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This Grand Prix – Monaco

Hello, welcome to This Monaco Grand Prix, we are back after a few races away after Lando Norris “achieved his dream,” winning the race, high of Imola to “miserable” Monaco for Hamilton, did the two-stop mandate work. Does Lance Stroll have a bad wrap?

General News

Michael Schumacher’s F2001 has sold for £11.8m at auction this weekend Grand Prix, with a donation of the proceeds going to the Keep Fighting Foundation, which continues the seven-time champion’s charitable work following his skiing accident. The 211 chassis is one of the most sought-after car in F1 history, after he won his fourth championship.

Schumacher’s Ferrari F2001 is considered a crown jewel for many reasons. Not only did it secure the coveted win at the 2001 Monaco Grand Prix, but it also took both Schumacher and Ferrari to the drivers’ and constructors’ championship victories. The car was the only Ferrari to win both the Monaco GP and driver’s championship.

Speaking ahead of the auction, Augustin Sabatié-Garat, Director of Sales at RM Sotheby’s, explained, “Victory on the streets of Monte-Carlo alone would make this a hugely significant Ferrari, but to do so in the same season that it crossed the line to capture both the Drivers’ and [Teams]’ World Championships – the first back-to-back championship double in Ferrari history – takes it to a completely different level.”

Weekend Recap

FP1 saw Charles Leclerc go fastest with an 11.964 on the soft tyres putting himself just over a tenth and a half faster than Max Verstappen.  Lando Norris put his McLaren third going just over a tenth and a half behind Verstappen, and a quarter of a tenth faster than Alex Albon who continued to show strong pace in the Williams.

FP2 Leclerc was again fastest with an 11.355 to put himself nearly four hundredths ahead of the McLaren of Oscar Piastri with his teammate Lewis Hamilton a tenths behind. He had gone into the weekend pessimistic about his chances, but this could be the start in the turnaround of the team’s season.

FP3 Leclerc made a clean sweep of practice setting a 10.953 putting himself just over two and three quarters of a tenth ahead of Max Verstappen, the two McLarens with Lando Norris a hundredth behind the Red Bull and a tenth and a half ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri.

Qualifying saw Norris beat Leclerc by a tenth and set a new track record on his way to pole for the Monaco Grand Prix. The McLaren driver found a tenth in one of the closest qualifying sessions of the season with a 09.964. Leclerc managed to split the two McLarens after he went just under seven hundredths ahead of Piastri

Norris converted pole into his first win in Monaco beating Leclerc by three seconds after taking 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. 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

McLaren

Going into qualifying Oscar Piastri said he believed that McLaren had the pace to challenge for pole, as long as it can recover from a “very messy” Friday. Piastri was second by four hundredths in FP2 despite a crash at Sainte Devote, behind Leclerc. The pace of Ferrari caught many by surprise, but Piastri feels McLaren can once again establish itself at the top of the order heading into the rest of the weekend.

He told reporters, “I think just the whole day has been a bit up and down, I think when we get everything together the pace is quite good. It’s just not proving that easy to do at the moment, so some things to look at, I think especially for myself it’s been a very messy day, so yeah, try and reset a bit tomorrow, because I think the pace in the car is there.”

“I think clearly Ferrari are looking a lot stronger here than they have done, but I think for today it’s more just being on my side that’s been quite messy. Plenty of things to learn and I think tomorrow will be an interesting day.”

McLaren did look quick in practice but I think Ferrari is turning a corner now but the Papya cars have most of the time ironed out the small issues they have had in practice. They like all the teams were going to struggle to get a lap in practice and that is always difficult in Monaco.

While Norris took pole in qualifying Piastri could only finish third admitting he struggled and nearly clipped the wall several times. After qualifying he admitted that it capped off a “messy” weekend for him.

After qualifying, Piastri said, “I think I’ve hit more walls this weekend than I have in my whole career, so it’s been untidy. Yeah, just been struggling to get into the groove a bit, I think in qualifying I was much happier with things and I felt pretty good. But, yeah, we’ve been doing some digging this weekend, and to come out with this result is a decent effort.”

He also admitted that he thought it would have been tough to beat Norris in qualifying and it was only the third this season Piastri has failed to make the front row in qualifying.

Norris said his pole was down to “driving smarter” rather than quicker, believing this was the first time since Melbourne that he put together a satisfactory Q3 run. Norris set 09.954 setting a new track record to beat Piastri by a tenth which he put down to a “mix” of different elements, including both improvements with the car and from himself.

He explained “There’s probably a small mix of both of these things: from the car, and it being Monaco and a very different layout, and a very different style of driving that’s needed here. It’s a lot more risk and commitment rather than just absolute car balance in a way. But there’s also things that I’ve been working on to improve to do a better job again – not because I’m not at the pace, but because I’m never putting it together come Q3.”

But he refused to call it a break through saying he would only call it that if he could repeat it next weekend in Barcelona.

After holding off Leclerc and taking his maiden win in Monte-Carlo, Norris said he had “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 and held the lead on the run to Sainte Devote despite locking up both front tyres. Morris managed the net lead throughout, only losing the position through the two mandated pit stops, which was a new regulation for this year. In the closing laps, he took the lead when Verstappen made his second stop.

He said, “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.”

Surprisingly it’s only his second win of the season which I didn’t realise during commentary of the race as he has been there abouts fighting for wins. Norris will be hoping that this kickstarts his season and he needs to I thing start making statements and winning more races if he wants to win the championship, he will look to do that in Barcelona next weekend.

Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton says there is “more to come” from Ferrari after he fought back from twelfth place on the grid to finish fourth in the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix. The seven-time champion in his first outing for Ferrari in Italy scored his best result in the Grand Prix format this season and the first time he finished ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton said racing in front of the famous tifosi, had been “a highlight of the year so far” and that there were “lots of positives to take” from the race. He told BBC News, “I did think we would make an improvement this weekend with something I’ve fixed. And I think there is more to come. The set-up was really good, the car felt really mega and the team did a fantastic job on strategy and pit stops”

“It was a lot of pressure on us with struggling through the year with the car so far, and particularly with our qualifying. To finally have that connection, that synergy with the car, was a really great feeling.”

Hamilton used an off-set strategy, starting on the hard tyre, to run long and then was helped by two safety cars. That put him on fresh tyres in seventh place for the final restart, from where he moved up to his final position.

Reflecting on his Ferrari Italian debut he says it was “very reminiscent of when I was growing up watching it sitting at home on my couch, having a bacon sandwich watching Michael Schumacher here racing with Ferrari and seeing the connection.”

Hamilton was another driver to be given a penalty after the stewards concluded he impeded Max Verstappen at Massenet during Q3. Verstappen approached at much higher speed, changed his line to avoid Hamilton and swore over the radio in response before both drivers progressed to Q2 and eventually Q3, where they secured respective P5 and P4 positions on the grid for Sunday’s race.

The stewards have handed Hamilton a three-place grid drop, meaning he falls to seventh promoted Verstappen, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.

Leclerc said following qualifying he felt like he missed out on the opportunity to win the Grand Prix given Ferrari’s competitiveness this weekend. Leclerc took provisional pole around the historic streets of Monte Carlo after the second barrage of Q3 runs, ahead of both McLarens.

Norris went faster on the final run, and the Monacan believes not taking pole may have cost him the only chance of a win this season. He said, “There’s always something more to be done. But, at the end of the day, this was the best we could do. I think the lap was really good.”

“The first lap was a little bit of a shame because when you have a first good lap that gives you a bit more confidence for the second round. I couldn’t have that. I had sector two traffic, but it’s the way it is. Just obviously very frustrated. We know that we don’t quite have the car to go for wins this year. But this weekend, the car felt good. And starting second here is going to be tricky to then take that first place.”

Hamilton said his race was “miserable” and he was left “in no man’s land” as he finished fifth recovering from seventh following the penalty. Well-timed pit stops, with all drivers required to make two in a first for the Monaco race, allowed Hamilton to move ahead of Isack Hadjar and Fernando Alonso come the chequered flag, which he believes was the maximum possible.

He said, “I think from where I was, a three-place grid penalty moving forwards back to fifth, I think was decent – the best I could do.” The seven-time champion finished fifty-one seconds behind Norris and was the last car on the lead lap in fifth.

When asked if the experience of racing at Monaco had been enjoyable, Hamilton replied: “No, it was miserable. The races here are generally, unless you’re first and in the lead, even when you’re in the lead, it’s not that fun. Just a nice reward at the end but other than that, anything but first is kind of empty.”

Red Bull

Max Verstappen said that Red Bull “overdid it” with the set-up changes between FP1 and FP2, which was the reason behind him dropping down the order. In FP1 he was just over a tenth and a half behind Leclerc in P2, but in FP2 the Dutchman complained of balance issues and finished the session in tenth seven-tenths behind Leclerc.

He told reporters, “I think FP1 was quite positive, but then we made some changes for FP2 to see how far basically we could push the balance. I think we just overdid it a little bit, so then I just couldn’t really attack the corners anymore how I would like, then you’re just shedding a lot of pace and the lap time was basically not coming out of it.”

We know this Red Bull has been quite difficult to find set-up which balances speed and performance, they have been another team to play down expectations to challenge for pole which we expected to be Ferrari and McLaren.

Yuki Tsunoda was a mere four thousandths slower than Verstappen in second practice en route to P11, but rued a day compromised by traffic. He said on Friday, “I think it’s the same as everyone, it’s all up to almost like luck to get a lap. In FP1 I didn’t have any laps, fortunately, I had a bit more laps in FP2.”

“It was alright. I think at least [I was] able to read the kind of limitations from the soft [tyres], but it’s kind of similar still the limitations to what I had in FP1. I just don’t feel much step from the soft in terms of grip, so that’s what I’m struggling with a little bit.”

Following the race, Verstappen said he believed that fourth was the best the team could achieve after using an off set tyre strategy. In the race Red Bull seemed to extend his stints going deep into the race in hope of a safety car or red flag, which never materialised. Verstappen eventually stopped for a second time on the penultimate lap and dropped back down to fourth place, but the reigning four-time World Champion feels it was “the only option” to potentially spring a surprise.

After finishing sixteen seconds behind Leclerc, Verstappen said, “Honestly, there was not much for us to improve on, because I had a big gap behind. So, for us to just stay out and maybe hope for a red flag or whatever, it was the only option. We could have pitted sooner, but then you just sit there in fourth anyway.”

Mercedes

George Russell has admitted concern over “baked-in” issues with Mercedes’ 2025 car following a disappointing showing at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Last weekend, the Englishman had his worst result of the season dropping from third to finish seventh because of a mixture of poor strategy,  the timing of the VSC and a lack of pace.

Russell told Sky Sports, “The trends are pretty clear. When it’s hot, we’re slow. When it’s cold, we’re quick. That was the same last year. We’ve been doing everything with the setup to try and find solutions, but there’s clearly something more fundamental in the car.”

“It’s not the first race for this season where we’ve been slower than Ferrari, even slower or the same pace as Williams, but we’ve just somehow managed to get a result out of it on these occasions.”

Despite their misfortune, they have been luckier that their main rivals Red Bull and Ferrari allowing them to second in the constructors. The Silver Arrows introduced front suspension and wing upgrades in Imola that there had been quite significant optimism around ahead of the event, but ultimately didn’t appear to help.

Following Practice, Russell said the team had their “slowest Friday” of the season ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix, but that the mandated two-stop race means there “may be a bit of a chance”. He finished sixth and twelfth after the two one-hour sessions on the streets of Monte Carlo having never troubled the top of the leaderboard.

He told reporters, “To be honest in terms of pure performance, it’s probably been our slowest Friday. But to be honest, we had a bad Friday here last year and we were only, I think, a tenth from pole in the end. So kind of all still to play for and I’m still pretty excited to see how Sunday is going to pan out.”

Teammate Kimi Antonelli finished his first day in F1 machinery on the streets of the Principality in ninth, having been P11 in FP1. Having kept the car out of the barriers, the Italian rookie admitted that building up and finding the maximum performance of the tyres had been the goal.

he said, “It’s tricky, definitely, to find the right balance and strike the maximum out of the tyre. I think today we’ve been trying a lot of different things, especially with the soft [tyre], especially in terms of warm-up because it’s really hard to extract the grip, especially on lap one. But overall I think learned a lot during the day and looking forward to tomorrow.”

Following the race, Russell said he didn’t regret intentionally cutting a corner to overtake Alex Albon around half distance. Russell was stuck behind Albon for a number of laps as the Thai driver backed off to help Williams teammate Carlos Sainz.

Russell cut the Nouvelle Chicane intentionally to get past Albon giving him clean air, and he built a pit-stop gap over Albon. However, Russell was hit with a hefty drive-through penalty – when the stewards usually give ten seconds.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the race, Russell explained why he thought “screw it” when stuck behind Albon. He said, “We had planned it with Kimi and myself this morning. We didn’t expect Williams to do the same and (Racing Bulls) to do the same, and ultimately that’s the only way to score some decent points in Monaco.”

“We were damned if we did, damned if we didn’t. At one point I was like screw it, I really don’t care because I was out of the points. I was going to finish nowhere and I just wanted to just enjoy driving in Monaco. We lost everything yesterday because of the failure. I didn’t get that chance in qualifying.

“I got 25 laps driving full gas in Monaco and the ironic thing is that even with the drive-through I finished higher than I would have done without the drive-through. I would have been stuck behind Alex and then I would have pitted behind Tsunoda, Hulkenberg. A bit of a flawed system.”

Aston Martin

Managing technical partner Adrian Newey says that Lance Stroll has a “bad rap” outside the team. While the Canadian has shown speed at times his career has seen more blunders including in FP1 when contact with Charles Leclerc resulted in a one-place grid penalty and a gearbox change.

He started the race from nineteenth after out qualifying Ollie Bearman who had a ten-place penalty, where he had qualified anyway. Team principal Andy Cowell explained, “Our radio call wasn’t clear enough, is the is the bottom line. So we need to we need to learn from that.”

“Rear wishbone broken, damage to the floor. And so the best option is to change the gearbox, because we set up two gearboxes yesterday ready for that sort of scenario. And the downside is that Lance doesn’t get FP1 back. So it’s those laps that he’s missed.”

Asked about Stroll’s reputation, Newey, likely preferring to avoid upsetting Aston Martin team owner Lawrence Stroll, the man paying him a huge salary and father of Lance –Newey told a select group of reporters, “Lance, I think, has an unfairly bad rap. When you compare him against team-mates he’s been up against – Checo [Sergio Perez], Nico Hulkenberg, Sebastian [Vettel] and now Fernando – then he’s been right there.”

“Any driver who gets to Formula 1 is clearly very good, but I think Lance is much better than people give him credit for.” While his new position means Newey may have had to toe the Aston Martin party line when it comes to Stroll, it is clear he is a big fan of two-time world champion Alonso.

Alpine

Franco Colapinto says he his heading into his second race for Alpine looking for more confidence in the car over a single lap. The Argentine made his debut for the team last weekend at Imola, where he finished sixteenth following a crash in qualifying before being hampered by a yellow flag in the race.

He told Motorsport.com, “I think Monaco, Baku, Singapore are very high-confidence tracks, and you need to pick up the confidence during laps or in the sessions, and it’s not very straightforward. Even less so for me, given that I’m still lacking a bit of that confidence with the car – that is normal after only during one race weekend.”

“There’s a lot of pace and a lot of confidence still coming with the car. Here, where you are brushing the walls in every corner, you need that and I think it’s going to come after FP1 a bit more, after FP2 even more, and just keep building up like I’ve done in Imola. I started a bit far in FP1, but then got closer and closer by the end of FP3.”

Haas

Ollie Bearman was given a ten-place grid penalty for a red flag breach during FP2. Replays showed Bearman appearing to overtake Carlos Sainz under the red flags triggered by Oscar Piastri’s crash in Friday’s second session, with the stewards subsequently noting the incident.

It means at least two drivers went into Saturday’s all-important Qualifying session with penalties to their name, given Lance Stroll’s earlier sanction for an FP1 clash involving Charles Leclerc.

The stewards said, “Well prior to the overtake, the session had been red flagged. The team informed the driver rather late, just before the overtake happened. However, it is clear from the video footage that there was a light panel directly in front of the driver which showed the red flag; and the dashboard also indicated the red flag well before the overtake took place.”

The regulations require drivers to ‘immediately’ reduce speed and proceed slowly back to their respective pits, when they are forbidden to overtake unless its the incident they are passing. Drivers are to ‘remember that race and service vehicles may be on the track…’.

The disagreed with Bearman’s defence that he ‘decided not to slow down abruptly because he felt that slowing down abruptly would have been more dangerous and that what he did was a safer way of handling the situation.’

Adding “In the circumstances, there is no mitigating factor for the fact that he overtook a car under red flag and we therefore imposed a penalty of a 10-grid place drop for the race and two penalty points.”

Results Summary

Championship Standings