MONACO GP – Lando Norris ‘achieves his dream’ winning by three seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc in intriguing Grand Prix

Testing & Race Reports
Jack
25-05-2025

Lando Norris has beaten Charles Leclerc by three seconds to win the Monaco Grand Prix, the McLaren driver executing the perfect race to take the team’s first win in the principally for seventeen years. Norris took the net lead after his second stop on lap fifty, with a mandatory two-stop race rejoined in second behind Max Verstappen who was yet to make his second stop.

Verstappen left it very late as he tried possibly to wait for a safety car or red flag, but that didn’t happen, meaning Red Bull had to bring him in on the penultimate lap, when Norris retook the lead. The stop dropped the Dutchman to fourth finishing sixteen seconds behind Oscar Piastri.

Norris converted his pole into a win for the first time since the opening race in Melbourne as the top three followed the same strategy, whereas Verstappen was always going to be on the back foot having only one set each of the medium and hard tyres available, which required him to use the softs. Red Bull ran him on an inverted strategy starting on the hards and switching to the mediums and delayed his final pit stop as late as possible.

Verstappen and Red Bull took the lead with twenty-eight laps to go, then gambled on a second safety car or red flag, which would have allowed him to keep the lead and change to a third set of tyres for free. The result was that Verstappen backed Norris into Leclerc and Piastri and closed up the top three, but no crash happened, and Verstappen had to stop with one lap to go for his final set, dropping to fourth.

Norris said, “It feels amazing. It’s a long, gruelling race, but good fun. We could push for much of the race. The last quarter was stressful with Leclerc behind and Max ahead, but we won in Monaco. This is what I dreamed of when I was a kid, so I achieved one of my dreams.”

“The worst bit was the end. I felt quite under control the whole race but Max was backing it up a little bit and I knew Charles had opportunities. I tried to back off Max so I could push when I needed to. I’m very happy, my team are very happy. Therefore we’re going to have a wonderful night!”

Leclerc finished his home race in second: “At the end of day, we lost the race yesterday, we should have done a better job, Lando [Norris] did a better job this weekend and he deserves the win. On my side, I achieved my childhood dream last year, not this year. I did not expect this, I thought being in the top ten was going to be a challenge and in the end, we are second.

Piastri who finished third at the Monaco Grand Prix: “Yeah, obviously the win would have been better. It’s been a bit of a tricky weekend, practice was messy all the way through, I felt like I got into qualifying with not a lot of confidence with how the weekend was going. I got close but not quite close enough. Qualifying is pretty much where you finish.”

Norris’s win and Piastri’s seventh consecutive podium has narrowed the championship to three points as the season reached it quarter mark, with Verstappen dropping to twenty-two behind in third. McLaren are 172 points clear of Mercedes in the constructors’ battle after eight rounds, with Red Bull and Ferrari less than five points behind.

Leclerc finished three seconds behind the McLaren and half a second ahead of the second of Piastri, to claim his second podium in a row at his home Grand Prix. Leclerc didn’t seem to have the pace to challenge for victory with the two McLaren’s and Ferrari’s as well as Max Verstappen the only cars to finish on the lead lap.

But he did try to find a way past Norris, who responded by successfully backing Leclerc to within half a second of Piastri.  Verstappen finished the race fourth just over thirty seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton, having dropped off the podium making his second mandatory stop with two laps remaining.

The Dutchman rejoined comfortably ahead of Hamilton who by the closing stages had dropped well behind and finished the race a lonely fifth, though he did gain two places, he was thirty seconds behind the Red Bull. It was a strong race for Isack Hadjar who gained a place to finish sixth leading the lapped cars as he finished nearly a second ahead off Esteban Ocon.

Hadjar aided by his teammate Liam Lawson,  was able to stop and rejoin without losing position and that created the gap for him to stop and rejoin ahead of the Williams with Lawson only losing out to Ocon. The New Zealander finished a lap ahead of Alex Albon with Carlos Sainz completing the top ten, just over three seconds behind.

There are going to be questions whether the experiment forcing two pit stops really worked as intended, many drivers stopped early after a VSC when the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto crashed. Though the experiment in that regard worked as the accident on the opening lap when he crashed fighting Kimi Antonelli saw the first stop.

Albon did frustrate his friend George Russell who he finished twenty seconds ahead of, he successfully used the traffic to defend ensuring both Williams scored points. But Russell complained that the British-Thai driver was driving erratically, eventually cut the chicane to take the position and refused to give it back, saying he would “take the penalty”.

Russell was expecting a five-second penalty, but in fact he was given a drive-through, and he finished eleventh, his race already ruined by the electrical problem in qualifying. Ollie Bearman was nearly twenty-second behind after a strong but at times fraught recovery from twentieth to finish two and a half seconds ahead of Franco Colapinto and Bortoleto, who recovered from his collision on the opening lap.

Haas were however fined €5,000 following an unsafe release of Bearman when the pit lane opened for the reconnaissance lap.

Bortoleto hit the barriers at Portier on the opening lap after a scrap with Antonelli, but bounced back to finish just ahead of Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin, experienced team mate Nico Hulkenberg and Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull. The Italian took probably the biggest gamble completing his two stops late in the race.

Fernando Alonso retired because of engine issues, the most experienced driver of all time still yet to get off the mark in 2025. Pierre Gasly was the other retirement because of his collision with Tsunoda.

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