Sebastian Vettel said he knew his overtake on Pierre Gasly through Beau Rivage would be close – but didn’t realise just how close they came.
Vettel overtook Gasly as he left the pits and climbed uphill towards Massenet. Those watching the action on television were left frustrated as the director chose to cut away from one of few moments of wheel-to-wheel racing during the afternoon.“I knew it would be close,” said Vettel. “But that close? It’s always difficult to foresee.
“I always had a bit of the nose ahead and I could see him, but not enough really to tell how much I was ahead. It was nearly side-by-side was only a quarter length of a car to half a car.
“And then it starts to go left, right. I guess he didn’t know if I saw him. So at some point he backed out of it. I gave him room, but I had fresh tyres. I went through the pick up as well. So not the most comfortable route.”
After retaining his position in front of Lewis Hamilton through his pit stop, Gasly said he had to prioritise finishing over risking a pass on Vettel. “It was either put us both in the harbour, or he was P5 and I was P6. And I’d rather score eight points than than zero.”
“Going up the hill, it’s not really straight,” Gasly explained. “If the car is two metres, he gave me two metres and two centimetres.”
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The AlphaTauri driver reckoned he was only half a second away from keeping the position. “I think I missed maybe five tenths of a second going up the hill because I was side by side with him. If I’d been five tenths faster then I would have been better.
“So you always find a bit of something. But generally our pace with the hard was not as good as with the C5 [soft]. So still things to review how we could have done better. But we kept one Mercedes behind which is a very strong performance from us.”
Vettel, who came out of the scrap to finish fifth, drew satisfaction from their brief battle in an otherwise processional race.
“I enjoyed it because that’s the time when it when it matters,” he said. “The first 10 laps was quite boring, Sergio [Perez] pushed in the beginning, but no threat, really and then he backed off to save his tyres.
“I knew that those laps before the pits would be the crucial ones and that turned out to be [the case]. So I just enjoyed the fact that I was on top of the car and could push when I had to and knew how the car will respond.”
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2021 Monaco Grand Prix
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Kevin OC
24th May 2021, 12:49
The single solitary overtake of the race and the director cut away from it twice. YOU’RE FIRED!
Jere (@jerejj)
24th May 2021, 12:59
Perhaps FOM should start doing the TV directing in Monaco too.
Monaco is still the only place where a local TV station or something is responsible for the world feed coverage for some reason.
I also wish they showed Latifi versus Tsunoda more when only they had a DRS window gap. Yes, meaningless positions, but still better than showing someone driving alone without anyone close ahead or behind.
MrBoerns (@mrboerns)
24th May 2021, 13:08
yeah they could Properly stabilize the trackside sponsors
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
24th May 2021, 13:36
@jerejj I didn’t know that.
Yes. It’s about time. It was appalling. Time to hand over the keys to the pros.
JL (@j-l)
24th May 2021, 13:43
And don’t forget the repeated Stroll slo-mo when the pitstops started, this was amateur hour.
David BR (@david-br)
24th May 2021, 15:42
@j-l You can never have enough slo-mo of Stroll strolling.
Dan Rooke (@geekzilla9000)
24th May 2021, 16:27
I saw a slo-mo of Stroll strolling during a lock-up and wheels not rolling.
Honest, guv. I’m not trolling.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
24th May 2021, 15:29
@jerejj it’s not like FOM does a much better job, tho. Remember Silverstone a couple of years ago? Bottas and Hamilton were battling for the lead, and they cut to the grandstands…
Jere (@jerejj)
24th May 2021, 15:54
@fer-no65 I agree, FOM hasn’t been perfect either, but the random cutting from one part of the field to another or from track action to pit lane/grandstands happens a bit more frequently in Monaco than elsewhere.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
24th May 2021, 18:37
@jerejj the very best solution would be to borrow the guys from FIM. FOM can go fry potatos along with the Monaco GP directors.
faulty (@faulty)
24th May 2021, 17:44
Agreed, Fer! I think this year’s Bahraini GP also had some questionable decisions.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
24th May 2021, 23:32
It would not be Monaco without the director cutting away at the wrong time. At least the vantage points are half decent and there is no artificial Parkinson’s.
Scotty (@rockonscotty)
24th May 2021, 12:59
While it’s still bad, I can see where you can miss a pass live. What I don’t get, is there wasn’t even a replay! Hopefully someone has a link to show the pass.
Jere (@jerejj)
24th May 2021, 13:02
@rockonscotty And the only replays didn’t last long enough to show what happened after Seb had rejoined just about ahead.
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
24th May 2021, 13:35
@rockonscotty if the camera wasn’t already following them, then yeah maybe—but it was *the* on-track action at the time. I nearly flipped the table when it cut away to Stroll’s mistake. And got even angrier again when the one and only replay itself cut early!
drmouse (@drmouse)
24th May 2021, 16:07
@justrhysism You’re not the only one. It was appalling! It still boiled my blood when I rewatched the race with my wife when she got home!
Alex
24th May 2021, 18:56
Kudos to you watching the race twice! I thought I was an F1 super fan but even I was struggling to keep myself awake during that utterly dull race – and that was watching it live!
Warheart (@warheart)
24th May 2021, 17:44
@justrhysism my girlfriend is not a motorsport fan, she was reading while I was watching the race but I said something when Vettel was exiting the pits and she watched the whole bit. She just said “didn’t they just switch from an overtake to a meaningless slow motion?”
My screams would’ve been censored.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
24th May 2021, 19:33
Yes, that’s what I found frustrating. Okay, so you accidentally cut away from something dramatic, but why didn’t they then show the replay of Vettel overtaking Gasly later on? It was obvious from the place chart something had happened.
CashNotClass (@cashnotclass)
24th May 2021, 13:01
It was really close, props to both for keeping it clean. Despite losing out that position, Gasly can be pleased with another solid result. He’s really showing Tsunoda up, who hasn’t really shown anything too special so far.
Lamalas (@lamalas)
24th May 2021, 13:02
Here’s a short clip of it (rear view vettel) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tuc813KkcaM
Jere (@jerejj)
24th May 2021, 13:04
@lamalas Thank you for the link. Close indeed.
Frasier (@frasier)
24th May 2021, 13:28
In fairness to C4, they showed the same clip as Jere highlighted in their post race Vettel interview. In slow-mo the barrier on the RHS of Vettel wasn’t so far away, and the outside line covered with marbles doubtless. They missed each other, good driving on both parts.
Dave
24th May 2021, 15:49
Worst TV directors ever.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
24th May 2021, 15:58
The TV Monte-Carlo coverage has always been awful & they nearly always manage to miss the few bits of action that actually do happen.
And then you have the way the cameras focus on the trackside ad’s with some cameras not panning to follow the cars in order to keep the ad’s in frame (The one at Tabac for instance which never pans to the right) & the one at the hairpin which always zooms into the giant ad-boards on the exit rather than following the car towards portier.
You compare some of the angles FOM used (TMC have switched to some of them now) on the F1 Digital+ coverage & especially the way they would use them (Following the cars rather than the ad broads) & it just highlights how poor a job TMC do in comparison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcEDhJc-EyY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOjUwkCJTxU
Esteban (@esteban)
25th May 2021, 3:32
You had to put up those glorious screaming V10s. Thanks for ruining my season, I was almost over the issue.
Balue (@balue)
24th May 2021, 16:26
It was very close and good on both of them to make it without incident.
The TV production was awful the whole weekend. Even qualifying they would cut to cars doing warm-ups or cool-downs.
Of course people with F1TV can go back and look at on-boards, but with no keyboard shortcuts, it’s practically impossible to do short jumps moving the slider and with the buffering it’s a pain to find the right part and will take minutes.
Boudi
24th May 2021, 17:02
It really was not an overtake though, at least not what people would think about an overtake, it was about VET going out of the pit in front of Gasly and keeping that place despite them being very close, he was ahead of Gasly when he went out of the pit. I can’t recall any overtake during the day other than the one between the Haas drivers in lap 1. What a dull race, honestly not sure why people love this race when not a single proper overtake was recorded.
Ldom (@ldom)
24th May 2021, 20:12
I agree. I wish they’d do something about that boring track.
nickthegreek (@nickthegreek)
24th May 2021, 20:13
the on-boards are amazing. and I love the way Monaco looks on a sunny day
erikje
26th May 2021, 17:00
Indeed, if they use more onboards it will be more entertaining.
Only then you can see the real concentration needed for 78laps.
AJ
24th May 2021, 22:48
F1 has the absolute worst directing. Practically zero ability to find and hold storylines. Most of the time it seems like an automated random camera switcher, frankly.
Jamieson Currie
25th May 2021, 3:17
The directing was brutal, but the problem with Monaco isnt the track, it’s the cars.
knightameer (@knightameer)
25th May 2021, 10:19
TV direction at Monaco GP is always crappy, but atleast the scenery makes up for it. The real eye cancer is when we get zoomed out/overhead shots in the French GP. Real anxiety inducing stuff!!