the viewers and all the people here in Monaco and also good news at the end to hear that Vitaly (Petrov) is okay.

Q. Sebastian, five wins now from the first six races for you and it seems like it is all going your way at the moment?

SV: Yeah, I think it is a long way still. We saw last year and learned a lot that things can change quickly. We had a good start and we are on a run. We try to take every race on its own and we are ready to attack and go for it. Today, there was a chance to win the race and we went for it. I think we fully deserved to win. We took the risk and we got the reward but it is still a long way for the championship. You have to be aggressive, you have to look for these risks, you have to take it. If it doesn't make sense you might hold back. I think if my tyres had given up I would not have tried to make the one-stop work. I knew there was a very big gap behind Jenson who was in third so if any I would fall back to third so we tried our best and we achieved our optimum. In hindsight it was a long race and a lot of strategy calls. Not necessarily one that could win you the race so a long way and extremely happy..

PRESS CONFERENCES

Q. Sebastian, we have spoken about how much you have wanted to win here. Now you've done it, what's it like?

SV: Fantastic, still feels a bit like a rush. It was a very, very long race and a long way to get to the chequered flag and some stages, to be honest, the victory seemed to be quite far away. We had a very good start, we were able to pull up a gap and I was holding it around four seconds. Targeting to go a bit longer. Surprised when Jenson pulled in, but he probably struggled a bit with his tyres. We had to react and then I didn't have the cleanest pit stop. I think it was the first one this year that probably was not perfect.

Q. Can you just tell us what happened during that first pit-stop?

SV: I don't know. I came in. Everything seemed to be okay and I was ready to go out again. Looked at the front right and the wheel wasn't there. Then all the mechanics were rushing to bring the front-right wheel. Yeah, so I lost probably two or three seconds. At that moment you don't count but surely that cost us the lead at that stage. Jenson had a very good out-lap on a new set of super softs and after that he was pulling away like crazy. I had Fernando behind me and I was able to pull away once I was not in traffic, so we were fighting our way through the cars and Jenson was just 10 seconds, 13 seconds, 15 seconds away and I knew that once he is around 19-20 seconds ahead, it would be quite difficult as that's the time you need for one pit-stop. Then he came in for another set of softs, which, to be honest, at that stage was a surprise. Safety car came out and we were back in the lead but it was quite difficult to stay ahead. It is difficult to pass here but they had so much more grip out of the exit of the corners. Then he pitted again. Initially, I got the call to box, but I said 'I want to stay out'. The only chance to win the race is to do one stop and I had a good feeling with those tyres. I wasn't rushing. I knew I had the guys behind me but I knew that if I did a clean job in certain places there was no way they would get past me. Managing the tyres. I think 30 laps to the end Fernando caught up on a fresh set of primes after the safety car. It was getting close, closer and closer and six laps to go before we had the suspended race I was struggling with my tryes, but I think we could have made it to the end as it is difficult to pass around here. Then I saw the red flag. It was good to hear that Vitaly is fine. We were able to change tyres which was good as I got rid of the old tyres. Then had another short sprint race to the chequered flag so pretty busy. All three on a different strategy. As expected it was not a straightforward Monaco Grand Prix. It happens very rarely here without safety cars and surely at some stage they were helping us today but we did have the pace and we took the risk. We wanted to win and at the end we got the reward. I am very happy. It is an extreme honour to join these guys and also other drivers who have won here. It is one of the best grands prix all year surely a nice won to win so I am looking forward to tonight.

Q. Do you feel you were a bit lucky yesterday with what happened as the session was also stopped yesterday and also given that you had a bad pit-stop today. Maybe you go to the casino tonight and get lucky again?

SV: Yeah, I think in the end of the day if there would have been no safety car it would have been difficult to beat Jenson, as he was so far ahead, but there was a safety car. Same yesterday. We had our plan. We wanted to go out twice in final qualifying. I think we set a very competitive lap time which brought us pole position. Then we started the race today. Either way it can help you a little bit or penalise you around here. Today, fortunately, it did not penalise us but I think the race we had was not an easy one, doing around 60 laps on one set of primes. I think it is something not many people did. I haven't seen the whole race but not many people did. We have been looking after our tyres well, managing the gaps and even under pressure kept our heads cool. I had a race here two years ago where my rear tyres were gone and stayed ahead of Felipe Massa for a long time but eventually they found theirway past and I lost a lot of positions. We learned from that and we arrived here three times lucky. Last year the car was good but this year the car was good again and good enough to win so I am very happy.

Q. Fernando, your feelings about second place?

FA: Fantastic. We start fourth and it is the best result of the year for us. We were third in Turkey and now second here, so definitely a good weekend for us. We were quick on Thursday and quick in qualifying and now in the race. It was okay for us. I think as Seb said, safety car always plays a big part. In the first safety car we were very lucky as if not Jenson maybe was on his way to victory so for us only third place was possible. We gained one position with the first safety car and maybe we lose the victory in the second and the red flag. I really think in the last nine laps the tyres from the Red Bull was struggling a lot, especially in the last part of the circuit and the middle part, so I had two places already in mind for the last lap.

Q. So you were really going to have a go at him, were you?

FA: Of course, yes. There is nothing to lose for me. I am not leading the championship so I will try to win the race and if we crash we crash.

Q. On the opening laps you were pushing Jenson hard as well?

FA: Well yes Jenson was particularly slow in the first two laps and I thought maybe he had a problem or contact with Sebastian in the first corner. I was ready to attack Jenson but then suddenly he picked up the pace and he was more or less maintaining the gap with Sebastian. He surprised us when he stopped very early in lap 14 or 15 and fitted the super soft and took the lead of the race and from that point he was very quick and ready to go for victory but Monte Carlo is Monte Carlo. At the end extremely happy as the team needed this result, this podium, after some weeks with some difficulties. Seven days ago in Barcelona we were one minute, 30 seconds behind the leader. We were lapped. I think this was much more a normal weekend for us and good motivation for the guys.

Q. Jenson, are you feeling just a little bit unlucky then?

JB: I don't know if you can call it unlucky. We went for the strategy we did and on lap 16 of the race we thought it was the right strategy and for many laps after. We were pulling such a lead, even through traffic. To be able to pull away from these guys was great and the car felt good and I thought it was going to continue that way. But with the safety car it mixed things up a little bit and in hindsight you would say maybe we should have put the hard tyre on, the prime tyre, when the safety car came out. But at that moment in time the safety car hadn't come out when I made my stop and it happened the next lap. It just did not go our way today. It is disappointing as we did not put a foot wrong, it was just the way it went as it does in Monaco. It was fun. I still enjoyed the race, especially trying to pull the gap on these guys and then chasing Fernando and Sebastian down at the end. It was good fun watching as when you are the third car it is very difficult to overtake as the car in second has DRS as well. Watching these guys tussle was great fun. I was waiting for the move. It was either going to come off or they were both going into the barriers and I was waiting for it. But it didn't come. But more importantly I think it is great to see that Vitaly is okay. It is, obviously, two incidents we have had this weekend, but they both walked away, pretty much, so it is good to see. That mayhem happened just in front of us as well. We were racing through Tabac and the swimming pool so it was a tough situation as the way we were going we were nose to tail. It was very difficult to see corner apexes as you were so close let alone bits of rubbish and carbon all over the circuit. I hit that quite a bit as these guys probably did but not a bad result, but we hoped for a lot more.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Michael Schmidt - Auto, Motor und Sport) As Jenson mentioned already, you three came as a pack into a lot of traffic at the swimming pool. How difficult was it to get through without any problems; could you really see the gaps or was it just luck not to be hit by pieces of other cars?

SV: Obviously I arrived there first. I had two cars behind, pushing to overtake and I saw this big group of cars. Fortunately Nico (Rosberg) pulled over so one less, but then there were four or five cars left, the chicane, and then towards the back, boom, one ended in the wall and I overtook a rim on the right hand side which was still turning. It is extremely difficult because I always try to keep my position, obviously. It's a big chance for the people behind to overtake or to make a move. Then came the swimming pool, first chicane, two cars in the wall and then the Toro Rosso braking and pulling to the right and then it was very close, I was very close to losing my front wing and then out of 15/16, there was a Force India in the barriers. Yeah, pretty big mess to be honest. It's obviously something you expect when you catch four cars fighting for position, but then you don't expect them to go in the wall, one after the other. Yeah, it's crazy but obviously I didn't really see what happened to Vitaly but it's good to hear that he's fine. Obviously, trying to maintain my position, and so many cars going in different directions, it's also a bit of luck, not to hit any debris.

FA: I followed where Sebastian was going, because with a full crash and the accident, you don't know, as Sebastian said, when they hit the wall, you don't know if the car will bounce back to the other wall or whatever. So I was following Sebastian because he has a better view than me.

Q. (Frederic Ferret – L'Equipe) For the three of you, before the red flag, how did you rate your chances to finish first in the race?

JB: Me, personally, pretty high, not through overtaking but through watching these two fight it out. It looked like they were going to end up in the barriers. This is a big race to win, and as Fernando said, we've got less to lose than this guy who's leading the championship by quite a few points. But it was an interesting battle to watch, just waiting for the moment to try and have ago. Fernando, I'm sure, was filling Sebastian's mirrors and he got very close a couple of times into turn one, and into the last corner, so you don't know. Anything could have happened over those ten laps that we would have had if we hadn't had the Safety Car.

SV: Well, to be honest, I was pretty confident. Yes, I didn't have the freshest set of tyres left I know, but I thought I would have another six laps in them at least. So it's difficult to know what would have happened but it's the same thing, if you ask for Jenson's race, he was in the lead. For him the Safety Car came out at the wrong time. It would have been close because yes, they were coming closer and my rear tyres were not getting better, but ideally I think their tyres were not getting better so I think I had quite a good chance to stay where I was – depending on how much risk Fernando was ready to take.

FA: 33.3 per cent chance of winning the lottery.

Q. (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Jenson, you were in exactly the same position in the championship two years ago that Sebastian is in today; five wins out of six. How certain were you of winning the championship after winning Monaco?

JB: I wasn't really thinking about the title. I was thinking of going to have a few drinks with my friends. I wish I could remember it, but I think I had one too many! I don't know. I think we all take it one race at a time. I know we say that and I totally think it's true. He's got a massive lead at the moment, and everybody that's behind him looks at the points difference and thinks it's massive but when you're leading, you just take every race at the time. You celebrate every race win like Sebastian has been doing and then you can look at it a little bit later in the season when you have to start thinking about the championship. At the moment, he's very quick and he's driving a quick car so he's getting the job done and he doesn't need to be thinking about the championship right now. I wish he would because he might make mistakes and things, but I don't think that's the case.

Q. (Rodrigo Franca – VIP Magazine) Fernando, do you think these 13 points for you and Ferrari will allow you to go back to fight for victories or is it just the characteristics of Monaco and the circuit that helped you today?

FA: I guess we need to wait for the couple of normal circuits that are coming now. Even Canada is not a very normal one, with long straights and big stops for the slow corners. So Canada and Valencia will tell us something more but I don't think that here is a good reference in terms of performance from the cars, because our car is identical to Barcelona and we were two minutes behind there and we were two seconds behind here, so it's just Monaco, a unique circuit.

Q. (Byron Young – The Daily Mirror) Jenson, at one stage of the race, I think the team got on the radio to you and said that if you're going to win this race you've got to win it on the track and get past Seb, and yet you pitted two laps later. Could you tell me what the sequence of events were that led up to that decision?

JB: To be fair, I can't actually really remember what was going on. I remember closing in – this was when I was on the supersofts in the second stint and Sebastian was on the harder tyre, the soft – and the team said you're going to have to overtake him and initially I thought it was a very strange thing to say, because I thought he was going to have to stop anyway, so why don't we just stop one lap before him? Which was a great plan, but obviously they didn't stop. For us, we put ourselves in a little bit of a tricky situation because we ran three sets of supersoft and then the safety car came out, so we had to pit again to run the harder tyre, the prime, so it was a tricky race to read, and I didn't expect Sebastian or Red Bull to run the harder tyre for so long. Yeah, so I think we need to go back and really look at the data and see what happened, because I really can't remember most of the race. But I have to say that the cars worked really well around here. The team have really been thinking on their toes, but it just didn't work out for us today.

Q. (Byron Young – The Daily Mirror) Seb, is this the toughest win of your career?

SV: Well, I think it's difficult to say. Obviously I had a bit of a practice last weekend to be fair, with people behind and obviously pushing me very hard for the last fifteen laps, being very close. Not really what I was hoping for going into this race but even more laps and more cars pushing (here). Obviously I love winning and I think you have to see every race on its own. Sure, there are straightforward races where you just have the perfect car, the perfect day, races we had this year like Australia or Turkey. And then other races where arguably other people are quicker, but you still manage to stay ahead and to win the race. Here, obviously, there are many circumstances and they can go in your favour or not. Obviously if my pit stop would have been fine then I think we would probably have just come out ahead, I don't know how much or how long we lost. It didn't happen and then the safety car brought us back and we were very brave going for the one stop strategy. You have to make a lot of decisions – after the race it's always easy to say that this was good, this was bad but in that time you have to react and once you commit, you have to go for it, but surely when you race against these guys and they are pushing very hard, and then still you stay ahead, it's even sweeter when you cross the line and it feels even better, so very proud.

Q. (Simon Cass – Daily Mail) Jenson, would you have won the race if there hadn't been a Safety Car?

JB: I really don't know. There was still a long way to go, but on the supersoft tyre I felt very good. In the second stint, I was able to pull out a pretty good gap but we didn't know what these guys were doing in terms of strategy. Originally I thought Sebastian was running on a two stop and we were going to try something a little bit different but... I don't know, there's no point in even saying yes or no to it, because we didn't win today and Sebastian did and that's it. But I have to say that I think we did a great job today and it just didn't go our way. It's the way Monaco is, with safety cars and what have you. It's safer to go for less stops but we had to take a few more risks because it's Monaco and you can't overtake, so we had to try something different.

Q. (Vincent Marre – Sportzeitung) Fernando, how do you rate Vettel today?

FA: Fantastic. Not only today, winning five races in six grand prix; there's only one occasion that happened a couple of years ago with Jenson in the same situation and we know Jenson's result: winning the championship. I think we saw in the last couple of years that if you win five or six Grand Prix you've nearly won the championship, on average, so if you win five of the first six, you are in a very good position. I think he's driving fantastically. There's no doubt that Red Bull is also doing a very good job with the car, with the pit stops, with the start, so they have a very good package and the driver is delivering on the track. Now, at the moment, it's difficult for us to beat the whole package and we will try to continue but at the moment, ten points.

Q. (Alex d'Agosta – Il Sole 24 Ore) Fernando, did your tyres work well today and what about the safety of the Monaco Grand Prix?

FA: Yes, the tyres were very good for us this weekend. We didn't have any problems. The super soft was working well and the soft as well. As we saw in the race, we were able to do a good pace and around 46 laps in the last stint, so in general quite happy with the tyres. Safety of Monaco? We know it's Monaco, I don't think there's room to make a mistake. There are barriers everywhere and it's very easy to kiss the wall, normally because the speed is not too high, the accidents are more or less OK, in terms of injuries etc, but it's true that we had a difficult weekend, so both Sergio and Vitaly had big accidents. I think it's nothing to do with this year's rules or anything like that. It's just an extremely unlucky situation. Hopefully we don't see this situation again in the coming year or the next Monaco Grand Prix because we don't like to race and then with seven laps to go an ambulance on the track. It's not a good situation.

Q. (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Fernando, you said that you had a plan to overtake Sebastian at two spots. Where were they, and Sebastian, did you use the KERS only at the beginning of the pit straight to defend yourself, or elsewhere as well, to keep Fernando behind?

FA: Well, for me I think the two long straights were a possibility or the only possibility in fact: after the tunnel and Turn One.

SV: It was my job to make use of the KERS, and I knew that those two places would be the ones where Fernando has the biggest chance to get close or try something under braking so I was trying to spend most of the KERS in those areas.

Q. (Joris Fioriti – AFP) Jenson, do you think the Red Bull in 2011 has a bigger advantage over the other cars than the Brawn GP in 2009?

JB: In the race, I don't know, but I would say in qualifying, yes. Sebastian's doing a fantastic job in qualifying, but if you look at the difference in speed in qualifying I don't think we've seen that for a long time in the sport. We're doing the best job we can with what we have and in Barcelona we saw a second difference from the Red Bull to the next car, so yeah, it's a big gap but obviously qualifying isn't everything, especially this year. I think we're pretty close on race pace. You saw today there were three different cars fighting for victory, three different strategies and we all ended up pretty much nose to tail or so. The great thing is that we can race and we can fight for victories. We're starting on the back foot really and that's an area we need to improve.

Q. (Joris Fioriti – AFP) Fernando, can you close a 74 point gap after six races?

FA: Well, we need to win three races and he mustn't score. I think that's more or less the calculation which I can do now. Well, I think at the moment it's not possible, because to close the gap with plenty of races to go, but if you are one second behind in every qualifying and you have to do some strange strategies, so some starts or something always out of the normal race, it's difficult, so at the moment, we will try to improve the car, race by race, in order to take the maximum every weekend. Victory for us is maybe optimistic so we need to be realistic and start fighting for podiums in Canada and Valencia and then we will see how the championship develops, because, as you said, the distance now is too much.

Felipe Massa has called on the FIA to issue further penalties against Lewis Hamilton following a collision between the pair during the Monaco Grand Prix.

Hamilton made contact with the Ferrari driver at the Loews hairpin on lap 34 as he tried to pass his rival on the inside of the corner, driving over the kerbs in the process and knocking the nose of Massa's car against the rear wheel of Mark Webber's Red Bull.

Massa retired after crashing in the tunnel seconds later, an accident the Brazilian said was due to damage caused by Hamilton - who was given a drive-through penalty for causing the incident.

"He tried to pass me on the kerbs [when] I didn't think it was possible to overtake," said Massa. "He was too aggressive, I think.

"Then when I got to the tunnel my car was damaged and I went on the dirty part of the track and hit the wall. What he did today was unbelievable. Not just with me, but with other drivers as well.

When asked by AUTOSPORT whether further sanctions were needed in a bid to calm Hamilton's driving, Massa said: "Yes. I think he needs to be penalised again, and in a good way – otherwise he doesn't learn.

"They [the FIA] need to think about something for him, or he will not learn."

Hamilton, who finished sixth on-track, was later given a 20s penalty in place of a drive-through for colliding with Pastor Maldonado's Williams with four laps to go. It did not affect his finishing position.

When asked whether he thought Hamilton was the most problematic driver to race against in Formula 1, Massa replied: "Maybe he is the one spending the most [time] with the FIA [stewards]. I don't know."

Vitaly Petrov said he could not feel his legs well after his crash in the Monaco Grand Prix, which is why he decided to stay in the car.

The Russian crashed against the wall in the Swimming Pool area after making contact with the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari with six laps to go.

He was taken to hospital for checks and it was found he had no injuries, but the Renault driver said he was in quite a lot of pain inside the cockpit.

"First of all, I would like to thank all my fans for all their well wishes, the medical teams at the circuit, the hospital for their efficient and friendly assistance, and the team for their concern," said Petrov.

"It was quite a big impact and I could not feel my legs very well after the crash. I thought it was best for the medical team to assist with removing me from the car as it was difficult for me to move and my legs were trapped in the cockpit.

"I did not lose consciousness but I was in quite a lot of pain when I was inside the car."

The Russian was running in the points at the time of the accident, and he admitted he was disappointed to have missed the chance to score again.

"It is a shame, as we could have got quite a few points this weekend. I'm now looking forward to Montreal. We need to sort out our problems in qualifying and we will get some good results, as our race pace is usually very good."

Red Bull Racing has revealed that its race-winning one-stop strategy in the Monaco Grand Prix came about by accident - because the team put the wrong tyres on at his first pitstop of the race.

Vettel had been leading the early stages of the Monte Carlo event when he made a stop to react to nearest challenger Jenson Button's early change of rubber on lap 15.

But although the team had planned to keep Vettel on super soft rubber for his second stint, a communication problem within the Red Bull Racing garage saw him accidentally switch on to the soft.

In the end, it was Vettel's ability to keep those soft tyres alive until the closing stages of the race, when it was red flagged following a crash, that proved key to his maiden Monaco victory.

Speaking about the issue, Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner said: "It was a communication problem where the radio got jammed.

"The plan was to box both the drivers on that lap, but unfortunately the radio got jammed so the guys in the garage did not get the call. They didn't know what tyres they were supposed to be putting on the car.

"In the end, a set of primes went onto Seb's car and that wasn't the plan. We were going to stick a set of options on to cover Jenson but in the end, we said, 'okay, this isn't a disaster we need to engineer our way out of it.' And after a bit of number crunching we managed to get our way out of it."

Horner said that Red Bull Racing initially reckoned it would need to make another stop to have tyres that were in good condition until the end of the race – but it was Vettel who had different ideas.

"We were on the hard tyre and it was a question of looking at what the options were to get us back into contention. The best option was to go very, very long and even one stop, which on lap 20 we thought was a bit aggressive to do 60-odd laps on the prime.

"Jenson made our life slightly easier by going on options and options again, and then it was a question of what to do. It was a risky strategy but Sebastian made it work. He knew what the situation was and he drove accordingly to protect the tyres."

He added: "For me it was a world champion's drive today. He soaked up the pressure, he focused on his efforts, and he was lucky with the accident that happened ahead of him to not get collected.

"When the race stopped he had a reprieve to get a new set of options until the end of the race, but I think even without that he would have won."

Paul di Resta believes that his "ambitious" driving cost him a points finish at the Monaco Grand Prix.

The Force India driver ran 13th early on, but collided with Jaime Alguersuari's Toro Rosso at the Loews hairpin on lap 24.

The British driver needed a replacement nosecone after the incident, and was also given a drive-through penalty for causing it.

Later he had a near-identical incident with Jerome d'Ambrosio's Virgin at the same corner, again damaging his nose. He eventually finished 12th.

"I think it was all running quite smoothly to begin with and our strategy seemed to be going well," said di Resta.

"After my first pitstop the team told me that to make the strategy work I needed to pass Alguersuari, so I tried to overtake him at the hairpin. That's when I made contact and damaged my front wing, which is why I had to make an early second stop.

"I have to hold my hands up for this accident because I was probably a bit too ambitious. It's a shame because the car was working well and without this incident I think I could have scored some points."

Di Resta's team-mate Adrian Sutil copied winner Sebastian Vettel's one-stop strategy and held fourth place for almost 40 laps after surging forwards when the safety car came out at mid-distance.

However, on worn tyres, he slipped back to seventh by lap 72 and sustained a right-rear puncture after hitting the barrier at Tabac as he was passed by Pastor Maldonado. He finished a lapped seventh.

"Our plan was to do a one-stop strategy," said the German. "When the first safety car came out I pitted to take the option tyres and I knew I would be on them for a very long time. I tried to make them last, although they dropped off with about 15 laps to go and that's when I had a big train of cars behind me.

"It was then that I ran wide on the marbles at turn 12, which gave me a right rear puncture. But that's when the safety car came out and I pitted to change tyres so I didn't lose too much ground. So I was in eighth when the race restarted and ended the race in seventh.

"It's a great result for the team and we're all very happy because we've been waiting a while for this."

Pastor Maldonado accused Lewis Hamilton of being 'too optimistic' after the McLaren driver collided with him and ended his race in the closing stages of the Monaco Grand Prix.

Speaking before the stewards of the meeting added 20 seconds to Hamilton's race time as a punishment for the incident, Maldonado - who was running sixth when the crash happened – explained that the shunt had cost him a great opportunity to score the first points of his career.

"I think he tried the same manoeuvre on myself that he tried on Felipe [Massa]," said Maldonado. "Exactly the same, he was too optimistic.

"This is a very narrow track and you must be very careful with your overtaking, I made very many passes during the race and I never had some problems because I was very convinced to do it. For sure he was maybe in some troubles because of his position – he is fighting for the championship.

"I think we did a great job until the crash."

Asked whether he thought Hamilton's attempted pass at Ste devote had been dangerous, Maldonado replied: "I don't know the stewards will decide.

"This corner is always very difficult because the corner is on the left side and you have all the straight, but it is not that straight it was one long corner, and when you arrive at that corner you find that the corner is exactly on the left so...

"It's always difficult to overtake there, you must be side-by-side and he wasn't. I think he was too optimistic because of the condition of the race. He was on the super-soft option tyres."

Maldonado added that he was hugely disappointed by the outcome of the accident, having performed strongly all weekend.

"Oh for sure ten points gone," he said. "They were important points for me. The team did a great job this weekend.

"I know the track very well and I was doing my job 100%. My pace was competitive, even with Ferrari at the beginning and even quicker than Renault and Mercedes. That is how the race is, we need to look forward now."

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh says the Monaco GP stewards "accepted" Lewis Hamilton's explanation of his "poor joke" following the Monaco GP.

The angry British driver slated the stewards after being penalised during and after the race.

When asked by the BBC why he thought the stewards had been paying attention to his driving, he said jokingly: "Maybe it's because I'm black. That's what Ali G says. I don't know."

Whitmarsh said after the race that Hamilton had returned to talk to the stewards and that they had accepted the explanation.

"Immediately after the race he was very down, and during a post-race TV interview he made a poor joke about his penalties that referenced Ali G," he said.

"However, I'm pleased to say that he chose to return to the track a little while later to speak to the stewards about the joke. They accepted his explanation."

The team boss conceded his driver had endured a very difficult day.

"Lewis had a frustrating afternoon," said Whitmarsh. "I guess the reality is that, if you start anywhere other than at the front of the grid here in Monte Carlo, you're always going to run the risk of getting involved in incidents - especially if, like Lewis, you're a forceful driver who never, ever, gives up.

"But that's Lewis. That's why he's such a fantastic driver – and that's why watching him race is so thrilling. So, yes, he's disappointed, because he's been seriously quick all weekend here, but that's Monte Carlo; that's racing; that's life."

Former world champion Jackie Stewart believes that Lewis Hamilton was wrong to openly criticise the race stewards over the penalties he received in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Amid controversy about Hamilton's outburst after the Monte Carlo event, when he suggested that it was a 'joke' he had been punished for his collisions with Felipe Massa and Pastor Maldonado, Stewart has come down on the side of the stewards.

He believes that drivers like Hamilton should not put themselves in situations where they are at risk of either damaging their cars or getting hauled up for punishment by the stewards.

Speaking about Hamilton's collisions with Massa and Maldonado Stewart told AUTOSPORT: "I think both were questionable - and he was lucky to get off without any front wing damage in the final incident.

"You make your own luck and you create your own situations, but the key is that you should not put yourself in a position where the other driver can retaliate in a fashion that will be negative to you, or will be seen by the stewards as negative.

"You also have to listen to the stewards, because there has been a big improvement in having a driver [on the stewards' panel]. Allan McNish is a very experienced driver so if that is their opinion you have got to go with it."

Stewart has dismissed suggestions that the race stewards are now leaving drivers in fear of battling wheel-to-wheel because any collision will result in a penalty.

And he thinks Hamilton, who spoke to the stewards on Sunday night in Monaco to explain his post-race outburst, should accept that there are times when observers are better placed to judge on incidents.

"When you are a driver, you don't see it from the other side. They get all the angles. They get the videos, and they can sit up there and get all the replays. So they analyse it even better than the man in the cockpit.

"If there is a degree of unfairness and it is really obvious then you appeal - and you make suggestions to the governing body of what might be better done to ensure that there is no penalty or loss to the person involved.

"But, you also have still got to keep in mind that you are very exposed. Your own car is likely to be damaged in incidents in a big way, and I actually said I thought there would be a question mark when they [Hamilton's collisions] happened."

Red Bull Racing is refusing to believe that the world championship is now its to lose, despite Sebastian Vettel having won five of the opening six races of the campaign.

Vettel took another victory in Monaco last weekend, which means that his second placed finish in China earlier this year remains the only result that has prevented him taking a perfect score so far in 2011.

Although that form, and his lead in the points standings, suggests that Vettel is now well on course to secure back-to-back titles, Red Bull Racing believes that the situation is much tighter than some are suggesting.

"Sebastian is seven points off a maximum score after six rounds, and that is a phenomenal start to the year," explained Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner.

"The races, every one of them, have been exciting. This will go down as one of the Monaco thrillers, and he made his own luck here.

"But Jenson [button] was very quick, Lewis [Hamilton] was very quick last week, and Fernando [Alonso] was strong here again. We cannot take anything for granted. We have made the results stick this year which has been tremendously satisfying for the team.

"Even with a difficult race in Monaco we managed to win the race with huge pressure from behind, but there is an awfully long way to go in this championship and things can change very, very quickly."

He added: "Seb has got a healthy lead. But the points with the new system are quite deceptive. His 58 points lead under the old points system is just over 20 points, so that is just over two race wins.

"Things can change very, very quickly. He has got himself into a great position, and he is seven points off a maximum score, but as we have seen in the last two weeks he has been pushed all the way by different competitors."

Pirelli is open to a change to the red flag rules in Formula 1 to prevent teams from changing tyres if a race is stopped - after feeling fans were robbed of a great finish to the Monaco Grand Prix.

The battle for victory in Monte Carlo was finely poised between Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button in the closing stages of the race, with all three running around on tyres that were at very different stages of their wear life.

But with their individual situations set to create a thrilling climax to the race, the battle came to a premature end when a late-race red flag, caused by Vitaly Petrov's accident, meant they were allowed to change rubber.

That left the result pretty much a foregone conclusion, with the top three finishers effectively running around in procession to the chequered flag.

Pirelli director of motorsport Paul Hembery thinks that the freedom to change tyres robbed fans of an entertaining finish to the race - and believes the rules should be tweaked to prevent teams from switching rubber if there is a late red flag and restart.

"I can understand there is a safety consideration but I am thinking about it more from a fans' perspective to be honest," Hembery told AUTOSPORT.

"I've had a lot of people shout at me from the boats around the harbour and say, why were they allowed to change? It took away something from the race - and the big question was could they have lasted? That is what we were all asking with six laps to go and that was going to be the excitement: would Sebastian hit the [tyre

degradation] cliff?"

He added: "We don't really understand the rule, and maybe we need to ask the teams why they think they should be allowed to change tyres.

"The race distance was still the race distance, it wasn't extended. The cars had stopped and there had been a safety car anyway. I don't really understand why they are allowed to change tyres, but maybe I am missing something."

Hembery believed that up until the red flag, the Monaco GP had been brought alive by the varied strategies adopted by the top three runners.

"Overtaking is at a premium here, so having the strategic element and such varied strategies, one, two or three stops, gave it an extra bit of intrigue," he said

"I think it was a bit of a shame with the red flag of course, because if they hadn't changed the tyres, then they would have had to fight to the end as they were all on different strategies, and the tyre wear and life was very different.

"It is such a shame we were not able to see the finale of the strategy game that had been played."

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali says his squad must keep believing that it can turn the title battle around, despite Fernando Alonso suggesting that Sebastian Vettel is getting out of reach in the championship race after pulling 74 points clear of the Spaniard with victory in Monaco.

Vettel has only been beaten once in 2011, while Alonso's second place in Monte Carlo was only his second podium of the year - leaving the double champion pessimistic.

"We need to win three races and he mustn't score. I think that's more or less the calculation which I can do now," said Alonso. "I think at the moment it's not possible, because to close the gap with plenty of races to go [could be possible], but if you are one second behind in every qualifying and you have to do some strange strategies, some starts or something always out of the normal race, it's difficult.

"So at the moment, we will try to improve the car, race by race, in order to take the maximum every weekend. Victory for us is maybe optimistic so we need to be realistic and start fighting for podiums in Canada and Valencia and then we will see how the championship develops, because the distance now is too much."

But Domenicali thinks it would only take a few results in Ferrari's favour to bring Alonso back into the title hunt.

"For sure it is a big gap no doubt, but you know how quickly you turn around things," said Domenicali. "It is not easy no doubt, but if we have a good result in the next couple of races then something may also happen to them, so if you stay concentrated and you put a little bit of pressure on, then we will see.

"But no doubt they are strong. Our objective is to keep believing in it, try to stay there and the main thing we have to do is have a good result in the short term and bring a good package of upgrades with the car if possible."

He said Ferrari's form when it got to a more traditional circuit like Silverstone would be a key indicator.

"When we arrive at track conditions like Silverstone, we really need to have a car that has better downforce in this kind of situation - Silverstone, Hungary, these kinds of tracks," Domenicali admitted.

Ferrari was extremely uncompetitive on Pirelli's hard tyre in Spain, but showed better form with the super softs and softs used in Monaco.

Asked if the team's form was "dependent" on tyres, Domenicali replied: "I think that is a fact. I don't want to say something different. It is a fact that the performance this year, it is unfortunate to say that apart from Red Bull, you can put on the hard/soft/medium/'stone' [tyres] whatever it is they are there, like Sebastian today, for sure our car is very sensitive to that condition but if you look also at the other teams it seems that this effect is also important on the other teams.

"It is important in Canada that we will have the same compounds in order to maximise the performance of our car."

Williams is showing signs of recovering from its early season slump after the team scored its first points of the season in Monaco on Sunday, according to Rubens Barrichello and Patrick Head.

With the Brazilian finishing ninth in the street race, and his team-mate Pastor Maldonado running sixth in the late stages before he was taken out in an accident with Lewis Hamilton, Barrichello admitted that he was encouraged by the team's performance.

"I think we are back to last year in the way that we are going to qualify better and not race as strongly," he told AUTOSPORT. "So we need to change that around, but I am happy with the conditions so far.

"We have a new front wing, we have something going on for Canada which is a place I love. So I just have to keep on scoring a lot!"

And Barrichello believes that he could have finished even higher if he had not been caught out by the first safety car period.

"I drove well, it was a good race, but unfortunately the safety car did not play well into my hands for my one stop," he said. "I only stopped the second time because I had space in between when there was the other safety car. I should have finished a lot further towards the front and I was catching all those guys.

I enjoyed it very much, but it was very frustrating to see straight after the safety car that I was one lap down in 12th! With the safety car there is no middle ground, it either helps or it does not help. This time it did not help.

"I am frustrated to see that Pastor did not finish because we would have had a lot more points in the bag but I am happy to have scored some points."

Head admitted to AUTOSPORT that he was expecting Williams to have an upturn in form now that more developments are coming on stream.

"As with all the other teams, we are developing the car and we expect to have a much stronger season from the next couple of races onwards," he said. "I mean yes we've had a pretty awful start to the season but Williams is a professional racing team and we don't have doom and gloom merchants internally we just get our heads down and get on with it.

"Every track we go to represents our capability at that track and if we are not fast enough to get into Q3, that's the way it is until we make the car faster. Quite clearly the car had some problems at the beginning of the year but steadily we are working those problems out of it."

Head added that the team is still working on its own version of an exhaust-blown diffuser similar to that used by Red Bull.

"We've got some upgrade but then so have other people and we've been introducing an undertray of a similar type with exhaust-blowing of a similar type to Red Bull, but we haven't actually got it to the extent yet that we are happy to race it," he said. "So you can look in advance and say this is a major, major upgrade because this is what they've got up the road there, but we haven't actually brought it to the party in a way that we can race it yet. When we do... it's not reliability, it's different aspects of the performance [that it depends on].

"Some aspects we can see clearly are better and some aren't, and small detail changes will bring it into the area where we can say after a Friday, okay yes we can take it forward into Saturday and to qualifying, and to the race."

Robert Kubica's manager Daniele Morelli has echoed Renault team boss Eric Boullier's assertion that the Pole's recovery is going well enough that he could race again this year.

Last week Renault team co-owner Gerard Lopez told Spanish radio station Onda Cero that Kubica was unlikely to return in 2011, saying: "we'll probably get him to test on a Friday at some point during the year, but I'm sure his return is not possible this year."

But in Monaco Boullier insisted it was too early to make a firm comment either way on Kubica's prospects of a 2011 comeback, and Morelli vehemently denied that 2012 was now the more likely return date.

"I think you have to ask Lopez why he made such a statement that is in clear opposition to what the specialists are saying," Morelli told Reuters and Polish media.

"All the doctors, not only ours... are not writing off Robert for this season. I think that Lopez's statement is incorrect."

Morelli also ruled out Kubica making a tentative return in Friday practice, as mooted by Lopez, insisting that when he came back it would be to race.

"Robert when he will be back, he will be back for racing and there will be no need to make a control of his capability in a Friday session," he said.

"If Robert is sufficiently fit to drive a Formula 1 car for one lap he can do it for a whole weekend."

He added that it was highly unlikely that Kubica would visit the grand prix paddock at all until he was ready to drive again.

"He will come back when he will wear his overalls," Morelli said.

Kubica sustained multiple arm and leg fractures and a partial amputation of his right hand when he crashed a rally car on a national event in Italy in early February. He spent two months in hospital after the crash and has since continued rehabilitation at home - a process that Morelli said was progressing well.

"He's working a lot, we have a standard of five hours a day for the rehabilitation of the leg and of his arm," he said.

"There are no complications at this stage and we are forecasting August as the month when we will have a clearer idea of when Robert can be back.

"Altogether all the affected parts are improving, and there are no major risks at this stage like infections."

Lewis Hamilton is confident that the Monaco Grand Prix stewards accepted his explanation of his outburst against their decisions at the end of yesterday's race.

In a BBC interview immediately after the event - in which he had been penalised for collisions with both Felipe Massa and Pastor Maldonado - Hamilton described the stewards' decisions as a "frickin' joke", and when asked if he had an explanation for why he had received the punishments, sarcastically replied: "Maybe it's because I'm black. That's what Ali G says. I don't know."

McLaren later announced that Hamilton had returned to the stewards to apologise for his comments, and he told British newspaper reporters that he was satisfied the matter was now resolved, and that they understood that his 'Ali G' remark had been intended as a joke.

"I've just been to the stewards to make peace," he said.

"It was a bit of a joke, which wasn't funny at the time. I made them aware that when emotions are high - and it's very intense at the end of those kind of races - you don't always say the right thing.

"We've made our peace. They accepted my explanation, they understood. We all shook hands afterwards. They said it was a tough weekend, let's move on, and they all wished me well for the season."

Hamilton added that he did not expect any further action against him now he had clarified his comments to the stewards.

"They said at the end that they would make sure other people in the FIA understand," he said, "and that anybody else who has heard it and misunderstood, that they'll clarify it with them and it won't go any further than the meeting room.

"Should I have said it or shouldn't I? Like I said I was trying to be funny, but it wasn't funny.

"You're not always right when you're trying to be funny. Sometimes you really put your foot in it and you offend people."

Nico Rosberg says he just wants to forget his Monaco Grand Prix weekend after an event he thought would bring him a podium finish ended with a lowly 11th place.

The Mercedes driver had been competitive in practice, and qualified seventh despite a massive accident on Saturday morning. But he suffered from severe tyre wear in the race and tumbled down the order.

In a video blog on his YouTube channel, Rosberg said he had been feeling extremely bullish about his chances prior to the weekend.

"I had said in Barcelona I was going to be attacking in Monaco and was going to be right up there, and that's how I went into the weekend - I was convinced I was going to be on the podium. But it didn't quite go that way..." he said.

He admitted that after a confident start to the race, he could not overcome his tyre problems - and confessed that he had not been driving at his best.

"Fantastic race start - rocketed off, fifth place after the start," said Rosberg. "[Mark] Webber was in front of me and my attitude was like 'Webber, get out of the way now because I'm coming through...' So I was quite positive at that time.

"And then I just hammered the tyres completely. They were just shot. I was just so slow. From there I just started going backwards and backwards. It didn't matter if you put softs on or whatever, the tyres were shot all the time.

"Adding onto that, I did a bad job at driving in the middle part of the race. Not my greatest day either. With everything together, an absolute weekend to forget. I was supposed to be on the podium in the Monaco GP and I finished in 11th place.

"I'm sure there will be better days. Montreal, we'll be right back up there I'm convinced. We'll just forget about Monaco and learn what we can."

Despite his frustration at the weekend's final result, Rosberg was full of praise for his Mercedes team's efforts to rebuild his car in time for qualifying following his massive accident on the way out of the tunnel at the start of final practice.

"The weekend started really well in practice. Fully on it. Everything was looking good. But then on Saturday I made a really stupid mistake - one of those mistakes that shouldn't happen, can't happen and will not happen again," he said.

"I totally destroyed the car, and that's horrible. Standing there in the middle of the track, red flag, looking at my car just before qualifying and there was nothing left on the car. No corners. Everything was gone. The whole weekend, I thought it was over.

"Then a miracle. The team did an amazing job. Even Michael [schumacher]'s mechanics were on my car. It was just absolute mayhem and they put it together, unbelievably, in 97 minutes. Even at the beginning of qualifying there were still some missing parts, and 10 minutes later it was ready to go and off I went."

Lotus technical chief Mike Gascoyne thinks his team can take a further step closer to the midfield group ahead in the Canadian Grand Prix.

Although Lotus has been more competitive in 2011 than in its debut season, it has yet to make enough progress to achieve its aim of regular Q2 appearances and fighting for points.

But Gascoyne is optimistic that the new parts in the pipeline for Montreal will play a significant part in narrowing the gap.

"We've got a low downforce package for Canada and the aero efficiency looks a good step up so it should be another step forward," he said. "We're pretty close [to the midfield] and we hope this will move us closer. We're only a few tenths away and maybe we can bridge the gap."

He also believes that Lotus is still working out how to get the best out of the upgrades it introduced for the Spanish Grand Prix earlier this month and can gain more time from this package too.

"I still think we are getting our heads around the blown diffuser and how to operate that and [Monaco] isn't the sort of easiest place to be learning," Gascoyne said.

"So I think there is more to come, but we are starting to get there and we are racing people and trying to beat Mercedes, so it was fun race."

Sergio Perez has left hospital after his violent accident in Monaco Grand Prix qualifying.

The Sauber driver was kept in for a second night of observation and further checks last night, having sustained concussion in the Q3 crash.

Perez lost control of his Sauber on the exit of the tunnel and hit the right-hand guard rail before slamming side-on into the barriers in the middle of the chicane. Qualifying was stopped for over half an hour while he was carefully extricated by the medical crews.

The Mexican announced this afternoon via his Twitter feed that he had now been discharged, and thanked fans for their support.

His team-mate Kamui Kobayashi went on to give Sauber its best result of the year so far with fifth place in yesterday's race.

Vitaly Petrov is confident he will be fully fit for the Canadian Grand Prix, having escaped serious injury in his crash at the end of the Monaco race.

Petrov initially feared he had broken a leg when he hit the Swimming Pool barriers with six laps to go. But hospital checks confirmed that he had no fractures.

"I'm fine. I have some hurting in my legs, but it should be fine for Canada," he said in a video interview for Renault's website.

He added: "I couldn't get out of the car because first of all my legs were blocked. And also I didn't feel them. So I thought 'oh, I have a problem', because it looked like my leg was broken or something. I was in the car, waiting for the people to help me get out of the car.

"At the hospital they did a full body check and analysis and it looks like I'm fine. I need just a little bit of rest and then we'll see what is going on."

The Russian explained that he had nowhere else to go when Jaime Alguersuari made contact with Lewis Hamilton as they all tried to avoid Adrian Sutil's slowing Force India, which had just hit the barrier and picked up a puncture.

"I saw the Force India go wide because I think he touched the wall and then he had a puncture," Petrov recalled. "Then Alguersuari, I don't know why he overtook me because he was being lapped.

"Then I think Alguersuari started to brake because Lewis started to brake - he tried to avoid the accident, he braked quite hard and Alguersuari tried to do the same. But he touched Lewis's tyre and went flying a little bit. I started to brake, braked as hard as I could, but it was maybe too late. In this situation you cannot do anything. So I hit the wall."

Petrov was also critical of Sutil's driving earlier in the race when he had been trying to pass the Force India for fifth.

"Sutil defended his position quite badly because I tried to overtake him side by side three or four times and he pushed me out on the wall a few times and closed the line, not once but twice," said Petrov.

"It's not fair like this because you know in Monaco it's difficult to overtake. His tyres were completely gone and he knew it. Everyone would have passed him. So it's a pity."

Sergio Perez says he feels in good shape after leaving hospital following his Monaco accident, and is optimistic he will be fit for the Canadian Grand Prix in a fortnight.

The Sauber driver sustained concussion and bruising when he had a high-speed, side-on impact with the barriers at the chicane in Q3, and spent two nights in Princess Grace hospital under observation.

"I feel okay. I have little bit of pain in my leg and in my neck, but this comes from muscles and is nothing to worry about," said Perez.

"On Sunday I still felt a bit dizzy but that is all. Thank God I'm healthy and I'm looking forward to being back in the car soon.

"They treated me very well in the hospital. I want to thank the staff for this, and also want to thank everyone else who was worrying about me - the people from the team who came to see me and other visitors as well. My family has also been with me. I want to say thank you for all the messages I received. I'm very grateful for all the support and feel sorry for not having replied to all of the messages. There were so many and my phone very quickly ran out of battery."

Asked if he was confident he would be fit for the next race, Perez replied: "yes, I'm pretty sure I will be driving in Montreal," and when asked about his plans for the coming days, he added: "very simple - [doing] everything to make sure I can drive in Canada."

Perez said his memory of what happened in qualifying had still not quite returned.

"I remember how I started Q3 and I also remember some of the accident," he said. "For the time being I am missing some memories about what happened after the first impact and the rescue procedures.

"I don't really know what caused the accident. My race engineer told me there was no problem with the car. I can only guess that I might have been a bit off-line or braked on a bump."

Paul di Resta said he was going to be very hard on himself over his Monaco Grand Prix tangle with Jaime Alguersuari, as he encountered the first blip of his so far fairly trouble-free Formula 1 career.

The Scot only finished 12th in Monte Carlo after getting a penalty for his move on the Toro Rosso. Di Resta later had a similar tangle with Jerome d'Ambrosio's Virgin.

He said he knew he was always going to have incidents in his rookie season, but that did not make him any less frustrated.

"There's nothing you can take from it really," di Resta told AUTOSPORT.

"I was going to make a mistake a some point and unfortunately it was quite costly in that position.

"At the same point I'm going to be very critical of myself and it was me to blame.

"I'll just continue to try and rebuild on. In terms of everything else my grand prix was quite enjoyable. I certainly enjoyed driving here."

While accepting blame for the collision, di Resta added that he felt the marshals had confused the situation by waving blue flags at Alguersuari as Lewis Hamilton approached - even though both the McLaren and the Force India were racing the Toro Rosso for position at that point.

"Sometimes these things happen. But what I was quite annoyed about was that he got blue flags to let Lewis by, but I was behind Lewis and I never got the blue flags," said di Resta.

"At the same time I probably should have bided my time because there was probably quite a few points up for grabs."

Fernando Alonso reckons the British Grand Prix in July will be the key indicator of whether Ferrari has any chance of fighting for this year's world championship.

After falling 74 points behind leader Sebastian Vettel as the reigning champion took his fifth win of the year in Monaco yesterday, Alonso expressed concern that his world title hopes were looking remote.

In his column on Ferrari's website, Alonso said that verdict was influenced by his initial disappointment at losing a race he was confident he could have won.

"Immediately after the race, I said the fight for the title was getting ever more difficult, not to say impossible," he wrote. "Sure, if Vettel ends up winning a race in which we felt there was a chance of victory, then you get a feeling of disappointment, but that does not mean we will not continue working hard at the track and back home on developing the car.

"Clearly the gap in the championship is widening all the time: we can do the maths, but neither myself nor the team are used to throwing in the towel."

With the forthcoming Montreal and Valencia tracks relatively unusual, Alonso said it will be the return to a more traditional venue at Silverstone in mid-July that shows whether Ferrari is competitive enough to stay in the title hunt.

"Already today, I've been talking to the engineers about the new parts we will have in Montreal, but above all, of the steps forward we must take for Silverstone, when we will back at a track which requires a lot of aerodynamic downforce," he said.

"That's where we will really see how our season is going to pan out. Up until then, we want to and we must believe in ourselves."

[Lineker]

Renault says its partnership with Group Lotus, which includes title sponsorship, is more solid then ever - despite rival Team Lotus being allowed to keep its name.

Group Lotus had tried to stop Team Lotus from using the 'Lotus' name in F1, but the High Court did not accept its claims. The matter is now likely to go to appeal.

Even though that means there are two 'Lotus' teams in F1, Renault team principal Eric Boullier believes that the legal issues have only served to strengthen his sponsors' commitments to the future.

"There is no change for us, which is very good," Boullier told AUTOSPORT about the implications of the Lotus court case on Renault. "It has actually reinforced our partnership very well.

"The matter is more or less an issue between Team Lotus and Lotus, even if there is talk about it going further and going legal. I don't want to get involved with it because that is not my part."

He added: "Regarding my part, what is clear is that some part of the misunderstanding and confusion has been cleared.

"Thanks to this, it has clearly reinforced the involvement of Lotus Cars and Proton in our company. We have a seven year sponsorship agreement with a title sponsorship level, which is a lot of money, and that is the best that we can dream to have."

Boullier also hit back at rumours over the Monaco weekend that Renault was in financial trouble, with a report suggesting it owed money to its parent company Renault.

"It is very funny how stories can blow up like this and constantly come back," said Boullier. "It is maybe not a coincidence, but there is some old guard from Renault here [in Monaco] so maybe they keep spreading rumours on their own.

"This journalist [who wrote the story] did not come and see me to ask if it was true or not, and I am ready to do it whenever he wants - to open my books for him.

"Like any business, we have some loans for our own business and our own investment, but we don't have any debt now to Renault in 2011.

"We have a multi-year contract and a special agreement between us and Renault, like when you pay your mortgage back. We have some pending loan payments for the future, but that is for the future – it is not for this year. We have absolutely no issue at all. Everything is fine, perfectly fine."

AUTOSPORT understands that Renault owners Genii Capital secured the purchase of the final 25% in Renault with a multi-year loan from the French car company – which requires payment of 5 million Euros this year, 6 million Euros in 2012 and 7 million Euros in 2013.

Renault team boss Eric Boullier says Nick Heidfeld needs to raise his game following a series of disappointing races this season.

Although the German started the season strongly with a podium in the second race of the year, he has struggled to match the pace of team-mate Vitaly Petrov in qualifying, something that has hindered his chances of better results on Sunday.

Boullier reckons Heidfeld's season has not been "good enough" and believes the German has to improve to be able to match Petrov's pace right from the start of the GP weekends.

"I don't know," Boullier told AUTOSPORT when asked what Heidfeld needed to do. "I need to sit down with him and understand his concerns and to have a fair understanding of the situation.

"It needs to be from practice one to be at least on Vitaly's pace and it looks like there is always a delay, and qualifying if you are not ready car wise, balance wise and confidence wise then you cannot deliver on one single lap."

When asked to rate Heidfeld's season so far, he said: "Let's say good, but not good enough.

"Sunday is okay. Sunday's pace is good, it is very good, but obviously the higher we qualify on the grid, the better the chance we have to score more points."

Boullier also conceded the team's qualifying form is a concern after failing to get any cars into Q3 in Monaco.

"If you are first and third on the grid, that is not a worry. But if you are 11th and 16th then that starts to be a worry."

Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn says a season finale on December 11 is "totally unacceptable" and revealed that the teams have told Bernie Ecclestone as much.

Ecclestone is considering moving the Indian Grand Prix back to December 11 in order to accommodate the return of the Bahrain Grand Prix to the calendar, having ruled out a December 4 date because of logistics.

Brawn, who had already said he was against a December 4 finale, believes Formula 1 teams will run into problems if the seasons continue to stretch.

And he said the December 11 date is "totally unacceptable."

"It is getting too much," said Brawn. "Our guys have been working since January, we don't have test teams anymore, so the same guys have been working since January and we are asking them to work into December and that means there is no time for a holiday before Christmas and that would mean getting straight back in to it in January.

"So personally I think it is unacceptable and we've told Bernie that and he knows our opinion. If we continue to take those sort of approaches then we will run into problems because our people cannot be expected to work in that environment and situation, so I think it is totally unacceptable."

Brawn said the teams needed to wait and see what happens with Bahrain before considering further action if they are forced to finish the season in December.

"The teams have opportunities to state their opinion. There are processes that we can get involved in to try and resolve it, so I think we should wait and see what happens with the question of the Bahrain.

"There is a WMSC meeting coming up, and that is what triggers the difficulty in the calendar. We need to see what happens there before we start to deal with this issue. We are not getting too excited about it, but the relevant people know our opinion."

The deadline for a decision on the Bahrain Grand Prix in on Friday.

Pirelli's motorsport boss Paul Hembery says it is impossible to predict how tyres will behave during the Canadian Grand Prix next week.

With the Montreal circuit being a mixture of street circuit and permanent road course, Hembery believes there is no way to make a prediction about the performance of the rubber, although he reckons the degradation will not be as aggressive as many people expect.

The tyre manufacturer will take to Canada the same compounds it used at Monaco, the soft and the super soft.

"Tyres are a strange thing," Hembery told AUTOSPORT. "If they are too hard, and they don't provide any grip, then they can wear much faster.

"The reason we are going super soft and soft is that you want to have grip from the tyre, if you go with something too hard then you end wheel-spinning, tyres grain and they get consumed even quicker. I know it is a strange conundrum and a lot of people are thinking Montreal will be very aggressive but probably not.

"We've never run there. I have a pretty good idea here, I have been to Montreal. I've seen the track, I've walked it, but I am not going to make a prediction. We want to see what happens in first practice. It is impossible to predict."

Hembery said Pirelli had received a lot of positive feedback following the debut of the super soft tyre in Monaco, which he labelled as an intriguing race.

"I have to say it was intriguing for us here to sit back and see," he said. "Probably the most intriguing race so far. Probably not the most exciting in terms of overtaking on circuit, which was Shanghai, but in terms of strategy it was absolutely fascinating because the other element with pitstops was they were trying to play on position.

"We had tremendous comments back. The British public have been very complimentary, but people didn't like the red flag and the change of tyres. That is the one thing that with my fans' hat on is one thing we come back and say 'huh?'"

He also said Pirelli has no plans to alter the four compounds it has at the moment during the rest of the season.

"We have to be careful, particularly when the championship goes forward and you get to the point where championships are going to be decided, so you have to do it based on some good know-how and knowledge.

"We haven't got any current plans to change anything going forward. We are keeping the four compounds we have got now unless of course we get to a situation where something clearly isn't working and we have to make a change."