Apparently the gods of Monaco were looking out for Lewis Hamilton this year,
after completely abandoning him last year. The Principality has always favored cars with strong downforce, even if their power units were lacking. For this reason we can assume that both Red Bull (for the first reason) and McLaren (for the latter) had this race circled on their calendars. Ricciardo put his car on pole, joining Vettel and Massa as only the third non-Mercedes driver since the start of the 2014 season to claim the front spot on the grid.
Monaco is notorious for favoring the pole-sitter. Over the last 30 years, if the pole-sitter isn't forced to retire (which they had to do in seven out of 30 tries) they go on to win 61% of the time. Barring any mistakes, Ricciardo was well-positioned to take the victory.
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Pit stop mistake. Notice the lack of new tires. Source: YouTube.com |
Even with the botched pit stop, Ricciardo was on Hamilton's gearbox most of the rest of the way, and not even the looming threat of rain and mild sprinkles at the end of the race was enough to let him by.