The famed Circuit de Monaco is one of the most iconic stops on Formula 1’s schedule, but it is also one of its most treacherous. A hairpin descent. Walls close enough to kiss. A dark tunnel that ejects drivers into a burst of blinding sunlight.
And that’s on a good day.
Sunday was not a good day: When rain started to fall during the Monaco Grand Prix and tires started to lose their grip, the conditions deteriorated so quickly that even the most seasoned teams might have been filled with trepidation.
But Max Verstappen is not the average driver, and so while others struggled he simply sped away, claiming his fourth win of the season, and the 38th of his career. It was his second win at Monaco in three years, and extended his lead, and Red Bull’s, in the season points standings.
“It was incredibly slippery,” Verstappen said of managing the conditions, the first rain of the current Formula 1 season. “When you are that far in the lead you don’t want to push too hard, but also you don’t want to lose too much time.”
“We clipped the walls a few times — it was super difficult out there — but that’s Monaco.”
Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin finished the race where he started it, in second place, and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon did the same to claim a satisfying third. But neither was a serious challenger to Verstappen all day in a race that lasted nearly two hours as the speedy cars sometimes slowed to a crawl as drivers tried to hold their nerve.
The Race in Photos
Where the Race Turned
Rain that had been on everyone’s radar for the first half of the race finally arrived around lap 50, and that set off a frantic series of pit stops and tire changes for the leaders. The problem was that it was not raining on every sector of the track initially, so tires that were fine on dry pavement suddenly became unmanageable where it was slick.
That produced a series of frantic scenes and different decisions: Alonso, running second, pitted twice in quick succession; Ferrari’s two cars came into the pit one behind the other, taking turns to get new tires; drivers lost vision and slid either off the racing lane, into the barriers, or into the path of other cars. Wary drivers tip-toed through the tightest turns uneasily before trying to sprint away when they got their grip back, or peppered their teams for the latest weather reports.
Yet when it was over, Verstappen emerged right where he was: in the lead.
Season in Review
March 5: Bahrain Grand Prix. Winner: Max Verstappen
