Race Review: Monaco

Monaco is known for the glitz and the glam. The 'jewel in the crown of F1' was a little bit different this year due to Covid; there were no crazy parties, no Red Bull Pool for Verstappen to belly flop into and not nearly as many celebs, but there was still lots of great moments. McLaren donned a stunning special livery, using the Gulf Oil colours, with many of the drivers including Norris, Ricciardo, Bottas and Leclerc designing special helmets for the race. It was also Williams' 750th race in the sport which saw Russell and Latifi with special one-off helmets.

Free Practice saw the Perez top the timesheet in FP1, the Ferraris in P1 and 2 for FP2 and Verstappen for FP3. Qualifying finished spectacularly. Leclerc smashed his Ferrari into the wall, red-flagging the rest of Q3 and stopping both Sainz and Verstappen's flying laps, cementing himself into P1. Verstappen qualified P2, Bottas P3, Sainz P4, Norris P5, Gasly P6, Hamilton P7, Vettel P8, Perez P9, Giovinazzi P10, Ocon P11, Ricciardo P12, Stroll P13, Räikkönen P14, Russell P15, Tsunoda P16, Alonso P17, Latifi P18, Mazepin P19, with Schumacher taking P20 having not completed qualifying and racing at the steward's discretion. It was a shock P7 for Hamilton who was the bookie favourite going into the weekend.

The following hours were tense for Leclerc; it was unclear whether he would need a new gearbox that comes with a 5-place penalty. The checks all came back looking positive however the practice lap on the way to the grid on Sunday saw big problems for Monegasque. The left-hand driveshaft was damaged in the crash and the team did not have enough time to fix it before the race start. Leclerc retired before the race began, yet another devastating weekend for the driver at his home race.

The start of the race saw Verstappen close of Bottas who had the inside line, with little change in the grid as they raced through Sainte Devote. Schumacher then overtook Mazepin at the hairpin, with Alonso making his way up to P14 from P16 as Russell was pushed off the track. Raikkonen and Stroll overtook Ricciardo. Both Mazepin and Norris were shown black and white flags for exceeding track limits at the chicane, leaving no room for error for the majority of the race remaining.

Hamilton stopped first out of the front runners, with Norris, Gasly and Bottas pitting a lap later. Bottas' front right tyre refused to come forcing the Finn to retire after the wheel gun had machined into the nut on the axle of the car. Hamilton was then overcut by Gasly, Vettel and Perez during their stops, with Perez moving from P8 to P4; a great move by the Mexican, all of which left Hamilton fuming over the team radio. They may have cracked the strategy last race, but they didn't quite get it right here.

Due to Monaco being an incredibly tricky track to overtake on, there was little movement in the rankings. Hamilton stopped again in Lap 67 to aim for the fastest lap, which he managed to take from Tsunoda. The later parts of the race saw Perez slowly making gains on Norris who was in P3, with a tense last set of laps as fans held their breath to see if he was going to manage an overtake. Sainz also closed the lap with Verstappen, before the dutchman took off in the last few laps with over 9 seconds between them. Sainz took his first podium for Ferrari, with Norris coming in P3 to take his 3rd podium ever in his F1 career.

The final results were Verstappen P1, Sainz P2, Norris P3, Sainz P4, Vettel P5, Gasly P6, Hamilton P7, Stroll P8, Ocon P9, Giovinazzi P10, Räikkönen P11, Ricciardo P12, Alonso P13, Russel P14, Latifi P15, Tsunoda P16, Mazepin P17, Schumacher P18, Bottas DNF and Leclerc DNS.

Driver Of The Day: Vettel

Vettel had a brilliant weekend in Monaco, reminding us exactly why he has so many World Championships to his name. His overcut of Gasly and Hamilton was a brilliant one, with the driver finishing P5, having qualified P8.

Biggest Crash: Leclerc

Q3 on Saturday saw Leclerc take pole position however his huge crash into the barriers red-flagged the session in the last 18 seconds. The driver clipped the barriers coming around turn 8, which then sent him into the barriers further along the wall. You can watch a replay of it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC0epPTx2mw

Overtake Of The Day: Vettel

It has to be Vettel. His overcut saw him come out of the pits and in front of both Gasly and Hamilton with a very very tight overtake, causing Hamilton to lose two places. Brilliant driving from Vettel and great strategy from his team. Due to some interesting TV production by Monaco, the TV footage didn't show the overcut in full, however, you can watch the onboard from Hamilton here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBhddtreJbo

Biggest Heartbreak: Leclerc

Leclerc is the clear winner here. Taking P1 at your home race and then not being able to start the race can not have been easy…. Charles has never finished a race at Monaco in his F1 career which is devastating in front of his home fans, however not even starting must hurt a lot. Hopefully, Monaco 2022 will be his race.

Runner up has to go to Bottas though. He was set for P3 and his retirement was no fault of his own. The driver really needed the points, particularly with all the unnecessary negative press surrounding him at the moment.

Best Radio Comment:

It has to go to Kimi commenting about his drinking tube not being connected properly. The man of few words responded to his race engineer congratulating him with, 'yeah one thing again that ******* drink pipe came loose on the formation lap, and it's been behind my back the whole race that ******* filter so I don't know how its been so difficult to put it… connect it correctly'. Hopefully, someone will get that sorted before next weekend.

You can listen to the best team radios from the weekend here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBeHD8KFhYE

Takeaways

I think it is safe to say that Daniel Ricciardo is not doing as well as he would hope with his new team. Particularly with Norris doing so well, he definitely needs to get his game together. It is clear the car has some speed so fingers crossed he will flying around Baku! Norris is having the best season start to his career; two podiums in five races, with one of them being Monaco, we may have a future world champion on our hand. The future of F1 is looking great particularly with him, Verstappen, Leclerc and Russell.

The podium was a very wholesome one. The Carlando bromance was reunited alongside Verstappen, making it the 2nd youngest podium in F1. There have been lots of comparisons to Vettel, Alonso, Button podium of 2011 which saw the Red Bull wonder kid in P1, the Spanish Ferrari driver in P2 and the British McLaren driver in P3, exactly how we saw it a Monaco 2021. You can see the comparison here:

It was a great weekend for Giovinazzi, winning Alfa Romeo's first points of the season. The Italian driver performed brilliantly at Monaco so hopefully we will see more of him throughout this season. It was less of a great weekend for Mercedes, only receiving 6 points for the whole weekend. Hamilton was less than impressed, saying the team had a lot to learn in a post-race interview.

Next up is Baku, Azerbaijan; it's another street circuit but distinctly different to Monaco, which is shaping up to be an exciting race!