Formula 1: Sebastian Vettel ends miserable drought in Monaco

Sebastian Vettel broke out of a miserable funk to open up his Aston Martin tenure in Formula 1 in Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix at Circuit de Monaco.

Entering the fifth race on the 2021 Formula 1 schedule, the Monaco Grand Prix at Circuit de Monaco, seven of the sport’s 10 teams had seen at least one of their two drivers score points, as Alfa Romeo, Williams and Haas were all scoreless through four events.

However, 13, not 14, of the drivers on those seven teams had managed to score. All 13 of those drivers had scored points by the season’s second race at Imola, and 12 of those 13 drivers had scored in multiple events, with AlphaTauri rookie Yuki Tsunoda being the only one to score just once.

The one driver among that 14-driver group who had not yet scored was Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel. He had not finished a race higher than 13th place, and those other 13 drivers had all secured at least one top nine result. His best finishes of the season were his 13th place finishes in Portimao and Barcelona.

Meanwhile, teammate Lance Stroll finished no worse than 14th place in those four races, and he had scored twice.

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So sitting at the bottom of the driver standings along with the Alfa Romeo pair of Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen, the Williams pair of George Russell and Nicholas Latifi, and the Haas pair of rookies Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin was Vettel.

But the 33-year-old German was able to change that in his fifth Aston Martin start in Sunday’s 78-lap race around the 19-turn, 2.074-mile (3.338-kilometer) temporary street circuit in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

And he did it in a big way.

After starting on the fourth row, Vettel utilized an amazing tire strategy to get ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton for sixth place, and he utilized a great maneuver on the tight streets of Monte Carlo to get ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly for fifth, which is where he finished.

With 10 points, he vaulted himself from a last place tie to 11th place in the driver standings, and he actually now ranks ahead of Stroll, who still had a solid race with an eighth place result to score four points. Aston Martin vaulted from seventh to fifth in the constructor standings as a result of the success.

This race was the first race since the season’s second race to see a new driver score points in 2021, and Giovinazzi joined Vettel in doing so with a 10th place finish, netting Alfa Romeo their first point of the year and leaving Williams and Haas as the only two scoreless teams.

With Vettel, who had been on a seven-race scoring drought going back to last season prior to Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, now one point ahead of Stroll in the driver standings fresh off what was arguably his best performance in several years, can he hang on to his lead in the Aston Martin teammate battle to secure his first teammate battle victory since beating Raikkonen at Ferrari in 2018?

The next race on the schedule is the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, which is scheduled to take place on Sunday, June 6. This race is set to be broadcast live on ESPN from Baku City Circuit beginning at 8:00 a.m. ET.