Vettel delighted not to leave Monaco 'empty handed' after P10 finish, as Stroll takes positives from 'tricky race'

Sebastian Vettel took the final points position at the Monaco Grand Prix, after the Aston Martin driver benefitted from Esteban Ocon’s late penalty to finish in P10. And Vettel, who was in high spirits after the race, praised the effort of his team after recovering from his early issues.

Vettel started the race in P9 and the four-time world champion, who had lost a place to Ocon after going off at Sainte Devote on Lap 6, was running in 11th before being moved up a place after Ocon’s five-second penalty for causing a collision with Lewis Hamilton. And Vettel admitted that while he was happy with 10th, he had hoped for a better outcome.

“Basically, we don’t go back empty handed, so I guess it was a decent recovery," said the German. "We had some issues at the beginning of the race, I had an excursion on the first corner, really struggling on the extreme wets and after that we tried to do what we can and happy to score a point in the end, but I was hoping that we can maybe extract a bit more.

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“Today was a race in which anything could happen, but actually it was quite a clean and straightforward race for me. We managed to pick up a point, which was a good effort because it is always difficult to make progress at Monaco, especially with only one dry line.

“We learned more about the car, too, optimising the set-up with the new parts we introduced recently. All these steps are taking us in a good direction for the races to come.”

While Vettel was pleased with his showing, it was not an easy afternoon for team mate Lance Stroll. The Canadian started in P18 but was forced into an early pit stop after hitting the barrier at Massenet. And while Stroll was able to continue, he could only finish in 14th - though he believes there are still positives for him and the team to take forward.

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“I knew it would be a struggle to score points when starting so far back and it was always going to be a tricky race in the wet weather, but there are positives to take,” said Stroll. “We made the right call by switching to the Intermediate tyres early on because it was clearly the best compound.

“On the whole, the race gave us plenty of opportunities to continue learning about the car’s recent developments. I am confident we will be able to develop the car for both the slower and faster circuits in the near future.”

Aston Martin now head to Azerbaijan, with the team sitting ninth in the constructors' championship. Vettel and Stroll lie 15th and 17th respectively in the driver standings.