Valtteri Bottas spent his entire afternoon staring at the rear end of Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari, the Mercedes never getting close enough to mount a proper attack on his fellow Finn.
The duo was locked in the position they started from - fourth and fifth respectively - for the duration of the 78-lap race, racing on their own but without any real opportunity for Bottas to move ahead given Monaco's frustrating overtaking restrictions.
"It can be very frustrating when you feel you have the pace but there’s nothing you can do with it,” Bottas said at the end of a frustrating day.
"It is extremely difficult here to overtake and I was never close enough to Kimi that I could try to attack.
"I felt I had better pace than the cars in front of me but I knew that as soon as I would get close to them there was nothing I could do.
"I think he struggled with his front tyres more than I, but his rears looked in very good condition and he could always get good traction out of the last corner and also into the tunnel, so I never got close to him in the places where you can overtake here unfortunately."
Bottas doubted his uneventful afternoon would have been any different had he gone for a different strategy.
"I think we made the right choice with the superSoft tyre for my second stint, it felt like it was working better than the ultraSofts," he said.
"The first stint was difficult because of the tyre drop-off, but the second stint was really good, I could put pressure on the cars ahead.
"I had more pace than the cars in front of me, and yet there was nothing I could do," lamented the Finn.
"We knew the weekend might be difficult and that's how it turned out to be, but we managed to do successful damage limitation.
"Qualifying P5 did not make that any easier for me and I don't think we could have done anything different today with the car we have.
"Montreal should be a better hunting ground for our car, so we hope for a better outcome in Canada."
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