Nobody said it was going to be easy, and any thoughts of Oscar Piastri marching to a maiden world championship along a straight and smooth path were scattered to the four winds around the tight and twisting turns of Monaco.
The great Australian hope had his overall lead in the standings trimmed to just three points as McLaren team-mate Lando Norris sped to his first win in Monte Carlo.
"Monaco, baby, yeah baby!" a euphoric Norris said on the radio. "It feels amazing. This is what I did dream of when I was a kid."
It was Norris's first Grand Prix victory since the first race of the season, in Australia, and glory in Monaco meant that, at a stroke, he had taken 10 whole points out of Piastri's lead.
Starting on pole position, Norris locked up a wheel into the first corner but still managed to hold off last year's winner, Charles Leclerc of Ferrari.
Norris took over the lead on the second-to-last lap after race leader and defending circuit champion Max Verstappen took his second required pit stop. The Red Bull driver's strategy to delay the stop failed to pay off and he finished a distant fourth.
Piastri's feeling for the iconic circuit is probably less enthusiastic. Starting third on the grid, that was precisely where he finished up, home favourite Leclerc depriving him of second place on the podium.
When the Australian took his fourth win in six races in Miami at the start of May, he opened up an ominous-looking 16-point gap on the leaderboard. Now he heads to Barcelona for next weekend's Spanish Grand Prix with his top placing under real threat.
But it is right to maintain a sense of perspective. It was Piastri's second successive podium at Monaco and being disappointed with third place is an indication of the progress he has made in the intervening 12 months.
"Obviously the win would have been better, but it has been a tricky weekend. Practice was messy all the way through. I got into qualifying with not a lot of confidence," he said.
"I got close but not close enough, and you run around here where you started. A podium in Monaco - it's not all bad. The margins are so fine, if this is a bad weekend, then it is not going too badly at all."
World champion Verstappen, who fended off the McLarens to win last time in Imola, also finished where he started in fourth.
Lewis Hamilton, knocked down to seventh on the grid after impeding Verstappen in qualifying, was a rare gainer as he placed fifth and Racing Bull's rookie Isack Hadjar was sixth in his best result so far.
Mercedes had a dismal afternoon in the Mediterranean sunshine, after a nightmare in qualifying, with George Russell 11th and Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli 18th and the last car still running.
The virtual safety car was deployed on the opening lap when Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto went into the tyre wall at Portier, the turn before the tunnel, as Antonelli passed on the inside.
Aston Martin's double world champion Fernando Alonso was the second retirement, pulling off on lap 38 with a smoking car to continue his scoreless run for the season.
With PA
