Monaco Grand Prix: Surprising Action and Penalty Drama Shake Up the Shortest Race of the Season
And with that race over, the shortest race of the season and what usually is the most uneventful race is behind us. This week however had a bit more action during the race. Surprisingly enough after a weekend filled with Red Flags, we didn’t even see any safety cars throughout the 78 laps around the track of Monaco.
The start in general was fairly clean where we saw minor contact between some cars through the first lap where we see Nico Hulkenberg make a quick 4 places on the start to lose them all as he gets a puncture with his contact on Logan Sargeant, this wasn’t the end of the bad news for Hulkenberg as he also got a 5 second penalty for this move which put him straight on the back foot for the race. Hulkenberg later in the race also got another 10 second penalty for not serving his 5 second penalty correctly when he went into the pits.
Sergio Perez seeing this mini chaos in the beginning saw his opportunity to make a few easy places by pitting at the end of lap 1 and got rid of his medium tyres and put on the hards to go to the end of the race. By lap 10 Perez had already closed the gap to the back of the field which shows the sheer speed of the Red Bull is still unrivalled, especially by the back half of the grid.
At the front of the grid, it was going pretty much as expected with the top 6 racers staying in the same spot they started in with Max Verstappen leading the lot. One driver who was getting impatient is Carlos Sainz where on lap 11 he was right on the gearbox of Esteban Ocon, so much so where just after the Monaco tunnel Sainz went for a move that wasn’t there and ends up hitting the back of Ocon’s car losing his front wing endplate in the process.
One thing that is a rare sight in Monaco is overtakes due to how big the F1 cars are nowadays and how narrow the track is, this however didn’t stop Kevin Magnussen from throwing a lovely move into Mirabeau (Turn 5) on Logan Sargeant on lap 17 where Sargeant was struggling with his tyres and Magnussen took full advantage of. Lance Stroll & Sergio Perez didn’t wait too long after Magnussen as by the end of lap 17 they also overtook Sargeant in the last 2 corners of the lap. Perez later in the race went into the back of Kevin Magnussen at the bus stop chicane damaging his front wing forcing him to pit again on lap 34.
Monaco Grand Prix: Rain Gambles and Unexpected Podium Shakeup in Thrilling Wet Race
Rain talk started popping up on the radio around lap 30 and most of the drivers on the mediums decided to extend their stint, trying to stretch the tyres out until the rain comes. Main eyes with this news were on Max Verstappen as he went with the mediums at the beginning of the race and Fernando Alonso was on the hards hoping the mediums don’t last until the rain comes. Verstappen however drove brilliantly however and made those medium tyres work and managed the gap to Alonso perfectly.
On lap 51 the threat of rain became a reality and radio messages started popping up to all drivers that raindrops are spotted at turn 3, the rain didn’t take that long to get heavier, and it started forcing drivers to switch to Inters due to the slippery conditions. Despite the slippery conditions Fernando Alonso on lap 54 decides to take a gamble and pit for the mediums still as Aston Martin thought that the rain might go away quickly. Unfortunately, this didn’t pay off and Alonso had to pit again 1 lap after same lap as Max Verstappen got rid of his mediums for some inters. By lap 56 everyone was on Inters apart from Kevin Magnussen who was still out on hards who on his way to the pits went into the barriers damaging his front wing.
Even on the inters most of the drivers were really struggling to keep the cars on track as we see Lance Stroll lose his front wing which also led to his retirement from the race. Ferrari also massively lost out on places due to the pits as they had to double stack Charles Leclerc and Sainz to put them both on Inters and the ended up losing places to the Mercedes pair. Perez like Magnussen tried to gamble on the full wets hoping the rain to get awfully bad however this again was a bad gamble on an already bad race for Perez. George Russell did not help Perez’s cause as when he went straight on Turn 5 he just reversed onto the track which put him in Perez’s way giving Perez more damage. That unsafe re-join bagged Russell a 5 second penalty for causing a collision, this however didn’t impact his finishing position.
Lando Norris on lap 68 managed to pull a beautiful move on Yuki Tsunoda to claim 9th place at turn 1 where funnily enough DRS was still on even though it was under wet conditions. Magnussen had to call it quits in the end and pit to retire the car on lap 76. Can’t go without mentioning the amazing drive from Esteban Ocon who also got driver of the day. After an amazing qualifying yesterday, he managed to get on the podium and drive a brilliant race managing the pace, pitting at the right time and probably one of the only drivers who didn’t hit the wall during the race.
The race finished at nearly 2 hours long with Max winning the race followed by Alonso who bags 2nd place for the first time this season, Ocon, Hamilton, Russell, Leclerc, Gasly, Sainz, Norris and Piastri forming the top 10. Good to see a Mclaren double finish and unfortunately Leclerc is yet to break his Monaco curse.
Who do you think was the biggest winners and the biggest losers of the Monaco GP? We now head to Spain for the Barcelona GP.
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