Rosberg voted Monaco GP Driver of the Weekend

2013 Monaco Grand Prix

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Despite a cloud of innuendo over Mercedes’ test prior to the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, Nico Rosberg’s victory was deemed impressive enough to see him lead the Driver of the Weekend voting for the first time this year.

Adrian Sutil came second after some impressive overtakes and Kimi Raikkonen was voted into third place after his remarkable late-race recovery.

1. Nico Rosberg

Started: 1st
Finished: 1st

Mercedes were tipped as favourites for Monaco even before the details of their clandestine test for Pirelli became public.

Taking pole position is half the battle at Monaco and once Rosberg had done that he never looked back. He ran a very slow pace in the opening laps to nullify his rivals’ strategic options, and weathered a series of interruptions in the race on the way to the second victory of his career.

Easiest decision so far this year. Rosberg.

Fastest in all three free practice sessions, pole position, led every lap of the race on the way to victory. The ideal weekend.

He didn’t get fazed by the Safety Cars and the red flag period and did a great job at the restarts. He may have been helped a little by the fact that this is Monaco, but you still have to complete the race without making a mistake and he didn’t. Fully deserved the win and is showing once again how skilled a driver he is.
@Magnificent-Geoffrey

Can only be Nico Rosberg for me. Fastest in all practice sessions and led every lap to a well controlled victory.

Perhaps most impressively he took his third pole position in a row against qualifying specialist Vettel in a very quick Red Bull and against qualifying specialist Hamilton in the same machinery. After the last few weekends and in particular this one, I rate Rosberg a lot higher than before.
Douglas (@Mwahahaha)

Nico Rosberg never put a tyre wrong all weekend long and at the Monaco GP that can mean the difference between victory or disaster. Some of the best drivers in the history of the sport have been caught out there with the smallest of mistakes that ended in agony. Hats off to Rosberg!
@Bullmello

2. Adrian Sutil

Started: 8th
Finished: 5th

Sutil stunned a pair of world champions with brave and expertly-timed passes at Loews hairpin during the race. That left him in the right place to profit from the collision between Sergio Perez and Kimi Raikkonen to claim a strong fifth.

Everyone expected Nico Rosberg to perform well. He had the fastest car in qualifying and he had already set pole on the two previous occasions. He had also had a brilliant Grand Prix in 2012. It wasn’t difficult for him to start on pole, and then stay first for the whole race.

Sutil is the driver that really surprised me. For a few weeks, he was a bit in the shadow of his team mate, and some began to doubt his performances. Sutil has answered to all his detractors this week-end. He managed to get to Q3, while Di Resta was stuck in Q1.

Starting from eighth position he kept out of trouble, avoiding all the incidents, and then he also managed to make some brilliant passes. The end result: he finished fifth, behind the Red Bulls and the Mercedes, who were way faster than the rest.
@Dan_The_Mclaren_Fan

For me it’s Adrian Sutil. He made several amazing overtaking moves where it’s almost impossible to overtake and they were very clean, unlike moves, which were done by some other drivers. His 5th place was well deserved and if he qualified higher, he could’ve fought with the leaders.
@Osvaldas31

3. Kimi Raikkonen

Started: 5th
Finished: 10th

Raikkonen had a quiet race to begin with before coming under persistent attack from Perez. Both could have done more to avoid the contact that spoiled both their races but Raikkonen was at least able to continue after a pit stop to replace a punctured tyre. Now came the fireworks: revelling in his grippier rubber he picked off three cars in the last two laps to claim a point.

Kimi Raikkonen. His last lap was the best lap ever driven in Monaco.
@Rudi

Raikkonen for the last couple of laps
Rick (@ViscountViktor)

2013 Driver of the Weekend results

RaceFirstSecondThird
Australian Grand PrixKimi Raikkonen (51.2%)Adrian Sutil (17.9%)Jules Bianchi (13.6%)
Malaysian Grand PrixMark Webber (34.2%)Sebastian Vettel (17.4%)Nico Rosberg (13.6%)
Chinese Grand PrixFernando Alonso (47.0%)Daniel Ricciardo (18.2%)Kimi Raikkonen (15.6%)
Bahrain Grand PrixSebastian Vettel (32.2%)Paul di Resta (17.8%)Fernando Alonso (11.9%)
Spanish Grand PrixFernando Alonso (61.4%)Felipe Massa (10.8%)Kimi Raikkonen (10.5%)
Monaco Grand PrixNico Rosberg (54.3%)Adrian Sutil (22.2%)Kimi Raikkonen (9.6%)

Canadian Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend

Voting is still open in the Canadian Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend poll so add your vote here:

2013 Monaco Grand Prix

Browse all 2013 Monaco Grand Prix articles

Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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29 comments on “Rosberg voted Monaco GP Driver of the Weekend”

  1. *Slightly* off-topic, but does anybody know if there is any (ideally onboard) footage of Raikkonen’s last stint in Monaco, making up those places?

    1. Traverse (@)
      12th June 2013, 14:14

      Here’s footage of the overtakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZhn1Rusxqg
      Bear in mind that he was on fresh tyres and overtaking slower cars that sported worn tyres.

  2. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    12th June 2013, 10:49

    Well deserved. Controlled the race beautifully.

  3. With the 1st-3, 2nd-2, 3rd-1 points system we have:
    ALO: 7
    RAI: 6
    VET: 5
    SUT, RIC, ROS: 4
    WEB: 3
    MAS, DIR: 2
    BIA: 1

    1. I don’t think its fair to just look at 1st 2nd and 3rd. Top 5 with 1st-5point etc… would be a bit better.

      1. I will do it :)

    2. Interesting to see that Hamilton hasn’t been in the top three at all yet. Personally I would agree that he’s been solid but not spectacular.

      Also neither McLaren driver appearing!

    3. @sigman1998 Shouldn’t RIC have 2 & ROS have 5?

      1. You are correct about RIC, not so for ROS

  4. Rosberg – thoroughly deserved, Sutil – the same.

    As for Kimi, I really do not feel he was quite there.

    1. @bascb because he turned up. Honestly, why a few laps make him worthy of driver or the weekend is absolutely baffling.

      1. @vettel1 You just have to laugh.

      2. *of obviously! @deej92 exactly: the only justification seems to be because of those last few laps (on new supersofts against essentially back markers – one of whom actually let him through – on old tyres). Really‽ DOTW‽

  5. When Vettel wins the votes go elsewhere. In the GP’s he’s won, the DOTW percentage are the lowest…

    1. Traverse (@)
      12th June 2013, 14:07

      Jealousy is a terrible thing…not appreciating and acclaiming real talent is also a blight on modern society.

    2. I think the obvious reason for this is that when Vettel wins from the start, in the fastest car, it’s almost as if he’s not proving himself. He’ll prove himself as a driver of the weekend when he comes from 10th to win. That’s just the how it is.

      When Rosberg comes from pole and leads pretty much every lap to win, it’s special exactly because we don’t see it all the time.

      1. @danbrown how do we explain Alonso then though? You can’t use him starting lower as an excuse for that’s due to his fairly unspectacular qualifying performances. However, his car was undeniably fastest in race trim in Spain for example (not emphatically as was the case with Vettel in Canada, but still fastest).

        This is not to say either of them didn’t perform brilliantly though as I personally feel both deserve the title of driver of the weekend in those instances but I’m curious to see how you respond to that…

          1. @vettel1 I definitely think there is some anti Vettel sentiment. But that’s kind of to be expected when he’s looking to on his way to win his fourth championship in a row.

            In Canada, everything worth watching happened behind Vettel, so when he runs away to a victory, almost effortlessly, it’s kind of not worth watching.

          2. @danbrown180 funny you’d say that, because I feel exactly the same when Alonso wins by +10 seconds! However, that doesn’t make his race performance any less spectacular, so to me it’s all anti-Vettel sentiment.

  6. Traverse (@)
    12th June 2013, 13:59

    Kimi Raikkonen 3rd!?

  7. Traverse and Monkeys incoming.
    In my half-race view, it should have been Perez on third…but, but these two moves on Kimi where enough to decline my vote for him. The second incident was started by kamikaze and finished by another, smaller kamikaze…but Kimi made it up with her massive last stint, it still didn’t made it up for his average race and shouldn’t be on third…yet I voted for him, where I was over excited by these last laps as many others +100% Kimi-fan voters , funny enough.

    1. @velodrive you’ve forgotten Maximillian ;)

      1. The team of Kimi-sceptics

  8. Should have been Jev in 3rd

  9. A bit surprised with seeing Räikkönen there. Then again, I don’t really recall him any mistakes during the course of the weekend except maybe for the Perez incident – avoidable, sure – but he didn’t really do anything wrong, much like Hamilton in Valencia last year (the Maldonado crash) if I recall correctly but that’s entirely a matter of opinion.

    Interestingly, Vettel is the only race winner this year so far who has failed to get over half the votes in any of the events he won. Two almost identical victories: Vettel’s in Bahrain and Alonso’s in Barcelona, only difference being that Alonso was worse in quali, and Vettel gets only half the number of votes Alonso got.

  10. I’m enjoying this new ‘first’ ‘second’ and ‘third’ of the drivers rating, the statistics are really coming along! I can not wait ’till the end of the year when it is all analysed, and a ‘driver of the year’ is crowned along with the bloke who got the least votes during the whole season.

    Great work! Loving it as always

  11. Fikri Harish (@)
    13th June 2013, 15:38

    I don’t think Kimi should’ve been there, then again I’m not sure who should.
    This is why it’s never good to see a race where no one was able to push, most drivers looked anonymous out there except for the idiots.

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