Monaco – After a tight qualifying at the front, Max Verstappen started Sixth on the grid and provided a formidable challenge on Sunday with overtaking notoriously tricky on Monaco’s famous street circuit. Sergio Pérez meanwhile, had a difficult qualifying session and was knocked out in Q1 and had to start from 16th on the grid.
As the lights went out, pole-sitter Charles Leclerc kept out of trouble and maintain the lead but behind him, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was put under pressure by Carlos Sainz. As the duelling pair went into Turn 1, Piastri clipped Sainz’s left-front tyre, which instantly punctured and going into Casino Square, Sainz was forced to take the escape road.
At the back, Checo didn’t have a great get away while the two Haas drivers both made good starts from the back of the grid. Checo made it through Turn 1 and as they went up the hill, the Mexican moved to the middle of the track to defend his position. On his right, Kevin Magnussen was over ambitious and tried to push past. He tagged the rear right wheel of Checo’s car and the Mexican was spun into barriers.
All four corners of Checo’s car disintegrated but thanks to the strength of the survival cell and the wheel tethers, the Red Bull driver was unhurt. However, with a huge debris field extending up towards the Massenet corner, and with another clash occurring ahead at Portier between the Alpines of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, the race was immediately red flagged.
The red flag also provided an opportunity to switch tyres, and targeting a long run to the finish, the front four moved to Hard tyres. For Max, however, that was not an option. The World Champion had started on Hard tyres and had to switch to Mediums for the second start.
When the lights went out again, this time the pack all got away cleanly and Leclerc took the lead ahead of Piastri, Sainz, Norris and Russell, with Max again in sixth place.
Leclerc soon settled into the lead, 0.5s clear of Piastri, with Sainz another half second back in third. Further back, though, Max was bottled up behind Russell who was heavily managing his Medium tyres six seconds behind fourth-placed Norris. By lap 13 Max was 14 seconds off the lead, while Russell was being told not to go any quicker in order to keep his tyres alive.
The race then became a cat-and-mouse contest as The Ferraris backed the McLarens toward Russell, while the Mercedes driver tried to preserve his tyres and keep Max at bay.
At the end of lap 51, Lewis Hamilton, who had a healthy gap back to VCARB’s Yuki Tsunoda, pitted from seventh and rejoined in the same position. That freed up an opportunity for Max to pit. After a 2.1s stop for Hard tyres, he again took up sixth place ahead Hamilton. With fresh tyres onboard, Max began to rattle off fastest laps and he closed on Russell to deny the Mercedes driver a pit stop in response. That forced Russell to stay on his starting Mediums and to pick up the pace.
Max’s pace on new tyres was electric and on lap 60 he had squeezed the gap to Russell from 12 seconds to just 3 and three laps later he thundered into DRS range of the Mercedes man.
However, in Monaco, track position is everything and though Max probed and pushed, trying to force an error from Russell, the Mercedes driver was able to position his car well enough on the narrow streets to keep the champion at bay.
At the Chequered flag, Leclerc took the chequered flag to become the first Monegasque driver in the championship era to win his home grand prix.
Behind him Piastri finished second ahead of Sainz who was lucky to still be in the race after a puncture on the first lap. Norris finished fourth ahead of Russell. Max’s sixth place meant he took eight points and he now heads the Drivers’ standings with 169 points, 31 ahead of Leclerc. Checo’s non-finish means he drops to fifth in the standings a point behind Sainz who now has 108 points.
Max Verstappen, securing his fifth win of the season said, “The red flag ultimately meant that our strategy was ruined, so everyone was just managing tyres until the end of the race and the pit stop did not change much either. We had to really slow down a lot to make it to the end of the race and I tried to pass George for two laps but it was extremely difficult. The ride of the car was still not great today and we just didn’t have the pace in qualifying.”
Sergio Pérez, after a disappointing weekend said, “At the start I lost a position to one of the Haas cars and I was coming out of turn one, I couldn’t see Kevin in my mirrors, you can see that from my on board and then the crash happened. I think the move was unnecessary, we sustained a lot of damage and it was a very dangerous incident. I was disappointed it didn’t get investigated, it was an immense crash and my car is completely destroyed.”
Next up for the Team, is the Canadian Grand Prix on the 9th of June.