Mercedes madness at Monaco under fire from all quarters

The reaction of the British media corps was predictable, with the Times summing up the mood by blasting the "supposedly intelligent men" who "abandoned their senses" in calling Hamilton in for a fateful late pitstop.

But international newspapers have been just as scathing. El Pais said Mercedes effectively "sabotaged its big star", while another Spanish daily ABC said it was an error on a scale "rarely seen" in F1.

The Barcelona morning newspaper La Vanguardia said Hamilton was "robbed" by the "incomprehensible error", while France's Le Figaro said Mercedes succeeded only in "driving a wedge" between its star driver and the German giant.

L'Equipe reported: "Such was Hamilton's domination that no one could take the victory away from him. No one, that is, except his own team."

La Gazzetta dello Sport said: "Mamma mia! Mercedes wrapped a nice gift to Ferrari (Sebastian) Vettel reaching second place would have been impossible without this German absurdity."

Corriere della Sera, meanwhile, hailed Hamilton's post-race reaction, "Hamilton remained silent in the admirable name of team spirit."

Comments on Grand Prix247.com, and virtually all serious F1 and motorsport websites, have just about all denounced Mercedes and some questioned whether the team, without an utterly dominant car, would be up to a serious challenge from competitors.

Here are just a few choice comments by our readers:

Macstar: "Monaco is not a victory for Rosberg. Lewis will come back faster and stronger. Monaco is a bit of a set back for Rosberg as he was completely demolished."

F1 Engineer: "This will have no effect on Hamilton, But this will define the Merc team, how will they respond, will they continue to make these silly mistakes? Or will they change their 1 strategy for the team nonsense?"

Lovejoint: "Wow, they need an inquest to find out that they are ordinary clowns.... 'will know where we had a gremlin in the system.' The only gremlins in the system are 3 Stooges (Wolff, Lowe & Lauda). And they are definitely no match to Ross...all 3 of them together. Well, at least Dr. Zetsche had an opportunity to see with his own eyes what kind of clowns are running his team. The irony is that He put them there."

Jason: "Toto do your job! Tolerating incompetency is far more damaging to moral than firings. You had a massive debrief after Malaysia and it clearly failed. How can Lewis put his faith in Bonnington and Vowles after this? Ferrari and Mclaren suffered with fools for years and look what that did for them.

Stewy_33: "I wounder what the contract signing would of looked like if it was set to be next week?"

McSerb: "No heads to role ? OK, but something serious must be done. They make too many mistakes with Hamilton and the mechanics often cost him a second or more in the pit stops. Even this time ! If the mechanics had been quick enough Hamilton would have easily come out in front of Vettel and probably Rosberg too. His pit stop was 4.1 seconds ! What about that Mercedes ? Can those mechanics finally learn how to change tires ?"