Luke’s Weekend Review – Monaco GP 2024

After the barriers were fixed and debris cleared, the drivers go round once more and line up for the 2^nd restart, and yes all this happened in a third of a lap and the race is yet to start practically. After the lights go out, Leclerc gets another good start and this time, Piastri got a better start and was able to slot ahead of Sainz before Turn 1, avoiding any close call again bit it wasn’t long after they got going that Piastri got a radio message saying that they can notice the damage now on the balance of the car however this wasn’t impacting him so much as by Lap 8 he was still within a second of Leclerc. This could have been down to Leclerc driving really slow in order to manage the hard tyres for a full race length.

On Lap 11 we hear Max Verstappen’s engineer come on the radio saying that he doesn’t know why George Russell was driving so slow as at this rate he was going to give the front 4 a pitstop gap big enough for them to pit and still come out ahead of Russell. At the same time we also hear Russell saying that he got 3 seconds in the pocket asking to go quicker but his engineer quickly advised him that they won’t gain anything by driving quicker.

In a race where everyone thought there was not going to be any other pitstops we see the Sauber team prepare for a pitstop on Lap 13 and on Lap 16 we do see Valtteri Bottas come into the pits to change his mediums onto hards, Bottas was already driving in last so this was a free pitstop for him as he was able to get onto the more durable tyre and ensure he gets to the end.

At the front, there was not much happening but the drivers while making their way round this track which requires so much attention, they were all worrying about tyre strategies and what does around them might be doing. On Lap 18 we hear Sainz come on the radio saying that he imagines that Leclerc is managing tyres, but he said it was a close one with Piastri at one point and that one more lap and the young driver from Down Under might go for a lunge. On Lap 30, Lando Norris’s engineer lets him know that they can see some graining on Sainz’s car while on Norris’s it was not as bad for the Brit. Then came the predictions and the gaps between Norris and Russell as Sainz was saying that if Norris gets a free pitstop it could be bad for all the front 3 including Leclerc, and 0on Lap 38 Leclerc’s engineer does come on the radio asking him to slow down to manage the gap between Norris and Russell, Leclerc wasn’t happy about this as he responded that it means that he would have to push in the slow sections of the track and could potentially force a mistake.

 On Lap 43 we see Lance Stroll come into the pits from 11^th and comes back out in 11^th, this was all thanks to his teammate Fernando Alonso as he was backing up the 4 drivers behind him and managed to build a gap big enough for his teammate to pit and come back out in 11^th which was great teamwork from the old fox. This however was all in vain as on Lap 49 Stroll hit the wall on the chicane after the tunnel in Turn 10 and gets a puncture. He manages to crawl round to the pits and as soon as he turns into the pits, his wheel fell off into the pitlane so don’t think that would cause any concerns with the Stewards to bring out a VSC or a Safety Car. This put Stroll in last place, but he did get onto the soft tyres to try and get some pace and overtakes in.

On Lap 52 we do see Lewis Hamilton come into the pits for a free stop as he goes back onto the hards he started on and to cover him off, Verstappen also pits a lap later. Unfortunately Russell didn’t have a free stop gap so couldn’t react to Hamilton and Verstappen pitting.

We finally see the first overtake on track on Lap 54 by Valtteri Bottas on Logan Sargeant down the hill into Turn 5 which was quite a neat move by the Finnish driver showing his experience to the young driver, although a part of the reason would have been the tyre offset between the 2. On his soft tyres, Stroll was also able to overtake in Monaco as on Lap 58 we see him Overtake Zhou Guanyu in the tunnel and at the start of lap 59 he was able to overtake Sargeant as well. After this we do see Sargeant pit as he was still on Hards, Hards so had to pit in order to comply with the rules and goes onto the mediums.

We turn our attention to Verstappen once more as on Lap 60 he was closing in on Russell but comes on the radio saying that no one was looking at the battery again meaning it was getting quite low and he needed all the power he could get once he catches up to Russell. He managed to do so on Lap 62 and at this stage of the race it was as like Verstappen was pushing Russell around the track. However Russell saved enough tyres here and also showed why position is key in Monaco as even though Max was in a much faster car in much faster tyres, he was still unable to overtake for the remainder of the race even though Russell went on that set of mediums on Lap 2 of the race after the Red Flag.

In the final stages of the race with 10 laps to go we see Leclerc pick up the pace as he opens the gap to Piastri to about 8 seconds and comes on the radio saying “Ok I’ll bring it home now” to which his engineer responds “Thank you”. And bring it home he did as Charles Leclerc, after 12 winless poles and never getting on the podium in Monaco in any race in his career manages to break his curse and win his home race in Monaco, Charles Leclerc was followed by Oscar Piastri, Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, George Russell, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Yuki Tsunoda, Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly form the top 10.

Leclerc also got the driver of the day and rightly so as he managed this race from start to finish going through 2 starts and backing up the pack where needed in order to take his hard tyres to the end. On the radio to his engineer he sounded like he was crying with all the great emotions he was going through, and he was also saying that tonight it was going to be a big night and that no one in the team was flying home early. In the cooldown room we could also hear him explain to Sainz and Piastri that with 2 laps to go he was getting emotional and could barely see. This was a massive weight lifted off Leclerc’s shoulder as this race has been haunting him for a while now and he finally won his home race. Fastest lap in the race went to Lewis Hamilton as in the late stages of the race on his fresh hards was able to get a good lap round the track.

Who do you think was the biggest winners and the biggest losers of the Monaco GP? We now head to a week break and then we go to Montreal for the Canadian GP.