Nico Rosberg kept his cool amid the chaos to win the crash-marred Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday and give Mercedes their first victory of the season, as well as emulate his father’s victory from 30 years ago.
The German driver began from pole position for the third straight GP, but he had to re-start three times after the race was held up by a safety car, a red flag and the safety car again.
“Today the team gave me a great car and it’s fantastic to see how we’ve managed to improve in a short space of time,” Rosberg said. “Massive thanks to the team, we’ve really improved from Barcelona.”
Rosberg finished ahead of championship leader Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber.
Lewis Hamilton finished fourth after starting from second.
“We shouldn’t get too carried away,” Rosberg said. “We still have a bit of an issue with race pace.”
The red flag came out with about 30 laps to go when Williams driver Pastor Maldonado was nudged into the wall by Marussia’s Max Chilton.
Earlier, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa crashed and the safety car came out a second time when Frenchman Romain Grosjean smashed his Lotus into Daniel Ricciardo’s Toro Rosso.
The 27-year-old Rosberg danced on the bonnet of his car before jumping off to hug team members.
In 1983, the former world champion Keke Rosberg took the chequered flag in Formula One’s showcase race.
“It was such a special race, in the last races we had pole postion but (dropped) back so much. “
Rosberg won his other career GP from pole at the China GP last year and his previous best result this season was fourth in Malaysia, even though he started the last two from the front of the grid.
They were useful points for three-time defending champion Vettel, who extended his lead at the top of the standings to 21 points over Kimi Raikkonen and 29 over Fernando Alonso, who failed to repeat his Spanish GP win from two weeks ago and could only manage seventh place.
Raikkonen finished way down in 10th after being barged by McLaren’s Sergio Perez late on.
Sutil finishes 5th Meanwhile, Sahara Force India had a remarkable outing as comeback man Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta finished a creditable fifth and ninth respectively, earning the team 12 world championship points.
Starting eight on the grid, Sutil passed both Button (6th) and Alonso (7th) with opportunistic overtaking maneuvres at the hairpin en route to his fifth place finish to earn vital 10 points for his side.