Monaco Grand Prix
Unbeatable Verstappen extends lead with Monaco win
Dominant Max Verstappen also wins in Monaco with his Red Bull. photo
© Luca Bruno/AP
Max Verstappen wins the classic. In Monaco he drove a lonely race even in the wet. Teammate Sergio Perez has to fear for second place in the World Championship. Fernando Alonso is pushing from behind.
After his fabulous lap to the first Monaco pole, Max Verstappen didn’t let a slide in the race on the Côte d’Azur stop him.
The 25-year-old Dutchman dominated the competition almost at will in all weather conditions on the Red Bull’s allegedly weak track and won the Grand Prix in the Principality. With a lead of almost half a minute, Verstappen relegated Formula 1 veteran Fernando Alonso from Aston Martin to second place. The Frenchman Esteban Ocon from Alpine was allowed to go into the royal box for the award ceremony on Sunday as third.
The curse of home continued for local hero and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc: After a grid penalty, the only Monegasque in the field did not get past sixth place, he also had to face the Mercedes duo with record world champion Lewis Hamilton (4th) and George Russell (4th). 5.) give up.
Starting attack blocked – Super-Max flies away
In the World Championship classification, Verstappen took another step towards the third title in a row with his fourth win of the season in the sixth Grand Prix. Especially since teammate Sergio Perez, after an unsuccessful qualification in the race, did not get better than 16th place just ahead of Nico Hülkenberg (17th). Perez is now just 12 points clear of Alonso. Verstappen, who has now also won more for Red Bull than Sebastian Vettel (38) during his successful period with the Austrian team, has a whopping 39 points more than Perez.
When crossing the finish line, the winner heard the traditional honking of the countless yachts anchored in front of Monte Carlo. Whether Brazil’s soccer star Neymar, FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, pop icon Kylie Minogue or Spiderman actor Tom Holland – after the thrilling qualifying, in which Verstappen had prevailed at the last minute, they too got the problem side of the narrow and only 3.337 kilometers long course in action.
Alonso, who won in Monaco in 2006 and 2007 and has been waiting for his 33rd career win for ten years, failed to start. The 41-year-old two-time world champion from Spain just couldn’t match the two-time world champion from the Netherlands. Verstappen headed for the 2000th lead lap of his career on the first lap.
He also controlled what was happening on the still dry track. Alonso didn’t even get into the artificial overtaking window of less than a second, he couldn’t activate the DRS overtaking aid. Behind them, Ocon couldn’t follow the pace.
Rain makes for tactical games
He, like Leclerc’s colleague Carlos Sainz and Hamilton, had benefited from the fact that local hero Leclerc simply remained unlucky in Monaco. After being blocked by an opponent in qualifying, he had to drop three grid positions from third to sixth, with the others advancing accordingly. So Leclerc’s chances of winning his first home race were gone before the red lights went out.
When the race started, as often happens in Monaco, not much really happened. Overtaking is practically impossible on the circuit. Alonso briefly worried about the air conditions in a front tire, the pits quickly calmed the Spaniard.
Only the recurring rain forecasts kept the excitement high for action. Sometimes in twenty minutes, sometimes in five to ten, it should dribble. And then, around lap 52, light precipitation set in. Now the question arose: How hard would it rain and when do the tires have to be changed? The smallest slip has the greatest consequences. And it rained more. Alonso came to the pits, then Verstappen, he had the mixed tires put on and survived the only tricky phase in his 39th career win.
Perez without a chance after qualifying accident
In 2021 he had already won in his adopted country. This time at the 80th edition of the Grand Prix – the first took place in 1929 on an almost identical course – he had proven his dominance from the start, despite misgivings.
Teammate Perez, two-time winner of the season, had destroyed all his own hopes with an early crash in qualifying and had to start from the last place on the grid. Instead of attacking first place in the standings – Verstappen was 14 points ahead of the Mexican before the race – he now has to fear for second place. Because Alonso really got in the mood for his home game next weekend. In May 2013, he celebrated his last Formula 1 victory to date at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.