Lando Norris took victory at the famous street circuit for McLaren even though the mandatory two pitstops at Monaco was unable to provide a spectacle.
In a race was turned into an odd game of chess by a one-off mandate to use three sets of Pirelli tyres, and therefore make two pitstops, Norris avoided the spectre of unfortunately timed neutralisations to convert his pole into his second win of the season.
Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri joined him on the podium, with Max Verstappen fourth after banking on a late red flag to no avail.
At the start Norris locked up his tyres to keep the lead from Leclerc into Turn 1’s Ste Devote, while Piastri stayed ahead of Verstappen after the Red Bull driver looked around the outside.
At the rear Gabriel Bortoleto found the wall on the exit of Portier after duelling with Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the Sauber driver continuing but not before triggering a virtual safety car.
The leaders stayed out, but the yellow flag was shown so Yuki Tsunoda, Pierre Gasly and Oliver Bearman to make an early first pitstop. Gasly’s efforts to make an alternate strategy work ended into the back of Tsunoda’s Red Bull at the Nouvelle Chicane, with Gasly reporting “no brakes” as he smashed up his front-left corner, with Tsunoda fortunate to escape damage.
On three wheels Gasly made his way back to the pits to retire, with a local double yellow flag for a piece of Alpine front wing. Piastri dodged the piece of wing which gave Verstappen a chance to stick his nose alongside, but much to the Red Bull driver trying to get past, Piastri promptly closed the door in the fight for third.
Liam Lawson created a buffer for fifth-place starting teammate Isack Hadjar, who then made a cheap pitstop for softs, only losing two positions thanks to his teammate.
The front of the midfield pitting changed the dynamic of the race, with the leaders now no longer being able to afford cruising around. Norris and company immediately upped the pace by several seconds per lap to keep their pitstop gap intact.
Hamilton was able to jump Hadjar, who soon boxed a second time for hard tyres so he could go to the end.
Norris was the first of the lead group to blink, pitting on lap 20 for hard Pirellis. Piastri followed him in on the next lap to undercut Leclerc but the home hero responded on the next lap to keep position.
A couple of tense laps followed for the McLarens as Verstappen was released into free air, hoping for some sort of safety car as he lacked the outright pace to threaten the Papaya cars. But the race stayed green until the Red Bull driver made his first stop on lap 29, re-emerging where he started in fourth.
Norris carried on in the lead with a six second gap to Leclerc and another handful of seconds on Piastri and Verstappen, with Hamilton the biggest mover at the halfway point from seventh to fifth.
The race order was stable until the second and final round of pitstops provided the next chance for some chaos.
Piastri moved first on lap 49, which triggered a reaction from Leclerc’s Ferrari pitcrew on the following lap, and Norris on lap 51. Meanwhile, Verstappen stuck to his plan by staying out, increasing the pace and hoping for a safety car once more.
Norris and Leclerc soon closed the gap to Verstappen, which meant the only hope for Red Bull had left was a red flag for a free tyre change. With Hamilton also pitting, Verstappen was under no pressure to take his final stop before the very end.
Verstappen’s slow pace backed Norris into the Leclerc and Piastri, which made Lando’s final series of laps fairly uncomfortable.
But the world champion’s second pitstop with one lap to go finally allowed Norris back past to claim his second win of the season ahead of Leclerc and Piastri, with Verstappen and Hamilton in the top five.
Hadjar finished an excellent sixth thanks to Lawson’s early teamwork and Racing Bull’s clever strategy. Esteban Ocon’s Haas team also perfectly planned with two pitstops to finish seventh, while Lawson was rewarded for his efforts with eighth.
Williams duo Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz took the final points, which was also the result of the pair backing up the chasing Mercedes cars.
Both Russell and Antonelli were unable to make their way into the points after qualifying outside the top ten, gambling on chaos by delaying their two pitstops after those of their rivals.
Frustrated with Albon’s blocking, Russell decided to pass the Williams by cutting the chicane, intentionally taking a time penalty instead of giving the position back. But the race stewards responded by handing Russell a drive-through instead of a time penalty to stop his plan.
Alonso lost out on his first points of the season by retiring with suspected power unit issue, parking his Aston Martin behind the wall at Rascasse to avoid any disruption to the race.
In the championship Norris closes the gap to points leader Piastri to just three points. Verstappen lost three points to Oscar and heads to next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona 25 points behind.
So not the most thrilling Monaco race even though the sport’s governing body added the two pitstops as mandatory to improve the spectacle. The teams just stick to their strategy plan with the drivers managing the tyres.
Congratulation to Lando Norris in winning the most famous race on the Formula 1 calendar. He closes the points gap to McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri by three points. Roll on Spain.
Monaco Grand Prix, race results:
1 Lando Norris McLaren 1:40:33.843
2 Charles Leclerc Ferrari +3.131s
3 Oscar Piastri McLaren +3.658s
4 Max Verstappen Red Bull +20.572s
5 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari +51.387s
6 Isack Hadjar Racing Bulls +1 lap
7 Esteban Ocon Alpine +1 lap
8 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls +1 lap
9 Alexander Albon Williams +2 laps
10 Carlos Sainz Williams +2 laps
11 George Russell Mercedes +2 laps
12 Oliver Bearman Haas +2 laps
13 Franco Colapinto Alpine +2 laps
14 Gabriel Bortoleto Sauber +2 laps
15 Lance Stroll Aston Martin +2 laps
16 Nico Hulkenberg Sauber +2 laps
17 Yuki Tsunoda Red Bull +2 laps
18 Andrea Kimi Antonelli Mercedes +3 laps
Fernando Alonso Aston Martin DNF
Pierre Gasly Alpine DNF
Lando Norris expertly converted pole position into victory during Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, leading home Ferrari rival Charles Leclerc and McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri at the end of an intriguing, strategic race, which saw Max Verstappen hold P1 until the penultimate lap on an alternate strategy.
Norris survived a massive lock-up at the first corner before working through Virtual Safety Car phases, spells of traffic and the mandated two-stop rule to score his second win of the season and slash Piastri’s championship lead.
Leclerc applied plenty of pressure at various stages of the race, including that initial run to Sainte Devote and late on when Verstappen backed the pack up, but ultimately had to settle for second, with Piastri – now just three points clear of Norris in the standings – completing the podium.
Verstappen ran an off-set tyre strategy that saw the Red Bull driver go much longer across his stints, giving him the race lead into the very closing stages, but he dropped to fourth after completing his required second stop with a lap to go.
Lewis Hamilton had a lonely race en route to fifth place, making up a couple of spots following his post-Qualifying penalty for impeding Verstappen, with rookie Isack Hadjar taking a fine sixth over Haas’ Esteban Ocon and team mate Liam Lawson.
Williams bagged a double points finish with Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz in P9 and P10, denying the Mercedes of George Russell, who grew frustrated at Albon’s defensive driving earlier in the race and picked up a drive-through for an illegal overtake.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/norris-takes-victory-over-leclerc-and-piastri-in-gripping-monaco-grand-prix.4B7frXOoDY8UvKMu25Daoa
After the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix featured only four overtakes, drastic measures were taken to create a more exciting race this Formula 1 season. For this weekend, a two pit stop minimum rule was introduced, opening up potential strategy options for teams. But during the race, Sky Sports F1 commentator Martin Brundle was still unimpressed, blaming the current regulations for his disappointment.
The former Formula 1 driver admitted his frustration over drivers “playing a game” instead of all-out racing, as they purposefully separated the field to benefit their team-mates.
Speaking during the race, he said the following:
“I don’t like these regulations. I’m not liking it. I don’t want to see drivers all the way through the field playing a game.
“This is about excellence, about the highest point of motorsport and I don’t like to see so many drivers going slowly.”
This unprecedented rule change mandated that each car must use at least three sets of tyres and at least two different compounds during the 78-lap race. While it has certainly placed the cat amongst the pigeons, there have been very few overtakes at the time of writing.
“This is not how I like to go racing,” James Vowles said on the Sky Sports F1 broadcast as he admitted this rule won’t be staying, at least in its current form, next year.
The lack of overtaking is mostly down to the sheer size of the current generation cars in comparison to the small roads of the Principality. On top of this, the cars are heavier and more aerodynamically optimised. 2026 seeks to fix these issues with slightly smaller cars – the minimum wheelbase reduced by 200mm to 3,400mm and the width reduced by 100mm to 1,900mm – plus a change in aerodynamic principals to reduce dirty air as well as a lower minimum weight.
Ahead of the Grand Prix, Brundle was open to the rule change.
“I like the idea, it’s something new,” he said via Sky Sports F1. “Let’s give it a chance. And I think should it work on Sunday, it might not work next year, for example, because it depends on safety cars, red flags, whether they happen or not, when they happen.
“Bit surprised they haven’t said one of the pit stops must be in the first half of the race, for example, or something like that. So if you’re on the back of the grid, do you just go Lap 1, pit stop, Lap 2, pit stop, and sit and wait for your chances down the road.
“And will we also see right at the end of the Grand Prix where the front runners are hanging on, in case there’s a safety car, and pitting on the penultimate lap, for example, to finally get that out the way.
“But it does, without question, mean that you can’t get out front, go round at Formula 2 pace, hold everybody up until you’re ready to build a gap. Or, even worse, as we saw last year, a red flag on Lap 1, then people didn’t need to pit at all.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/martin-brundle-unimpressed-during-monaco-gp-i-dont-like-these-regulations/10726559/
The FIA explained why Mercedes driver George Russell was handed a harsher than usual penalty for overtaking Alex Albon off-track at Formula 1’s Monaco Grand Prix.
In the fight for the final points, Russell was frustrated by Williams driver Alex Albon, who had been driving slowly to create a gap for team-mate Carlos Sainz, who was ahead of him, to pit into.
On lap 50, Russell cut the Nouvelle Chicane to pass Albon, stating on the radio he had to avoid a collision after what he said was erratic driving from the Williams racer. But instead of giving the position back, Russell decided he would rather take the usual 10-second time penalty, so he could try and pull out a gap and stay ahead of Albon.
But the FIA’s race stewards had different ideas, as Russell’s radio message proved to them that he deliberately passed Albon off track. Therefore, the stewards handed out a much harsher drive-through penalty to foil the Briton’s cunning tactic.
The stewards’ verdict explained that race director Rui Marques had warned teams in advance that they would reserve the right to go beyond the usual guideline of a 10-second penalty if they felt drivers were exploiting the rules in Monaco, where track position is crucial and the usual time penalty isn’t always enough of a deterrent.
“Car 63 left the track at Turn 10 and overtook Car 23. He did not give that position back and maintained his track position,” the stewards’ verdict read.
“It was clear from the radio message where he said that he would ‘take the penalty’ that the overtake was done deliberately as he felt that he was being held up by Car 23 driving erratically.
“Anticipating that situations such as this might happen at this Monaco Grand Prix, all the teams were informed before the race by the race director (at the stewards’ request) that the stewards would look carefully at a deliberate leaving of the track at Turn 10 to overtake a car or a train of slow cars.
“That communication also made it clear that the guideline penalty of 10 seconds may be insufficient for this deliberate infringement and that the penalty applied may be a greater penalty than 10 seconds.
“We therefore considered that Car 63’s deliberate infringement warranted a drive through penalty, and we so imposed.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/heres-why-george-russell-received-a-drive-through-penalty-at-f1s-monaco-gp/10726624/
Max Verstappen says the mandatory two-pitstop rules turned F1’s Monaco Grand Prix into “almost Mario Kart”, and reckons the experiment hasn’t worked.
In an attempt to avoid the usual procession, after a 2024 race in which the top 10 drivers finished in the same order they started, F1 decided to impose a rule forcing cars to run three different sets of tyres, effectively turning the race into a two-stopper.
The additional pitstop added jeopardy to the race and caused unusual tactics, with the Racing Bulls and Williams cars driving slowly to create gaps for their team-mates. Meanwhile Verstappen was waiting until the final lap to make his second stop in the hope a late red flag would hand him a chance to change tyres for free and win the race instead of finishing fourth.
Verstappen acknowledged that F1 and the FIA had to try something to make the Monaco race more interesting, but didn’t feel it worked.
“Of course I get it, but I don’t think it has worked,” Verstappen told Sky. “You can’t race here anyway, so it doesn’t matter what you do. One stop, 10 stops. Even at the end I was in the lead, but my tyres were completely gone, and you still can’t pass. I think nowadays, with an F1 car, you can just pass a Formula 2 car around here.
“We were almost doing Mario Kart. Then we have to install bits on the car. Maybe you can throw bananas around. Yeah, I don’t know. Slippery surface.”
Verstappen and Red Bull lacked the pace this weekend on a street track that exposed Red Bull’s long-standing weaknesses over bumps and kerbs, qualifying seven tenths behind polesitter Lando Norris in fifth, which became fourth on the grid after a grid penalty for Lewis Hamilton.
With no other options to move up, Verstappen felt his decision to delay his final stop until the very end was at least worth trying in case a red flag would come out.
“Yeah, there was nothing to lose, right? I had a big gap behind. It was still the same position for me, but that’s Monaco for you. Qualifying is super important. Normally, when nothing bad happens you don’t really move forward. And if you just do normal pitstops, you just keep your position, and that’s exactly what happened today.
“I also don’t think we had the pace anyway to fight the guys ahead, because every time I tried to stay with them, my tyres were wearing and graining a bit too much. But yeah, P4 is definitely the maximum we could do.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/maybe-throw-bananas-max-verstappen-likens-f1s-monaco-gp-rule-to-mario-kart/10726644/
Charles Leclerc was again left with mixed feelings following the Monaco Grand Prix, having been forced to settle for second position behind pole-sitting rival Lando Norris.
Leclerc did everything he could to find a way past Norris across Sunday’s encounter, applying pressure at the first corner and in the closing laps when Max Verstappen – running an alternate strategy – backed the McLaren into the Ferrari.
But victory remained just out of reach for the Monegasque, who was agonisingly pipped to P1 on the grid by Norris in Qualifying and could not add to the breakthrough home win he achieved in the Principality 12 months ago.
Asked if he still felt happy with the result, given Ferrari’s up-and-down form so far this season, Leclerc replied: “Not really, but at the end of the day we lost the race yesterday. We should have done a better job. Lando did a better job this weekend and he deserves the win.
“On my side, I realised a childhood dream last year, not this year, but considering everything I think it’s a lot above our expectations coming here. I thought that being in the top 10 would be a challenge. In the end we are second, very close to P1, so it’s been a good weekend overall – but I wish I won.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/leclerc-admits-he-lost-the-race-in-qualifying-but-takes-positives-from.4LcAum3IbVDuqXyffYQEby
Lando Norris proudly stated he “achieved one of my dreams” after taking a hard-fought maiden Monaco Grand Prix victory after holding Charles Leclerc off in the closing stages.
The McLaren driver started on pole position for the 78-lap race on the streets of the Principality on Sunday, and held the lead on the run to Sainte Devote despite locking-up both front tyres.
Thereafter, Norris managed the net lead throughout, only losing the position through the two mandated pit stops, which was a new regulation for this year.
Norris found himself behind Max Verstappen in the closing laps, the Red Bull driver still with a pit stop to make but holding out for a stoppage to hand him victory.
It meant home hero Leclerc was able to close in over the final laps and put pressure on Norris until Verstappen pitted on the penultimate tour.
“It feels amazing,” said Norris when asked how it felt to win in Monaco.
“It’s a long, gruelling race but good fun. We could push for quite a lot of the race, the last corner was a little bit nervous with Charles close behind and Max ahead but we won in Monaco.
“Doesn’t matter how you win I guess. I had an amazing weekend with pole, today, this is what I dream of. This is what I did dream of when I was a kid so I achieved one of my dreams.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/i-achieved-one-of-my-dreams-proud-norris-basks-in-amazing-maiden-monaco.4YTZ9UuKndJIO9YYCpR7pU