A disastrous race for Mercedes, an unconventional podium, or who won the Monaco Grand Prix?

History was made again with Sunday’s race in Monte Carlo. Max Verstappen won here for the first time in his career, with podium finishes for Ferrari and McLaren. How did the Monaco Grand Prix go?

After a year’s break, we’ve seen it again. Last year the Monaco Grand Prix was not held because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but this year everything was prepared months in advance.

However, the race was prematurely abandoned for Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque had been looking forward to the Grand Prix in the Principality of Monaco, having taken pole position in Saturday’s qualifying. However, he crashed at the end of the race, but kept his hopes of starting from pole position alive until today.

The first gearbox check was fine and showed no significant damage, and the second official inspection of the car also showed nothing wrong with the condition of the monopost.

Before Sunday’s start, Leclerc pitted, and almost immediately after leaving he reported problems with the gearbox. The nightmare was consummated in the Ferrari garage when the team announced that mechanics would be unable to get the car up and running before the start of the race. The Italian stable’s driver thus continues the horrific statistics he has had in Monaco.

The first place on the grid was therefore left empty. Max Verstappen de facto started from pole position, and despite a not-so-good launch from his starting position, he handily secured the top spot at the opening corner.

After the start, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen improved by three positions, while Daniel Ricciardo dropped one place, admitting during the race weekend that he was still getting to grips with the car and couldn’t believe that he was so much slower than his stablemate Lando Norris.

Unsurprisingly, the order didn’t change much during the race. Verstappen remained in the lead ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Carlos Sainz. Norris guarded position number four, with Gasly in fifth, with Lewis Hamilton stuck behind. Sebastian Vettel put in an experienced performance in the race to finish seventh, with Sergio Pérez in eighth.

Antonio Giovinazzi also improved after the start and was ninth, with Esteban Ocon in the Alpine F1 car rounding out the top ten.

On lap 30, the Pit Window opened and Hamilton was the first to stop by his mechanics. The seven-time champion attempted an overcut on Frenchman Gasly. It was a terrible stop for the British driver. Not only did this overcut fail, but even Vettel in the Aston Martin took advantage of Mercedes’ poor strategy to get ahead of Hamilton.

This Grand Prix became disastrous for Mercedes the moment the Briton’s teammate Bottas pitted. It was supposed to be a quick pit stop, as usual, but the left rear wheel had a cross thread at the nut, leaving Mercedes mechanics with no chance to replace the now unusable tyre.

On lap 31, the Finnish driver’s tenure in this race was thus brought to an early end. Subsequently, Hamilton was very angry in radio communication. From the start of the race, he had been saving his tyres due to the poor positioning in order to stay on the track longer and stop later.

In any case, the team called him to the pit stop first and, more importantly, earlier than the British driver himself had expected. Because of this decision, he then lost another position when he was overtaken by the aforementioned Gasly and Vettel after exiting pit lane.

Compared to the Mercedes, the Red Bull mechanics gave a brilliant performance in the pits. Thanks to a good strategy, Mexican Pérez moved up to fourth and spent the last 15 laps pushing Norris for third.

Hamilton at least took the extra championship point for the fastest lap of the race at 1.12::909, which also broke the track record.

For the first time in his career, the Monaco Grand Prix was thus dominated by Max Verstappen, who moved ahead of Hamilton at the head of the championship. The Red Bull driver currently has a four-point lead over the still active legend.

Ferrari and McLaren can celebrate their podium finishes – Sainz came second, Norris defended his third position ahead of Pérez. Just how great friends Sainz and Norris are was shown in the post-race interview, when they had a fraternal banter and a tip of the hat.

Aston Martin also celebrated a great result, with Vettel finishing fifth and Canadian Stroll eighth. Both cars finished in the top ten in points. The standings were unchanged, with Gasly and Hamilton in sixth and seventh respectively. Giovinazzi eventually failed to hold off Ocon for ninth and crossed the line tenth ahead of teammate Räikkönen.

Australian Ricciardo remained twelfth ahead of Alonso and both Williams. In the last two places, both Haas were unsurprisingly behind sixteenth-placed Yuki Tsunoda in the Alpha Tauri.

The chequered flag was waved by the famous tennis player Serena Williams, who was also a participant in the post-race interviews. She described the Monaco Grand Prix as absolutely fantastic and paid tribute to all the drivers, but especially to the winner Verstappen.

The Red Bull driver’s words only confirmed how difficult it is to maintain focus for the entire 78 laps in Monte Carlo. Despite all the joy of the victory, he stated that the season is long and we need to focus on the next races.

” I’m really happy, I don’t even know what to say. It’s just a dream to be on the podium at this track, we had a very good car this weekend. It’s a special and magical result.”

Sainz, for his part, mentioned in the interview the sporting tragedy that Leclerc had to go through today, but highlighted his car, which the Maranello stable can be proud of.

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