Kimi Antonelli leads action packed Monaco Grand Prix ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar.
Antonelli makes it 5 in a row
From what we’ve seen of Antonelli so far this season, it’s safe to say that the 19 year old driver is proving himself as a force to be reckoned with. The young driver started on pole and never looked back, leading from start to finish. Though safety cars and a red flag posed a threat to the comfort of Antonelli’s lead, he managed to hold onto his lead throughout. The young Italian is now the youngest driver to ever win the Monaco Grand Prix.
George Russell suffers once again
In 2026 it seems as though pain is following George Russell everywhere he goes. After an outstanding opener in Australia, Russell has had some sort of problem at every race, including a mechanical failure that caused his DNF last time out in Canada.
After a tough qualifying yesterday and given the nature of the track, it was obvious it would be difficult for Russell to improve on his P6 starting position in the race. However, the difficulty of Russell’s race exceeded all expectations. The Mercedes driver narrowly avoided a penalty at the start of the race for a false start, but his luck clearly ended there. The stewards handed him a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, and when he pitted under the safety car, the team failed to serve the penalty. This then meant that Russell had to serve a drive through penalty which saw him go from P5 all the way down to P14. It’s only because of a penalty for Nico Hulkenberg that the British driver managed to finish P13.
Unfortunately for Russell, this is now the second week in a row where has scored 0 points while his teammate scored 25. Why George Russell is the one constantly facing problems at Mercedes is unclear, but seeing the pre-season favourite who showed such great promise early on suffer like this weekend after weekend is painful to watch.
Heartbreak for the home hero
Home hero Charles Leclerc was so close to pole position yesterday in qualifying before he hit the wall, and today the bad luck just kept coming. Leclerc moved up to P3 at the start of the race and drove comfortably in this position for the majority of the race. When the safety car came out following Lance Stroll’s incident, Leclerc pitted after his teammate Lewis Hamilton. The restart was unfortunately short-lived for Leclerc as he crashed into the barrier at the final corner, in the exact same place Stroll previously had. The surface of the track in that area was found to have some sort of a pothole, while Leclerc himself was suffering from poor brakes, so sadly there was little the Monegasque could do.
Back to Back podiums for Hamilton
Monaco turned out to be a dream race for Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton as he finished P2 for the second race in a row. After starting P3, Hamilton moved up a place at the very start of the race and was secure in his position until the very end of the race. Though Hamilton was handed a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, the team pitted him under the safety car and he managed to maintain his position. Furthermore, once Leclerc’s race ended, there was no one left to really pose a threat to Hamilton and he breezed his way to the podium. This marks his first back to back podiums as a Ferrari driver, and sees him move up to P2 in the drivers’ championship.
A difficult day at Red Bull
The Monaco Grand Prix was extremely short-lived for world champion Max Verstappen as when the lights went out he struggled to get going due to what turned out to be race ending engine issues. Verstappen fell from P2 to P22 by the end of the first lap, where he then boxed to retire the car.
On the other side of the Red Bull garage, while things certainly went better, the race was by no means perfect. Isack Hadjar suffered from engine problems pretty much throughout the whole race. Despite this, Hadjar did manage to finish on the podium, which was a lovely result considering he got to share it with his hero Lewis Hamilton. Hadjar’s podium wasn’t officially safe until after the race as he was under investigation for a post race penalty due to an alleged red flag infringement. Red Bull were reported for attempting to change the spark plugs on Hadjar’s car, however it’s been found that they did not actually proceed with the changes. This therefore means that Hadjar luckily escaped a penalty/disqualification and has held onto his P3.
McLaren highs and lows
British driver Lando Norris spent the majority of his race stuck behind the Alpine of Pierre Gasly, unable to overtake due to the nature of Monaco. Norris then suffered from power unit issues, therefore causing him to retire from the race. This is the second weekend in a row where Norris has had a DNF due to mechanical failure, and after retiring from FP2 on Friday for the same reason, it’s safe to say McLaren’s reliability is being called into question.
In the case of Oscar Piastri, he drove a relatively calm race, other than the 5 second penalty he received for speeding in the pit lane. Due to the numerous DNFs and the restart, Piastri found himself in P4 by the end of the race, which is great considering he started the race in P7.
Spectacular outing for VCARB
Both Racing Bulls drivers scored their career best finishes this time out in Monaco, with Liam Lawson finishing in P5 and teammate Arvid Lindblad finishing P6. Lawson had a great qualifying yesterday which saw him make Q3, and he converted that amazing quali result into an even better race result, a great feat for the Kiwi driver.
Drama down at Williams
Alex Albon came home to score a nice amount of points for the team after finishing the race in P8. However, Albon will likely feel as though it could have been P7 for him today if not for Williams’ earlier strategy call. During the race Albon was made to let teammate Carlos Sainz by and then hold up those behind him so that Sainz could build up a big enough gap for a pit stop. However, this then meant that Arvid Lindblad managed to find his way past Albon and stayed ahead of him for the remainder of the race. Carlos Sainz ended up retiring from the race anyway due to an incident after the red flag restart.
A race full of (unnecessary?) penalties and misfortune for Gasly
Monaco was certainly an odd race when it comes to how many penalties were distributed for exactly the same thing. 7 penalties were handed out to drivers for speeding in the pit lane, with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly being faced with two of them. This is not something you normally see in F1, no matter the circuit, and so the accuracy of the penalties has thus been called into question. FIA documents show that most of the drivers given penalties only exceeded the 60 km/h speed limit by 0.1 km/h. Therefore, potential reliability issues of the speedometer served as a concern to the teams. Many teams explicitly told their drivers to be extra careful on entry to the pits, and so the fact that so many drivers allegedly sped has led to mixed reactions from fans and experts alike.
Pierre Gasly being given not one but two of these penalties effectively ruined his race as, although he still finished well within the points in P7, on track he was P3 and should have been the one on the last step of the podium. Gasly was seen to be visibly frustrated over the matter during the red flag, to the extent where Alpine have now issued a right of review in defence of Gasly. It is unclear what will come of this as the FIA rarely changes their decisions at this stage, but hopefully Gasly will at least be given some peace of mind as to how these penalties even came about.
Feature image courtesy of Formula 1