McLaren’s Lando Norris won Formula 1’s iconic Monaco Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday, completing a flawless weekend and making up lost ground in the championship race.
He finished ahead of hometown favorite Charles Leclerc, who took second for Ferrari, and McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri claimed third.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, the reigning world champion, finished in a distant fourth place after waging a gamble on tire strategy that didn’t work out.
The 78-lap race took place on a sunny day on the streets of Monaco, the wealthy principality on the French Riviera that turns into a race track once a year.
Norris qualified first on Saturday in a race where grid position is uniquely important. He led from the start, fending off a valiant attempt by Leclerc to overtake him in the first few corners. He faced another challenge late in the race as Verstappen stayed out in the second stint, creating a roadblock for Norris and allowing Leclerc and Piastri to close up.
“It feels amazing! It’s a long race. It’s a long, grueling race. But good fun,” Norris said in a post-race interview.
“We won in Monaco! An amazing weekend,” he said. “This is was I did dream of as a kid.”
The race carries significant implications for the championship. Piastri still leads the standings, but his 13-point advantage over Norris has narrowed to just 3 points. Verstappen is another 22 points behind Norris, sitting third in the title race.
It was a much-needed comeback weekend for Norris, who hasn’t won a Grand Prix since the season opener in Australia in March. Norris, who began the season as the betting-odds title favorite, had struggled in previous races and fallen behind Piastri in the title standings. Monaco could mark a turning point.
Piastri said he had some struggles throughout the race weekend, but took some positives from his third-place finish.
“Pretty happy with that overall,” Piastri said. “Small points on the board, another trip to the podium in Monaco. So not bad.”
A new rule causes strategy gambles
Leclerc, who realized his own childhood dream by winning the Monaco Grand Prix last year, said his failure to qualify in first place again sealed his fate this year.
“We lost the race yesterday,” Leclerc said Sunday, referring to his narrow defeat for pole position to Norris.
The glitzy event attracted celebrities who were photographed over the weekend, including singer-songwriter Dua Lipa, actor and racer Patrick Dempsey, fashion model, Naomi Campbell and French soccer manager and former player Zinedine Zidane.
There was strategic jeopardy in the race after F1 introduced a new rule for the Monaco Grand Prix requiring that every driver must make at least two pit stops through the race, an attempt to spice up an event where the narrow streets make overtaking difficult. This rule created a series of permutations on tire strategy, forcing teams to rethink their approach.
As they raced past Casino Square in Monte Carlo each lap, some drivers gambled on early pit stops in the hope of making up ground later, and certain teams used their second driver as a roadblock to create a gap for their leading driver.
A group of cars down the order made their first pit stop early, saving time due to a “virtual safety car” caused by Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto hitting the wall. Others — most notably Mercedes, who qualified poorly — sought to go long on their race-starting tires in the hopes of a quicker pit stop due to a safety car. It didn’t come.
Finishing in fifth was Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, ahead of rookie Isack Hadjar of Racing Bulls in sixth and Esteban Ocon of Haas in seventh.
In post-race interviews broadcast on the F1TV app, the drivers expressed mixed feelings about the new rule. Some said they executed on it well, like Liam Lawson of Racing Bulls, who finished in eighth place. Others thought it was detrimental to the racing, like Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz of Williams, who finished ninth and tenth, respectively.
“I didn’t like it,” Albon said, accusing the Racing Bulls team of initiating the tactic to slow the rest of the pack down. “It’s not really how we want to go racing. I don’t like going racing like that… It just makes this messy, messy race. I could have brought a pillow in the car, and a coffee, and chilled out for a bit.”
Norris pitted on lap 20, the first of the frontrunners to do so, and came out in fourth place. He made his way back to the lead as rivals came in for new tires, and never quite relinquished it. Verstappen pitted late twice in the hopes of a lucky safety car, but the strategy didn’t work to help him make up ground.
Norris takes a step back from social media
After he put in a brilliant qualifying performance to win pole position, the jovial Norris told reporters he’s taking a step back from social media as he focuses on the championship race.
He said it has helped improve his performance and mentality after making a series of errors and admittedly falling short of his expectations over the last two months.
“I’m very, very happy because I feel like it’s a waste of my life. I have better things to focus on,” Norris said on Saturday. “I have had many things to focus on and try to improve on. There’s many, many factors that add up to a day like today. I can certainly say that’s one of them. So, I’m happy. Everyone can do their own thing, but for me, I’m happy to stay away from that.”
Still, Norris said his goal was to achieve “consistency of results” in order to call his Monaco performance a “breakthrough.”
“I can look at it both ways. I can see, easily, the positive — it’s a breakthrough in that I had a good Saturday. And for me, that’s at least a step in the right direction, which I’m very, very happy about. But it’s still one weekend. And like I said, consistency is a big part of it too,” Norris said Saturday after qualifying. “I’ll be happier if I know and I can get to that point where I’m confident into every session that I can perform like I did today because I think my performance was at a very, very strong level.”
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