No team orders at Ferrari, insists Vettel

Monaco Grand Prix race winner Sebastian Vettel rejected the idea that Ferrari had planned to use team orders on Sunday.

Vettel started in second place behind his team mate Kimi Raikkonen, who led for the first 33 laps of the race. However Vettel stayed out longer before making his pit stop, and came back out just ahead of Raikkonen.

He insisted that the team hadn't been sure whether the overcut would work, or who would be on the winning strategy at the end of the day.

"From the team point of view, there was no plan of any team orders or anything," Vettel said after the race.

"We spoke about the race before," he continued. "I think they had the same plan to be honest. The lead car normally gets priority. If I had a choice at that point, sitting behind Kimi, if I was going in the pits first. That’s maybe what you like to do, you're on the fresher tyres sooner.

"The plan was to try and pull away, which we did," he explained. "Then Valtteri had really good pace, we were struggling more with our rears and at that point the [pit] window opened.

"Valtteri obviously pitted, Kimi responded. For me I think I still had a bit of a gap, nothing to lose in P2, so I tried to push as hard as possible.

"Within two laps I was surprised myself to be able to pull a gap to be able to come out in front."

"I think it’s probably one of the rare occasions where the overcut turned out to be positive. I’m really glad I made that work.

"I can understand that obviously Kimi’s not happy [with how it turned out]. I would feel exactly the same, one hundred per cent the same"

Vettel takes complete control over Raikkonen at Monaco

Vettel said he was delighted to have won again at Monaco. He took his first victory on the iconic circuit in 2011 with Red Bull, while Ferrari hasn't won here for 16 years.

" A supreme day for Ferrari; it’s been a long time," he said. "It's a fantastic job the team has done, so credit to them. A fantastic weekend for Ferrari.

"I think it’s most important that we had a very, very good day, a win," he suggested. "It means an awful lot to the team. I will not find the right words but for me it was a pretty special race.

"It’s just been fantastic. A fantastic weekend for the team and a great reward. This team is working very hard. Obviously this year is very different to last year but the people are the same, the spirit is the same. It’s important that we keep pushing, improving the car."

Vettel now has a 25 point lead over Lewis Hamilton in the drivers championship, but he was dismissing any talk of being favourite for the 2017 title after Monaco.

"For now I am just going to enjoy the win here," he insisted. "I think we’ll have a fun night and then we have enough time to prepare for Canada."

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Gallery: All the pictures from Saturday in Monaco

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.