Here’s the race report from our man in Monaco, Giles Richards:
Another historic stat for Max Verstappen: he set the fastest average speed in a Monaco GP win. As Martin Brundle points out, it didn’t really feel like it.
That’s all from me; stay tuned for Giles Richards’ race report.
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Max Verstappen collects his trophy from Prince Albert and the Dutch national anthem plays. In the distance, some lads in orange shirts get the party started on the deck of a massive yacht.
Next up: another street race in Baku (4-6 June) then France (18-20 June) and two races on home turf for Red Bull in Austria.
It feels like a big day in the world title race – and also in the constructors’ championship, where Red Bull have overtaken Mercedes. It’s the first time in almost three years that Toto Wolff’s crew have been off their perch at the top of the standings.
Here’s the race winner, Max Verstappen! “It’s so special to win here – my first time on the podium here. You’ve got to be so focused ... you never know what’s going to happen but it’s all about managing your tyres. The others went earlier [with pit stops] which made it easier for me.”
Max Verstappen leads the drivers' championship
Verstappen now has 105 points, with Hamilton in second on 101. Lando Norris moves up to third on 56 points, ahead of Valtteri Bottas, whose hopes of a Monaco podium fell apart in the pit lane.
A nice touch from Charles Leclerc, the pole-sitter who didn’t even get to start the race. He could be forgiven for being in another country by now, but instead he’s the first to congratulate Verstappen on his win.
Sergio Pérez has to settle for fourth place on a big weekend for Red Bull. Vettel is fifth, AlphaTauri’s Gasly sixth – and Hamilton is seventh with a fastest-lap point. That means Verstappen leads the drivers’ race for the first time ever. “You’re a Monaco Grand Prix winner and leading the world championship” – he will have heard worse messages over the team radio.
Max Verstappen wins the Monaco Grand Prix!
The Red Bull driver was handed his chance by Leclerc’s pre-race withdrawal, and he has taken it in style. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz comes home in second, McLaren’s Lando Norris third.
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Lap 77 of 78: We’re into the final lap. Serena Williams will wave the chequered flag. F1’s official Driver of the Day poll has Vettel, who climbed into fifth, as the fan favourite.
Lap 75 of 78: We almost had our first collision of the race, Tsunoda locking his brakes and nearly going into the back of Nicholas Latifi in front. Norris looks good to hold on to third; he’s managed to carve out a 1.5s lead over Pérez.
Lap 73 of 78: Here’s the top 10, with five laps to go:
1 Verstappen 2 Sainz 3 Norris 4 Pérez 5 Vettel 6 Gasly 7 Hamilton* 7 Vettel 8 Stroll 9 Ocon 10 Giovinazzi
*fastest lap
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Lap 70 of 78: Hamilton records a flying lap, more than a second quicker than Tsunoda, and looks good to pick up that bonus point. I doubt it’ll make the post-race debrief any less fractious.
Lap 68 of 78: Tsunoda has taken the fastest lap, although he won’t get a point for it as he’s well outside the top 10. And what’s this? Mercedes bring Hamilton in, putting his qualifying tyres back on, in a bid to take that solitary fastest-lap point ...
Lap 67 of 78: Some nice on-board shots of Verstappen cruising through the casino tunnel and sharply downhill, giving a sense of the extreme ups and downs of this circuit. He’s more than seven seconds clear of Sainz now and, barring something disastrous, going to win this race.
Lap 66 of 78: No further action against Lance Stroll for his pit-lane exit, and he looks set to pick up some points. Weird pit strategy of the day goes to AlphaTauri, who bring Yuki Tsunoda in for his first pit stop after 66 laps.
Lap 65 of 78: Norris has 13 laps to hold out on these slippery tyres; Pérez is right behind him now, but as we know, getting past is another matter. In sixth, Gasly has rediscovered some pace, and Hamilton looks like he’ll have to settle for seventh.
More fantasy street circuits:
@niallmcveigh Why not downtown Tokyo?
— Tamadventures (@tama_thatsme) May 23, 2021
Why not indeed? And how’s this for a real test of drivers’ vision:
@niallmcveigh Fantasy circuit? London > Durham > Barnard Castle > London
— baddogOTM #FBPE #Rejoin (@baddogOTM) May 23, 2021
Lap 62 of 78: The forecasters estimate that Pérez will be within striking distance of Norris within three laps. That pit move from Stroll might not have been too clever – he’s facing a potential penalty for his pit exit.
Lap 60 of 78: “Lots of drivers starting to make mistakes,” McLaren warn Norris over the team radio. Lance Stroll pits again and moves up to eighth place; it’s been a really good race for Aston Martin, with Stroll and Vettel both climbing from their starting positions.
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Lap 58 of 78: As it stands, Verstappen would be on 105 points, Hamilton on 100 – and Lando Norris in third on 56. It’s not a certainty for Norris though: he says the car “feels awful” on the current tyres, and he may come under pressure from Sergio Pérez, five seconds back in fourth.
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Lap 56 of 78: Hamilton is right behind Pierre Gasly now – but is there any hope of getting past him? Verstappen is starting to add time to his lead; he’s looking good to lead the drivers’ championship for the first time ever.
Some of your fantasy street-circuit suggestions:
@niallmcveigh
— Mark Woldin (@markwoldin) May 23, 2021
New York City. We would have the potholes filled.
@niallmcveigh fantasy street circuits? @superprixfilm may have an opinion about Birmingham
— Gareth Davies (@gareth_in_blyth) May 23, 2021
Derrick Cameron offers San Francisco, or Merseyside: “Liverpool and Birkenhead, including the Mersey Tunnel.” Boss, that.
Lap 52 of 78: All these yachts have got me Jonesing to resume my binge-watch of Below Deck. In other news, Verstappen is reporting no issues while Sainz’s tyres are starting to suffer a touch. The gap between the front two is holding steady at three seconds.
Lap 50 of 78: If this feels like a procession to the armchair viewer, this on-board lap from Nico Rosberg – a three-time Monaco winner – tells a different story.
Lap 48 of 78: Verstappen holds firm, keeping the lead over Sainz to 3.2s. Hamilton is stick in seventh, 1.6s behind Gasly but without much hope of doing better than sixth place. Vettel is a good 10 seconds ahead in fifth.
Lap 46 of 78: A painful moment for Danny Ricciardo, a winner with Red Bull here before. Down in 12th in the McLaren, he is lapped by leader Verstappen, and teammate Norris won’t be far behind.
An interesting question here. Some local politicians have tried to get something up and running but it has failed to garner much public support ...
@niallmcveigh Has there never been a plan for a Hong Kong GP? Plenty of windy hilly roads like Monaco with flyovers and tunnels as high speed straights, a huge population to watch and ample capacity for plane-loads of visitors. Wow.
— Andrew Benton (@thangnangman) May 23, 2021
Hong Kong has hosted Formula E races on a street circuit; apparently, the skyscrapers caused problems with team radios. Any other nominations for fantasy F1 city street circuits?
Lap 43 of 78: The top eight have all switched to harder tyres, although Alpine have kept Esteban Ocon on medium tyres in 10th. Serena Williams is spotted on the Aston Martin balcony, prompting a weak tennis pun from the commentary team that I won’t repeat.
Lap 41 of 78: Sainz cuts another second out of Verstappen’s lead, and wants the back markers scattered around the track to get out of his way. The impressive Lando Norris is in third, 17 seconds clear of Pérez and on course for another podium finish.
Lap 39 of 78: Carlos Sainz is up to second and running a little hotter than Verstappen. The gap is still a comfortable four seconds, so no need for the leader to panic. Pérez, who jumped up four places through that run of stops, sets a new fastest lap.
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Lap 37 of 78: Here’s the top 10 after that slew of pit-stops, which went spectacularly badly for Mercedes.
1 Verstappen 2 Sainz 3 Norris 4 Pérez 5 Vettel 6 Gasly 7 Hamilton 8 Stroll (yet to pit) 9 Raikkonen (yet to pit) 10 Ocon
Lap 35 of 78: Verstappen is back out with no problems, and Sergio Pérez, the last man in the leading group to pit, gets a lap of clean air at the front, before pitting and returning to the track in fourth!
That’s excellent race management from Red Bull. Less so from Mercedes, who have Hamilton in a proper funk on the radio. “I don’t understand, guys. I saved the tyres to go longer and we stopped before everyone.”
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Lap 34 of 78: Hamilton isn’t happy either, as Pierre Gasly gets through his pit stop and edges back ahead of the Mercedes man. “How is he ahead of me?” asks an exasperated Hamilton. Vettel jumps ahead of Gasly coming out of the pits while Verstappen, worried about his tyres, heads in.
Lap 33 of 78: Mercedes confirm that a cross-threaded wheel nut damaged the axel and caused Bottas’ retirement. Sometimes it’s the simple things.
Elsewhere, an actual overtaking move as Vettel gets the better of Gasly. Apparently it was quite something, although the TV cameras haven’t shown us yet.
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Valtteri Bottas retires after pit-lane disaster!
The tyre won’t come off, the wheel nut shredded – and Bottas is out of the race! Dear me. A bad weekend for Mercedes just got a whole lot worse.
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Lap 31 of 78: It’s Bottas’s turn now ... but his rear left tyre won’t budge! The pit crew try several blasts of the wheel gun, but to no avail. The time keeps ticking, now over a minute ...
Lap 30 of 78: Hamilton is the first to pit, aiming to get out ahead of Giovinazzi in ninth. He does so with room to spare, dropping to eighth but likely to recover his sixth place in due course.
@niallmcveigh Is it just me, or does Monaco just feel like a scalextric track where everyone's all on the same line? It's probably the most predictable (and boring) race of the season when the grid's confirmed...
— Dom Head (@dominicheadart) May 23, 2021
It’s certainly not just you – the lack of passing opportunities has been a talking point this week, and the top 10 at the start are in the same order now. No doubt it’s a gold-standard test for the drivers, but it can lack drama.
Lap 26 of 78: Bottas says he’s “not happy” with his front-left tyre, with Hamilton complaining this is like racing “on wet tyres”. Still nobody pitting. Sainz isn’t happy either – he tells the team radio that Bottas’ slow pace is now holding him up, with so little opportunity to overtake.
Lap 23 of 78: Carlos Sainz in third is offering Ferrari some comfort, travelling well and closing on Bottas, still struggling on soft tyres.
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Here’s Charles Leclerc, who says the mechanical issue was not in the gearbox. “Apparently it’s not coming from the gearbox, it’s something else – but I’m pretty sure it’s related to my crash yesterday. It was a problem in the rear left of the car. In the garage, it was very difficult to feel OK. I’m getting used to this feeling here unfortunately, I’ve never finished a race here. I feel for the team, the mechanics did such a hard job yesterday. Everything seemed fine. It’s such a shame for everyone.”
Lap 20 of 78: Lance Stroll, currently 11th, clips a kerb and his tyres leave the track momentarily. The pit lane is open, but Verstappen is happy for the time being. He’s stretched his lead to 2.7s, amid signs that Bottas and Hamilton are struggling for pace in their tyres.
Lap 19 of 78: Lando Norris gets a warning for pushing the track limits, despite sitting (relatively) comfortably in fourth. He has “two strikes” at turn 10, McLaren tell him over the radio. One more and there’ll be a penalty.
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Lap 18 of 78: Verstappen stretches his lead to just over two seconds, enough of an advantage to be able to pit on the lap after Bottas. “Show us the pace you’ve got,” Mercedes tell Bottas over the team radio. Verstappen leads Hamilton by almost 14 seconds; as it stands, he’ll take the overall title lead.
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Lap 15 of 78: The safety car is brought out at Monaco far more often than not, but everyone, bar the unfortunate Leclerc, is still racing in an incident-free start.
Lap 12 of 78: Verstappen cruises past the superyachts along the waterfront, 1.7s clear of Bottas, his tyres expected to last another four laps. His Red Bull colleague, Sergio Pérez, sets the fastest lap as the pace begins to creep up.
Lap 10 of 78: McLaren’s Lando Norris sets a new fastest lap; his pace, and that of Pierre Gasly behind him, is good news for Hamilton, who has opened up a 5.7s lead over Vettel in seventh.
Lap 8 of 78: Bottas set the fastest lap, but Verstappen has taken it back; there’s around 1.4s between the leading pair. Here’s the top 10, all on the softest tyres available and in race-management mode early on.
Top 10: 1 Verstappen 2 Bottas 3 Sainz 4 Norris 5 Gasly 6 Hamilton 7 Vettel 8 Perez 9 Giovinazzi 10 Ocon
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Lap 5 of 78: Soft tyres are the order of the day here – the ‘hard’ option of the three compounds is the same as the softest available in Spain and Portugal. Hamilton failed to make any ground at the start and is sixth, around 8.8s behind leader Verstappen.
Lap 3 of 78: Not too much movement in the pack through these early laps, although Lance Stroll and Kimi Raikkonen have edged ahead of Danny Ricciardo in midfield.
Lights out!
Here we go, then. Leclerc’s spot at the front of the grid sits empty as the rest start their engines, heading into a quick right-hand turn at Saint Dévote.
Valtteri Bottas makes a quick getaway and Verstappen suffers wheel-spin but holds his line. The Mercedes man locks up into the first turn, and Verstappen hangs onto the lead! Everyone else navigates the start safely.
It’s almost race time after that pit-lane drama. Verstappen will start five places ahead of Hamilton, desperate to punish the world champion for a rare off-weekend. Hamilton currently leads the drivers’ title race with 94 points, with Verstappen on 80. Valtteri Bottas, who starts behind Verstappen, is third with 47 points
More on that breaking news, from PA:
Charles Leclerc will not start the Monaco Grand Prix from pole position following a gearbox failure. Ferrari did not believe Leclerc’s gearbox had been damaged following his crash in qualifying yesterday, and elected not to replace it in order to avoid a grid penalty.
But Leclerc hit trouble on his way to the grid for Sunday’s race, and parked up in his Ferrari garage with his head in his hands. “We have an issue and we will not make it to the grid,” a member of the Ferrari team confirmed to FIA director Michael Masi.
Charles Leclerc is out of the Monaco GP!
It’s heartbreak for Monaco’s Charles Leclerc. Problems with the gearbox and left drive shaft mean that even a pit-lane start is out of the question. He will have dreamed last night of winning his home race, now he won’t even start. Questions will have to be asked of Ferrari’s decision to try and hang on to pole; it has backfired spectacularly.
RACE UPDATE:
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) May 23, 2021
Charles will not start the race due to an issue with the left driveshaft which is impossible to fix in time for the start of the race. #MonacoGP
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The grid at Monaco is staggered so the gaps between each car are equidistant. As a result, there’s no need to move everyone one spot forward. Leclerc’s space stays empty, with Verstappen the pole-sitter in the second slot. Behind him, it’s Valtteri Bottas, Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, Pierre Gasly and Lewis Hamilton in sixth.
Leclerc off the grid, Verstappen on pole
There’s not enough time, and Ferrari confirm their former pole-sitter will not head out to the grid. He may still make a pit-lane start, but that’s not guaranteed yet, either. That means Max Verstappen moves up to pole position!
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Bad news for Ferrari! The drivers are out on the Circuit de Monaco, Leclerc gingerly testing out that gearbox after his 100mph collision today. And it’s not looking good: “no, no, no” is all Leclerc can say over the team radio, before rolling back into the paddock. Ferrari took a risk not replacing it and taking the hit on the grid; now, they’re in a frantic race to get Leclerc’s car up and running, or face a pit-lane start at best.
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Twenty-five years ago saw one of the most dramatic, unpredictable races at Monaco. As the rain fell and favourites were skittled out, only three drivers finished – with Olivier Panis securing his only F1 grand prix win:
Glitz, glamour and Monaco memories galore in this gallery:
The grid
1 Charles Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari 2 Max Verstappen (Neth) Red Bull
3 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Mercedes 4 Carlos Sainz (Sp) Ferrari
5 Lando Norris (GB) McLaren 6 Pierre Gasly (Fr) AlphaTauri
7 Lewis Hamilton (GB) Mercedes 8 S Vettel (Ger) Aston Martin
9 Sergio Pérez (Mex) Red Bull 10 A Giovinazzi (It) Alfa Romeo
11 Esteban Ocon (Fr) Alpine 12 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) McLaren
13 L Stroll (Can) Aston Martin 14 K Raikkonen (Fin) Alfa Romeo
15 G Russell (GB) Williams; 16 Y Tsunoda (Jpn) AlphaTauri
17 Fernando Alonso (Sp) Alpine 18 Nicholas Latifi (Can) Williams
19 Nikita Mazepin (Raf) Haas 20 Mick Schumacher (Ger) Haa F1
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Preamble
After a Covid-enforced break in 2020, the Monaco Grand Prix is back. This might be the most famous circuit in motor sport, its relentless twists and turns the litmus test for F1 greatness, but that doesn’t always create the greatest racing spectacle. Nelson Piquet, who never won here, described driving it as “like cycling around your living room”.
A little bit cooler, maybe. But Lewis Hamilton lamented this week that “it is never exciting for fans.” It may be a different story today, with home favourite Charles Leclerc a surprise pole-sitter despite the crash that brought qualifying to a dramatic halt. The Ferrari man is clear to start on pole, his gearbox emerging unscathed from Saturday’s collision.
Leclerc will have title contender Max Verstappen right behind him, with Hamilton trailing behind in seventh, cursing Monte Carlo’s narrow streets and lack of overtaking opportunities. It’s a chance for F1’s flagship event to shake off accusations of style over substance. But if not, so what? Style is substance, and Monaco has plenty. Lights out: 3pm local, 2pm BST.
