Nico Rosberg realised a childhood dream with victory in the Monaco Grand Prix, but on a day tainted for Mercedes by a protest from two of their main rivals.
Rosberg’s lights-to-flag win was classified as official just under three hours after a typically eventful Monaco race that included two safety car periods and a red-flag incident that forced a 25-minute delay.
Overshadowing the event, however, was a protest launched by Red Bull and Ferrari beforehand against Mercedes after they conducted a secret tyre test in conjuction with Pirelli on May 15-17 in Barcelona.
After hearing representations from the three teams and Pirelli, the stewards have confirmed they are to now write a report to the FIA “who may bring the matter before the international tribunal”.
As the matter is a breach of a particular article of the sporting code, any potential penalty is likely to involve a fine, race ban or points deduction rather than any belated action against this event.
It means Rosberg is a Monaco GP winner, 30 years after father Keke took the chequered flag in the principality.
The 27-year-old German becomes the first son of a former victor of this race to finish on the top step of the podium of F1’s blue-riband event.
Rosberg said: “This is my home. I’ve grown up here, lived all my life here. So now to win at home is very special. The whole weekend really went perfectly.
A fortnight ago in Spain, Rosberg had again started on pole, but given his car rapidly chewed up the tyres he dropped to sixth and finished 70 seconds behind Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. On this occasion, after finishing quickest in all three practice sessions and then edging team-mate Lewis Hamilton to pole by 0.091secs, the victory was the icing on the cake.
It is, however, slightly tainted given the secret tyre test, but he refused to discuss the matter when pressed, and instead focused only on his “amazing” day.
But after locking out the front row there was no Mercedes one-two as Hamilton lost out in the first safety-car spell, finishing fourth behind Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.
Behind the leading quartet Force India’s Adrian Sutil was fifth, with Scottish team-mate Paul Di Resta ninth, the duo either side of Jenson Button in his McLaren, Alonso and Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne.
Kimi Raikkonen managed to extend his run of points finishes to 23 one short of Michael Schumacher’s record by taking 10th.