Max Verstappen fended off a mid-race downpour, and multiple kisses with the barriers, to take victory at the Monaco Grand Prix, but the humidity was not so kind to others. Here are our picks for this week’s edition of Winners and Losers…
Winner: Max Verstappen
Verstappen delivered one of the greatest performances of all time in qualifying, finding three-tenths of a second in the short Monte Carlo final sector to take an impressive pole position.
The two-time world champion controlled the race with aplomb, running a series of mediums much longer than he expected and then dancing his way through slippery conditions to earn his fourth win in six races.
He has yet to finish lower than second in a Grand Prix in 2023, with his Monaco win coming 39th for him in a Red Bull setting a new team record. He also led the 2000th lap of his career, the seventh driver in F1 history to do so, and extended his championship lead to 39 points.
Loser: Sergio Perez
Sergio Pérez had everything to do in the Grand Prix after a fall in qualifying, and the team gave him a chance to salvage something by stopping him after just one lap to take the hard tyre, a compound he had intended to use until the end of the race. career.
However, he awkwardly tried to pass Lance Stroll off the track and then lost the place anyway when he hit Kevin Magnussen’s Haas, damaging his front wing and forcing him to pit.
When the rain came, he hit the wall hard and, although he survived, crossed the line in a paltry 16th, having visited the pits five times in total, to hurt his title chances.
Winner: Fernando Alonso
Fernando Alonso narrowly missed pole position and although he was unable to launch a sustained attack on Verstappen for the win, it was not helped by Aston Martin’s decision to send him out with slicks on a wet track, only to return to pit road to take interest when it turned out. . the wrong decision: the second is still a very strong result for the Spaniard.
It is his best result since finishing in that position at the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix and his fifth podium finish in Monaco, the last coming in 2012.
At 41, he is the oldest driver to finish on the Monaco podium since Jack Brabham in 1970, and his fifth podium finish of the season puts him just 12 points behind Pérez in the drivers’ standings.
Loser: Lance Stroll
This was a weekend to forget for Lance Stroll, who was eliminated in Q2 and started 14th while his teammate Alonso came close to taking pole at his pace.
The race started badly when he had collisions on the first lap and he said brake problems meant he was unable to stop the car when the rain came, causing it to bounce around the barriers at the hairpin turn and Portier.
He estimates that he hit the wall five times in total and eventually retired the car. That is the third time he has failed to score this year and the Canadian trails teammate Alonso by 66 points after six rounds.
Winner: Esteban Ocon
This was an excellent weekend for Esteban Ocon, the Frenchman pulling off a sensational lap out of nowhere to qualify fourth, which became third on the grid thanks to Charles Leclerc’s penalty.
The alpine racer kept a cool head throughout the Grand Prix, surviving a hit from Carlos Sainz and switching to intermediates at the right time when the rain came.
READ MORE Delighted for Ocon ‘on a cloud’ as Alpine scores first podium finish since 2021 in Monaco
It was his third podium finish, after one at Bahrain 2020 and his victory at Hungary 2021, to help him move up to ninth in the drivers’ standings. He also became the first Frenchman to finish on the podium in Monaco since Olivier Panis won the 1996 edition of the race.
Losers: Ferrari
Ferrari came to Monaco hoping they could challenge for the win, and through practice both cars, particularly Carlos Sainz, showed the kind of pace that suggests they could go ahead with that dream.
But neither driver delivered in qualifying and that left Sainz and local hero Charles Leclerc with everything to do on Sunday. Leclerc could only manage sixth place, where he started with a three-place grid penalty for frustrating Lando Norris, while Sainz got his worst result in Monaco since 2018.
READ MORE: ‘The pace was there’ says Sainz ‘frustrated’ after finishing P8 in Monaco
The red cars have managed just one podium finish in six races and languish in fourth in the constructors’ championship with 90 points, 29 behind Mercedes.
Winners: Mercedes
Mercedes’ long-awaited upgrade package, which is setting the tone for a new development direction, came out in Monaco, and while this isn’t the ideal circuit to test the new parts, there were signs they’ve taken a step. forward.
Lewis Hamilton’s P4 was his best result in Monaco this decade so far and his second best result of the season after a podium finish in Australia.
His teammate George Russell reckoned a podium finish was on the cards had he not made a mistake that sent him down an escape road in the rain. But fifth gave Mercedes a haul that leaves them just one point behind Aston Martin in the manufacturers’ category.
Losers: Haas
Haas’s disappointing performance in qualifying, where both Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen were knocked out in Q1, meant that points on Sunday were highly unlikely.
And so it happened, with Hulkenberg receiving a time penalty for causing a collision and a gamble by the team to put the cars on wet, rather than intermediate, tyres, which didn’t pan out.
The American team left the track empty-handed for the third time in six races in 2023, but Hulkenberg is hopeful that his problems were specific to Monaco and that a recovery is possible in Spain.
READ MORE: What the teams said – Race day in Monaco
Winners: McLaren
McLaren have built one of their worst cars in years, but for now they are focused on damage limitation as they await their next upgrade package, due to arrive at the British Grand Prix in July.
Lando Norris led home teammate Oscar Piastri as the team clinched the final two point-paying positions in ninth and 10th in what was only the team’s second double top-10 finish of the season.
Monaco Grand Prix 2023: Both McLarens pass Tsunoda as AlphaTauri driver falls out of points
This was the third time in a row that Norris had scored points in Monaco, while Piastri’s 10th-place finish was his second point score of the year.
Loser: Yuki Tsunoda
Yuki Tsunoda has been driving at a very high level all year, and looked set for his third points result of 2023 after a strong qualifying that left him ninth on the grid.
The Japanese driver told me after the race that he had been checking the brakes all weekend, but the problem became unmanageable when the rain came.
HIGHLIGHTS: Relive the action of a gripping race in Monaco as Verstappen dominates to take victory
As a result, the AlphaTauri driver sat out the points and limped across the 15th line, three places behind teammate Nyck de Vries in what was his worst result of the season.