Max Verstappen crucially kept in front at the start.
Max Verstappen crucially kept in front at the start.
Despite achieving the best result so far in Formula One for his Aston Martin team, with second place, Fernando Alonso’s brutal assessment was that there was “no chance” of beating Max Verstappen at the Monaco GP.
To do that, Alonso would have needed to have taken pole position, but he failed to do that by the narrowest of margins, by .084 of a second to be precise. Once Verstappen stayed in the lead at the start of the race, the only chance the Aston Martin driver had of getting ahead of the Red Bull driver was on race strategy.
Alonso’s team gambled on starting on hard tyres, while Verstappen was on mediums, so the plan was to run Alonso long and hopefully overtake the leader on pit stops. But the rain came down despite the team’s radar suggesting it would be a brief shower, resulting in Alonso pitting before Verstappen and rejoining with medium tyres, only to stop a lap later to put on inter tyres, like Verstappen had.
It was game over, as Verstappen cruised to a 28-second victory, his second at Monaco, his fourth for the season, and the 39th of his F1 career. And he’s still only 25! With six races gone, possibly seven if the Imola race is not rescheduled, the engraver of the drivers’ champion trophy could be forgiven if they were already considering starting to engrave Verstappen’s name on the trophy for a third consecutive year, despite there being at least 16 races to go. Understandably, Verstappen was pleased with this latest result.
He told post-race interviewer David Coulthard: “It is super-nice to win here again in Monaco! It was actually quite a difficult race. We were on the medium to begin with and Fernando on the hard compound, so we didn’t want the first stint to be that long, but we had to stay out.”
“The rain also made it quite complicated, we made the call for inters and the first few laps on them were incredibly slippery. I clipped the walls a few times again, but that’s Monaco. We managed to stay calm and bring it home, and we scored a good amount of points for the team. I, of course, will celebrate this evening with my friends and family, but tomorrow we focus on Spain.”
For Alonso, he admitted they couldn’t have beaten Verstappen, despite getting the strategy wrong based on the weather forecast the team had.
“We tried to play the long game but Max drove super-well. We did not have a chance and then the rain made things complicated out there,” Alonso said.
“The weather forecast, it was a small shower, and the small quantity of rain as well, what we had, as a team, and we had a lot of margin behind us, to put the dry tyres and, if necessary, the inter tyres, so you know, maybe it was extra safe, I don’t know.”
Runner-up Fernando Alonso congratulates Verstappen on another race win.
“We were hoping Max would suffer greater degradation on the mediums, but he did 50 laps at an amazing pace - but we’re getting closer, let’s not forget that. Now to Spain!”
The margin Alonso mentioned was about 15 seconds back to third-placed Esteban Ocon in the Alpine. He becomes the first French driver to stand on the podium in Monaco since Oliver Panis surprised everyone, including himself, by winning his only Grand Prix with victory in 1996 in the Ligier.
“What a feeling! I’m so happy for the team for this amazing achievement of finishing third on this fantastic circuit and legendary event in Monaco,” Ocon said, putting in a positive plug for a race that some critics would prefer was removed from the F1 calendar.
“This must serve as motivation to keep progressing as a team and keep updating the car throughout the season.”
For those who like statistics, Verstaapen surpassed the milestone of leading the 2000th lap of his F1 career, and his 39th win for Red Bull surpasses the total that Sebastian Vettel achieved with the team. For Alonso, at 41, he is the oldest to podium in Monaco since Jack Brabham, who was 44 when he finished second to Jochen Rindt in the 1970 race, which was also Bruce McLaren’s last race, as the legendary Kiwi would be tragically killed at Goodwood a few days later, testing his CanAm car.
The last time Alonso was second in a race was in the 2014 Hungarian GP, when he was in the Ferrari. This was not a good race for either Ferrari driver. Charles Leclerc was seeking his third consecutive pole at Monaco, but third was the best he could do, and then he was given a grid penalty of three places for impeding Lando Norris in the McLaren. So he started from sixth on the grid, and finished there.
Ahead of him were the two Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. The Mercedes team had brought some major upgrades for the race, and some of them may have paid off, as Mercedes are now just one point behind Aston Martin in the Constructors’ title race, as Lance Stroll failed to finish the race. But Red Bull are ominously 129 points ahead, despite Sergio Perez also scoring no points after he crashed out in qualifying, and had clashes during the race, to eventually be classified 16th, two laps behind.
For a driver who won the race last year and has been labelled as something of a street circuit specialist, the outcome was disappointing.
“It was the worst weekend I can remember in a while, everything went wrong and today we paid the price for a poor mistake from myself in qualifying,” Perez lamented. “I’m really sad about the performance, not just today but the whole weekend.”
Verstappen lapped all the drivers up to ninth place, such was his dominance, and while team boss Christian Horner was happy about his charge winning, he was forgiving about Perez’s difficult weekend.
“Winning here is special, it always means just that little bit more,” Horner said.
“Every driver wants this one on their CV and for us it’s our third in a row for the team and our seventh in total here in Monaco.”
“Unfortunately, it was a difficult weekend for Checo. Despite his best efforts, there was very little he could do after yesterday’s qualifying. Knowing Checo, though, he will learn from his mistakes and respond quickly in Spain.”
Hamilton said he was “really happy with today’s result”, noting they didn’t know where they stood coming into the weekend. Russell, though, was disappointed with himself, as he was ahead of Hamilton and Ocon after his pit stop, but made a mistake, touching the brake and locking up, to lose two places. Team boss Toto Wolff said: “We brought a big package to this race, and it has performed well. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, and I think we’re all looking forward to learning more about the car, and to seeing if we’ve made a step up in performance against our immediate competitors.”
Ferrari continue to struggle on race day. Leclerc realised his grid penalty put him on the back foot, and they also could have gone onto inter tyres earlier than they did, but he remains optimistic.
“There are still a lot of races left this season and we have several updates coming which I hope will let us get closer to the Red Bulls.”
For Carlos Sainz, it was another race that left him lamenting the outcome.
“The final result is not what I was aiming for because I had good pace with every compound [of tyres] and P8 is frustrating,” Sainz said. “Pit stops were key today, but they were all difficult calls, especially the change to inter tyres, as the rain picked up very quickly and the spin with slicks obviously made me lose some positions.”
“I leave Monaco with a bitter taste, but next up is my home race and we need to keep focused.”
The McLaren drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, had positive races, finishing ninth and 10th respectively, with team principal Andrea Stella noting: “Two cars in the points at the end of a dramatic Monaco Grand Prix is a very positive outcome.”
McLaren CEO Zak Brown was at the Indy 500 race in Indianapolis instead of Monaco. The McLaren drivers, Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist, both led the famous race for many laps, but then crashed out in dramatic style.
Motor racing is often a case of risk and reward. Verstappen took the risk of staying out on worn tyres, and although he clipped the wall more than once, his reward is a 41-point lead over Perez in the championship, with Alonso another 12 points back.
But you can expect a Spanish armada of Alonso and Sainz on four wheels to try to upset the Flying Dutchman in Barcelona this weekend.
