Leclerc takes overdue victory in Monaco

Home hero Charles Leclerc has finally won the Monaco Grand Prix after having suffered lots of bad luck in previous years. A single change during a stopped for a crash in Lap 1 was enough. McLaren’s Piastri and Ferrari’s Sainz completed the podium.

Charles Leclec made a great start but found that Piastri was very very close throughout the first half a lap. Carlos Sainz lost ground and ended up stopping at Casino by locking up the front right, enabling everybody to get past. Sainz appeared to have incurred some steering malfunction while mildly touching Piastri at Sainte Dévote.

Further back, Magnussen touched the back of Perez at Beau Rivage, sending him into a spin and badly hitting the barriers. Magnussen was in fact sandwiched between the Red Bull and the barriers and couldn’t really do anything. The cars also picked up the other Haas of Hulkenberg who had to retire as well.

Perez’s Red Bull was left with just a single wheel attached to it while carbon fibre was spread all over the track. a Red flag was clearly necessary, forcing all cars to return to the pits.

Ocon meanwhile also made a mess as he tried to overtake Gasly at Portier. Ocon bumped over Gasly’s front wheel and was sent into the rear, leading to car damage and an infuriated Pierre Gasly who correctly said both cars are now damaged. Gasly continued in 9th while Ocon dropped down to 15th, ahead only of Sainz and Zhou.

The restart didn’t change much apart from the fact that Carlos Sainz was reinstated to third for the restart while Ocon did not restart anymore. This left 16 cars in the race with the top 4 got going again on hard tyres, Russell, Verstapen and Hamilton on medium, then Tsunoda and Albon on hard. Gasly in 10th and the two Astons behind him had mediums.

Following lots of radio communications about trying to lenghten the pitstops of the front runners, Stroll is eventually the first to stop, on lap 51, a forced change to softs due to a puncture on the rear.

Hamilton as next, then Verstappen. They returned in the same positions, 3 seconds apart from one another with Verstappen immediately setting the fastest lap, roughly 2.5s quicker than the cars ahead. Hamilton did so one lap later as they jointly closed the gap to Russell ahead. The duo closed the gap rapidly but as ever in Monaco, that progress stalled quickly when stuck behind another car with passing virtually impossible.

The top 5 and most of the others opted not to pit again, leaving Leclerc to take a controlled win at his home race, followed by Piastri and Sainz.