F1: Ricciardo Beats Vettel To Win 2018 Monaco GP Despite Engine Troubles

Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo sealed a fantastic weekend with a win at the 2018 F1 Monaco Grand Prix. The Australian qualified at pole position on Saturday and was quick to retain his lead for the entire race at Monaco, despite some close calls from Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari, who finished second. Taking the last place on the podium was Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton. However, Ricciardo's biggest competition came from his own engine, after the driver realised his powertrain had a problem almost halfway into the race. The Red Bull driver managed to hold off Vettel despite the challenge, and took his second win of the season and first-ever at Monaco.

(Daniel Ricciardo showed brilliant pace at Monaco, with Vettel coming in a close second)

Ricciardo led the race right from the green lights with Vettel holding on to second, while Hamilton, Raikkonen and Bottas following closely. It was expected to be a race of saving tyres for a Ricciardo in a one pitstop strategy, but the apparent issue with the energy recovery system took precedence for the remainder of the race. Vettel managed to stay on Ricciardo's tail for most the race. Ricciardo pointed out the issue to the pit garage, but Red Bull indicated that it wasn't something that could be fixed. Nevertheless, Ricciardo balanced out the power well crossing the finish line by an impressive lead of 7.336s. Hamilton was a distant third, 17.013s off the race leader after facing issues with his tyres.

(The top three positions seemed out of reach for Kimi, as he trailed behind Hamilton)

Behind him was Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari, followed by Valtteri Bottas in fifth place, but neither drivers could pass Hamilton in the latter stages of the race to take on the race leader. Finishing sixth was Esteban Ocon of Force India, who ran a long opening stint than the race leaders before pitting for new tyres, but managed to stay ahead of Torro Rosso's Pierre Gasly at P7 and Renault's Nico Hulkenberg at P8, who seemed dominant on fresh tyres in the second half of the race.

(Verstappen cut through the chicane on Lap 58 to take P9 from Sainz)

Red Bull had an interesting start to the 2018 Monaco GP with one car at the pole and one starting all the way at the back. After crashing in FP3 yesterday, Verstappen couldn't participate in qualifying and started the race in the last row. However, the young Red Bull did not lack pace and finished ninth behind Hulkenberg, but not before a battle with Renault's Carlos Sainz. While both Hulkenberg and Sainz put up a good team effort to keep Verstappen off limits on Lap 54, the Belgian passed Sainz on Lap 58 to take P9, and retained the position as Sainz couldn't catch up in the 78 lap race.

There was just one major crash at the Monaco GP with Charles Leclerc of Sauber rear-ending Torro Rosso's Brendon Hartley under braking on Lap 70. The incident retired both the drivers as the cars took significant damage. The accident promoted Marcus Ericsson of Sauber and Sergio Perez of Force India to 11th and 12th positions respectively.

(Fernando Alonso took his first DNF of the season at Monaco)

Another retirement in the race was that of Fernando Alonso in the McLaren on Lap 26, who suffered issues with his gearbox whilst in seventh place. This turned out to be Alonso's first DNF this season. Meanwhile, teammate Stoffel Vandoorne finished 14th behind Kevin Magnussen of Haas. And the bottom spots were taken by Romain Grosjean (Haas), Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll in the Williams.

Hamilton continues to top the driver standings with a lead of 14 points over Vettel, while Ricciardo has been promoted to third with 72 points.