2023 F1 Grand Prix of Monaco — Results & aftermath

Verstappen romps to victory in Monaco despite late rain; Alonso a distant P2 after wrong tire call; Ocon takes P3 with stellar effort; Perez scores zero points to cap off lost weekend

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen laid down a major marker in his quest for a third consecutive Formula 1 Drivers’ title, dominating the always significant Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday to claim a relatively easy victory despite the uncertainty brought by rain late in the race. Starting from pole for the first time here and with his teammate and closest championship rival Sergio Perez forced to start from the rear after the Mexican street ace crashed heavily during Saturday Qualifying, Verstappen proved untouchable in race trim even at this slow speed street circuit where the RB 19 ‘s usual DRS superiority was not really a factor. Verstappen potentially put Perez’s championship hopes to the sword with an untouchable performance and a second career win on the streets of Monte Carlo, as Perez was betrayed by a series of errors that saw him unable to advance his position and ended up scoring zero points on the day. Verstappen survived and thrived during the rainy conditions that swooped down from the mountains starting on Lap 52 of this 78-lap contest, patiently riding out several very slippery laps to suss out the track conditions & future weather before diving into the pits for the now necessary treaded Intermediate Pirelli tires on Lap 55.

On the other hand, Verstappen’s closest competition in the race, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, chose to pit a lap earlier for Medium slicks after running his Hards all the way to Lap 54. It proved to be a crucial miscalculation by Alonso’s strategists, as it remained far too wet for slick tires to function and the Spaniard was forced to pit again on Lap 56 for the much needed Inters. Alonso ended up a distant second to the flying Dutchman, nearly 28-seconds adrift, and it’s reasonable to speculate just how much time that second stop cost the Spaniard. With a pit delta of around 19-seconds and traffic circulating relatively slowly due to the poor conditions, if Aston had just made the move to Inters right off the bat, the story of the latter third of the race could have been a bit different. Still, it’s hard to see how anyone really had anything for Verstappen on this day and in his current run of unstoppable form, even the magnificent Alonso. Either way, it meant another strong result in P2 for Fernando, his highest finishing place of the season and his rather remarkable fifth podium out of six races. Alonso is having a renaissance and Aston Martin have made a quantum leap in performance with the AMR23 that makes them arguably the second best car in the paddock.

For Perez, it was an absolutely lost weekend due to the knock on effects of his heavy qualifying shunt, which required a chassis change and a host of other repairs overnight, resulting in a last place start on the grid. On a track where passing is extraordinarily difficult, Perez was stifled in the early going of the race and then got caught up in some extracurriculars that essentially doomed his race further. Trying to somehow move through the field, he tangled with the second Aston Martin of Lance Stroll and the Haas of Kevin Magnussen, contact that damaged his front wing to the extent that he needed a new nose by Lap 36. This totally negated his planned long run tire strategy. After another damaging incident coming together with Mercedes’ George Russell when the rains started to fall, Perez was relegated to tire testing the full Wet Pirellis in potential service of his teammate. He finished two laps behind Verstappen, whose points lead over his teammate grew to 39, while Alonso narrowed his deficit to Perez to only 12. All in a all, a weekend to forget for Perez and he’ll probably be happy there’s another race next weekend to wash the bitter taste of this disaster out of his mouth.

On the other end of the spectrum, it was pure jubilation for Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, who finished an excellent P3 after being gifted that grid position by Charles Leclerc’s penalty for impeding during quali. Ocon became the first Frenchman to reach the podium in Monaco since Jean Alessi way back in 1993. Ocon tenaciously fought off all challengers, including at various times, the two Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Leclerc and the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. Ocon also acquitted himself well in the rain, smartly pitting with the main group of frontrunners for that key switch to Inters on Lap 55 and then keeping it clean in the final stanza for that eye opening P3 result. Throw in Pierre Gasly’s solid P7 effort and it was an outstanding result for the midfield Alpine team. Hamilton was the best of the rest, running a solid if unspectacular race and staying out of trouble in tight quarters to finish in P4. Hamilton and Silver Arrows stablemate George Russell, who finished P5, were also helped by yet more strange strategy decisions by the Ferrari pit wall and some inconsistent driving by their pilots. After Carlos Sainz collided with Ocon speeding out of the tunnel and into the Nouvelle Chicane on Lap 11, damaging the Spaniard’s front wing, the team seemed to equivocate on their next move, resulting in a series of aborted calls for Sainz to box. When they did finally call in their driver from P4 on Lap 34, Sainz was none too pleased when he found himself emerge down in P7. But Sainz made his own misfortune later in the race when he spun out in the rain and lost several more positions, ending up in P8 at the finish and making for a very frustrating day for him.

Leclerc’s day was not that much better, though the Monegasque did rally in front of the home fans to maintain P6 behind Russell when the checkers flew. That’s where he started after that 3-place grid penalty so at least he didn’t lose any positions, but neither could he make any up after that key qualifying mistake. Leclerc is quite talented but prone to mental errors that lead to a lack of consistent performance and cost him better results. One wonders if this is because he feels he has to overdrive the Ferrari to even come close to the Red Bull’s pace or if he is just putting too much pressure on himself and that leads to a loss of concentration. Whatever the reason, it was another disappointing result in his home GP.

Rounding out the top 10, McLaren got good results amidst the chaos for others with a P9 for Lando Norris and P10 for rookie Oscar Piastri. With major upgrades coming to their chassis, McLaren will take those kinds of points paying results with their current underperforming car any day of the week.

Top 10 finishers of the Monaco GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 78 1:48:51.980 25
2 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 78 +27.921s 18
3 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 78 +36.990s 15
4 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 78 +39.062s 13
5 63 George Russell MERCEDES 78 +56.284s 10
6 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 78 +61.890s 8
7 10 Pierre Gasly ALPINE RENAULT 78 +62.362s 6
8 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 78 +63.391s 4
9 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 77 +1 lap 2
10 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 77 +1 lap 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in but a week’s time — the Spanish Grand Prix from the very familiar Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya where the drivers due their pre-season testing. While Alonso will be on home soil, it’s Verstappen who looks to be unstoppable right now in any country and on any track. But of course in racing, surprises happen all the time and nothing is a given. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!