2017 Monaco Grand Prix team radio highlights: Race

2017 Monaco Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

Lewis Hamilton told his team “the battle’s not over” at the end of a disappointing Monaco Grand Prix for the Mercedes driver. Here are the team radio highlights.

Fernando Alonso had a pre-race message for Jenson Button, who took his seat for this race.

Monaco Grand Prix in pictures
Alonso: “Jenson my friend I am sure we wanted to hear my voice just before you started the race. Take care of my car.”
Button: “Thank you. I’m going to pee in your seat!”

Hamilton played the waiting game early in the race.

Hamilton: “It’s hard to get close to these guys.”
“Copy that, Lewis. Our race comes later.”

To Perez: “Checo how is the aero balance? We think there is small end plate damage.”

Traffic quickly ceased to be a concern for Nico Hulkenberg.

“OK Nico, are we being held up?”
Hulkenberg: “A little bit. For sure if he wasn’t there could go quicker.”

To Hulkenberg: “Major gearbox problem.”

Kvyat: “I have inconsistent engine braking somehow.”

Hamilton: “Does the car seem OK? Grip is poor, handling is all over the place.”

Ericsson: “I nearly hit the wall. So difficult to drive this car, no grip.”

Go ad-free for just £1 per month

>> Find out more and sign up

Raikkonen was held up by Jenson Button.

Raikkonen: “Come on, how close do I have to get?”

To Raikkonen: “OK, let’s get back in the groove now Kimi.”

Kvyat: “I had a big spike of engine braking in turn six. Big snap.”

Button: “Oh, this is painful.”

Raikkonen’s pit stop thwarted his bid for victory – team mate Sebastian Vettel stayed out longer and jumped ahead.

To Raikkonen: “Box this lap, Kimi.”

“Checo, engine temperatures are now critical. If you can’t overtake you need to drop back.”
Perez: “You boxed me because of safety. Who cares if the engine blows up now?”

Max Verstappen also lost out through the pit stops.

“Verstappen: “Did Daniel stop.”
“Yes Max. Daniel has jumped us both.”
“What a [censored by FOM] [censored by FOM] disaster.”

A pair of punctures caused concern about the state of the track.

To Ocon: “Puncture, puncture, rear left.”

To Grosjean: “Romain, Kevin and a Force India had a puncture from turn one on the left.”

To Ricciardo: “Raikkonen just four and a half seconds ahead of you now. You were one and a half seconds quicker that lap.”

To Bottas: “Possible raised manhole cover exit turn one. There have been some punctures.”

“Hamilton: “How’s the pace?”
“Pace is very good, Lewis. You’re the fastest man out there at the moment.”

“To Button: “Track is breaking up at the exit of turn one.”

Looks like the resurfacing at the apex of Sainte Devote.”

Jenson Button tangled with Pascal Wehrlein and the pair retired, the Sauber perched on its side at Portier. During the ensuing Safety Car period his team mate Marcus Ericsson crashed out.

“Are you OK.”
Wehrlein: “Yes. It would be better if I could jump out.”

Stroll: “I’m losing a lot of brake temp. If I don’t brake I’m going to lose temperature and crash.”

“Marcus all OK?”
Ericsson: “Agh!”
“What happened?”
“I’ve hit the wall.”

Verstappen took another set of ultra-soft tyres for the final laps but was was unable to pass Valtteri Bottas.

To Verstappen: “Let’s get stuck into Bottas.”

“If you’re comfortable, strat six.”
Bottas: “Does it look comfortable?”

“To Perez: “Yellow seven drive position nine and green cal one.”
“Guys you really want me to crash? Stop [censored by FOM] around.”

Hamilton: “The battle’s not over, guys. Let’s take these points.”

“You deserved this one.”
Vettel: “The two laps with the old tyre I was giving everything I had.”

The full race radio transcript will be published later this week.

2017 Monaco Grand Prix

Browse all 2017 Monaco Grand Prix articles

Author information

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...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

13 comments on “2017 Monaco Grand Prix team radio highlights: Race”

  1. perez not doing favour to himself with those comments

    1. Well, he was overtaking Kvyat… And, guess what? He crashed! Sometimes the guys in the pit wall are very inopportune to say the least, they have all the information, they should know best. Today’s race for FI was fubar beyond recognition

      1. I can understand that comment, as it was a critical moment. This message though, …
        “Checo, engine temperatures are now critical. If you can’t overtake you need to drop back.”
        Perez: “You boxed me because of safety. Who cares if the engine blows up now?”
        His front wing did look too dangerous to continue with, so I don’t know why he was mad at the team.

  2. Verstappen’s FOM bleeped outburst was hilarious! Sure Raikonnen felt the same!

    1. It’s nightmare, outperforming your team mate consistantly, but not getting the points deserved.

      If things continue this way Ricciardo may have a good shot on becoming WDC after all.

      1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
        28th May 2017, 19:03

        What was wrong with what Red Bull did? They pitted the lead driver first who was Verstappen. Then as soon as this happened, Bottas pitted next lap and how were Red Bull to know this. This then allowed Ricciardo to pull ahead and Red Bull shouldn’t have stopped him from doing so. If they had done things they other way around. I am certain that at ther time, a load of people will have been wondering why on earth Red Bull were not pitting the lead driver first.

        Anyway, Horner said Verstappen made a mistake in the pits. He parked at a slightly awkward angle for his pit crew which slowed things down a little. Horner said about 5 tenths which he believed may have been enough for Verstappen to come out in front of Bottas. I’m not so convinced though about it affecting him that much. But it was still a mistake that cost him a small margin of time.

        1. I agree. If Red Bull hadn’t left Ricciardo out they would have finished P4 and P5, so why not roll the dice and leave him out to try get a better result for the team.

  3. That verstappen call was stupid, proves he is undeserving of that seat.

    1. Hahaha, you’re so beepbeep funny…..

    2. petebaldwin (@)
      28th May 2017, 21:37

      By using that logic, does that mean Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso and Kimi are also undeserving of their seats?

  4. Hi, I recently started followingF1, so “Yellow seven drive position nine and green cal one.” comment doesnt make any sense to me. Could someone tell what does that mean. TIA

    1. The team was telling Perez to make adjustments on his steering wheel. The Force India wheel can be seen here (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7pSZghXkAgi59r.jpg), looks like they wanted him to make a change to the middle rotary switch and to move the “Cal” rotary on the bottom left.

      1. Thank you Geemac.

Comments are closed.