Max Verstappen has won the Monaco Grand Prix for the second time in his career. With his victory, the reigning world champion considerably expanded his lead in the World Cup standings. Nyck de Vries from Uitwellingerga finished twelfth in his home race.
Verstappen led the race in the principality from start to finish and kept his cool in treacherous conditions. Rainfall in the last part of the Grand Prix caused the necessary chaotic scenes. The Red Bull driver eventually won, ahead of Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Esteban Ocon (Alpine), who had also started behind him in that order. Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished fourth and fifth.
Due to his victory, and the fact that teammate Sergio Pérez did not score any points, Verstappen increased his lead in the battle for the world title by 25 points. The gap with Pérez is now 39 points.
Verstappen already laid the foundation for his fourth victory of the season on Saturday. Thanks to a phenomenal qualifying lap, in which he made the difference in the last sector, he started from pole position a day later. On a softer tire than number two Alonso, he made no mistake and kept the lead. Like the entire top-13 remained unchanged for a long time.
Rain
Verstappen then quickly walked away from Alonso, who in turn created a huge gap with number three Ocon. The Spaniard from Aston Martin came closer from the 28th lap, because the medium tires under Verstappen’s RB19 got heavier and the Limburger also lost a lot of time due to the train of stragglers.
Red Bull did not bring the Dutchman in for his pit stop yet, because in that case he would end up behind Alonso and rain was also predicted in the final phase of the race. Verstappen extended his lead over Alonso slightly, because it was logically also held up by the ‘traffic’.
With just under 30 laps to go it did indeed start to rain. Aston Martin initially brought in Alonso for a tire change to the medium tyre, but that turned out not to be the right choice. Verstappen slipped a lot and indicated that it was time to switch to intermediates. Alonso followed that example, after which almost the entire field was active on that ‘intermediate band’ a little later.
Perez tapped
Due to Alonso’s two stops, Verstappen’s lead was huge at more than twenty seconds. The victory of the reigning world champion was no longer in danger.
His team-mate Pérez started from last place after his crash in qualifying and immediately pitted after the first lap to switch to the hardest tyre. He thus gained two positions, because Zhou Guanyu and Nico Hülkenberg also entered. That strategic choice seemed to work out well, were it not for the fact that Pérez had to make another stop on lap 36 after a touché with Lance Stroll and later had to go in again due to the rain. In the end, Pérez finished sixteend3 and therefore outside the points, after he was also tapped by Russell and made a total of five pit stops.
DeVries
Nyck de Vries failed to score points. The AlphaTauri driver started from twelfth place and also finished in that position. De Vries lost a spot to Valtteri Bottas, but his own teammate Yuki Tsunoda fell far back due to problems with his brakes, so that De Vries regained twelfth place.
The next race awaits next week, then at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.