Five winners, five losers: Monaco Grand Prix
- Peter Johnson
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
Written by Peter Johnson, Edited by Dhara Dave
The Monaco Grand Prix saw the introduction of a controversial new rule mandating two pit stops, but who weathered the unique circumstances to have a weekend to celebrate?
Winner - Lando Norris
With no Pole position or victory since the opening round of the season in Melbourne, pressure had been mounting on Lando Norris to deliver another statement performance and fight back against Championship-leading teammate Oscar Piastri.
In Monte Carlo, Norris not only had the in-form Australian to beat, but also an inspired home hero in Charles Leclerc, who dominated Practice across Friday and Saturday as he chased a second victory in the Principality.
Second to Leclerc in Q1, Norris began to turn the screw as the session progressed, heading Q2 before setting a record-breaking lap time in Q3 to take Pole. Setting the first-ever sub-70-second lap around Monaco was in itself deserving of victory for the Briton, and despite a late scare as a crafty Max Verstappen attempted to back him into Leclerc, it was a victory that never looked in doubt.
Now just three points off the Championship lead despite his teammate’s dominance in recent rounds, this weekend was surely the confidence-boosting performance Norris was clamouring for to get his Championship charge back on track.
Winner - Racing Bulls
While the mandated two-stop regulation tormented several drivers towards the back of the midfield, Racing Bulls utilised their lofty position in the top ten to execute a genius strategy and score a hefty chunk of points.
Liam Lawson was a cork in the bottle in the opening stages, giving teammate Isack Hadjar enough room to perform his first pit stop before a cunning switch onto soft tyres to blast off up the road again and stop for a second time.
Heading up the midfield, Lawson then had the luxury to drive his own race, performing his mandated two stops and bringing home a double points finish for Racing Bulls, the team’s first such result since São Paulo last year.
Winner - Liam Lawson
Technically a double shoutout for Lawson, but for a man who has had such a difficult season up until now, delivering such an impressive weekend performance around the most challenging circuit of all is worthy of extra plaudits.
On Saturday, Lawson filed his strongest Qualifying session of the season with his first foray into Q3. On Sunday, he played the perfect team game to help his teammate further up the road to an invaluable sixth place, and in so doing elevating Racing Bulls to seventh in the Constructors’ Championship.
While Lawson no doubt would have preferred a sixth-placed finish of his own, he drove a selfless race and deservedly claimed his first points of the season.
Winner - Esteban Ocon
The dichotomy of Haas’s 2025 season continues. Without points in the previous three races, having scored in the three rounds directly before those, Esteban Ocon was a man on a mission on Saturday and propelled his car into the top 10 on the grid.
Oliver Bearman had a more frustrating weekend, with a slam-dunk ten-place grid penalty for overtaking Carlos Sainz under red flag conditions and a Q1 elimination consigning him to the back of the grid on Sunday.
For Ocon, however, a clean start to maintain his eighth position kept him out of the slow-moving shenanigans behind and as a result he never looked likely to lose a position all afternoon. Indeed, he was the first beneficiary of Fernando Alonso’s retirement, gaining a position to come home in seventh for his best finish in seven races.
Winner - Williams
While Team Principal James Vowles and both drivers apologised for Williams’ Racing Bulls-inspired strategy yesterday afternoon, there is no question that the team’s tactics yielded the strongest haul of points they could realistically have achieved.
Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz have already shown a willingness to cooperate this season, which is not always a given between teammates, and they did so again to the immense frustration of those behind, not least George Russell.
Sainz backed up the midfield to such an extent that Albon was able to make two pit stops without being jumped, before the Thai driver allowed his Spanish colleague through and returned the favour. Sainz then allowed Albon back through in the closing stages as the pair brought home three points between them.
As apologetic as Vowles and his drivers were to the media, they cannot be blamed for thinking on their feet and executing a strategy that was working for Racing Bulls and was, unfortunately, a consequence borne out of the two-stop regulation.
Alex Albon even went one step further in seeking forgiveness for Williams’ strategy, buying George Russell’s dinner for him after sending his on-track rival and off-track friend into a mid-race frenzy.
Loser - Mandatory two-stop regulation
It was worth a try. Monaco is not known for its thrilling Sunday action, especially following on from the 2024 edition of the race, so credit ought to go to the FIA for attempting to liven it up this year. In principle, the idea had potential, with Oscar Piastri admitting that the front runners were forced to push harder than usual to create space for both of their pit stops.
However, the anti-racing strategy deployed by both Racing Bulls and Williams was, in hindsight, very predictable and also largely down to good fortune on the part of both teams that their two cars qualified pretty much side by side.
It was Max Verstappen’s strategy, though, that most clearly exposed the flaws of the two-stop regulation. As he held out for a red flag under which he could perform his second tyre change, you could not help but feel that should such a strategy have handed him the victory at the expense of Lando Norris it would have been immensely cruel and just downright unfair on the Briton.
Monaco is a staple of Formula One, and any attempts to improve the racing spectacle ought to be given a fair chance. The only way to know whether such a regulation would work was to give it a go, but it is fair to say that it is unlikely to be welcomed back next year.
The 2025 two-pit-stop rule in Monaco will likely join the 2014 Abu Dhabi double points rule in the history books as a one-off regulation that was deeply, deeply flawed, if not well-intentioned.
Loser - The Monaco Grand Prix
The Monaco Grand Prix is often referred to as the jewel in Formula One’s crown and remains the Grand Prix that every single driver wants to win, however much they may complain about the lack of racing action.
When it comes to the Triple Crown of Motorsport, it is the fabled race in Monte Carlo, not the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, or any of the sport’s other iconic venues, that stands alongside the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans as one of the most prestigious events in the world.
Losing the Monaco Grand Prix from Formula One would not only cement Graham Hill’s position as the only man ever to complete the Triple Crown; it would be a dark day for the entire motorsport world.
However, the failed two-stop experiment is just an embodiment of a wider issue that Monaco now has. Yes, changes must be made in order for the Sunday spectacle to improve, but any tweaks made specifically for this Grand Prix alone just seem like a gimmick.
There are now two clear schools of thought. Either leave Monaco well alone, respect its legacy, and accept that it is a race that is won and lost on a Saturday. Alternatively, perhaps it is time to let it go altogether before it becomes so deeply unpopular among fans and drivers alike that it no longer feels special but rather a downright pain.
With each passing year, it feels as though the former argument is an increasingly difficult one to uphold.
Loser - Mercedes
George Russell called Mercedes’ race weekend in Imola “disastrous”, describing the event as one of the team’s worst for many years.
Following the Monaco Grand Prix, Russell was back in the media pen, providing a list of alternative suggestions as to how to spice up the race for next year. If he has his way, in 2026 all 20 drivers will be allowed to activate sprinklers around the track at a time of their choosing.
Had he, however, instead reflected more earnestly on Mercedes’ weekend, he would surely have had to characterise it in even harsher terms than he used to describe the team’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
Saturday’s Qualifying, which saw Andrea Kimi Antonelli crash in the closing stages of Q1 and Russell’s car cut out in Q2, was quite literally one of the team’s worst since the Silver Arrows’ return to the sport in 2010.
Lining up 14th and 15th at any other race with one of the fastest cars on the grid would be an inconvenience, but to do so in Monaco is absolute misery. Russell and Antonelli discovered this in no uncertain terms on Sunday, stuck first behind the Liam Lawson-led train (the speed of which was more akin to a Monaco bus during rush hour), and then in the snake behind the Williams duo of Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz.
Most alarming, however, was Mercedes’ strategy, or lack thereof. In a conventional one pit-stop race around Monaco, holding out for a red flag and free tyre change is a legitimate tactic. However, even had Mercedes been successful in this endeavour, both cars would still have been obliged to make a pit stop under racing speed and end up at the back of the field.
To try something different with both cars so out of position was understandable, but to do quite literally nothing at all until Lap 62, when Russell made his first tyre change, was mind-boggling.
Such was the British driver’s frustration that he even cut the Nouvelle Chicane to overtake Alex Albon, electing to serve a guaranteed penalty rather than seeing out his days tucked up behind the Williams’ rear wing.
After an alarming couple of races for Mercedes, the team now sits just five points above fourth-placed Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship. A solid start to the season is in grave danger of unravelling.
Loser - Fernando Alonso
What exactly does Fernando Alonso need to do to score points this season? The veteran Spaniard was unfortunate enough to come away empty-handed from Imola, when he qualified fifth and eventually finished less than one second outside of the top 10.
Starting sixth in Monaco should have almost guaranteed Alonso a solid points haul at the chequered flag, and this indeed seemed a likely outcome for the first 35 laps of the race. Come Lap 36, though, an engine failure prompted the two-time World Champion to peel to the side of the track at Rascasse, thus forfeiting any opportunity of scoring points for at least another week.
There may have been doubts in the opening stages of the season that Alonso had begun to lose his edge. It is clear based on the last couple of races, though, that there ought to be no such concerns. For a man whose career at times seems to have been characterised by bad luck, it is an upturn in fortune rather than speed that he is looking for.
Loser - Lewis Hamilton
The history books will show that Lewis Hamilton started the Monaco Grand Prix in seventh, among his best starting positions of the season so far, made up two places (a rarity indeed in Monaco), and finished fifth, again among his best finishes of the season.
However, underneath those baseline statistics is a rather darker weekend, clouded by miscommunication with race engineer Riccardo Adami.
Hamilton responded well to an uncharacteristic crash at Massenet in the final moments of FP3, recording a season-high fourth place in Qualifying. However, a misunderstanding with Adami led Hamilton to stray into the path of a flying Max Verstappen during Q1. While even Verstappen himself admitted that Hamilton was a victim of misinformation from his team, the Briton was handed a three-place grid penalty and forced to start seventh.
While he fought back into the top five during the race, Hamilton’s pace began to desert him and he was nowhere to be seen as the top four converged in the closing stages. Again, his radio communication with Adami was sub-optimal, with Hamilton’s enquiry as to how much time he was losing receiving no clear answer.
The Briton was subsequently left confused after being told “This is our race”, later admitting he didn’t know what he was fighting for. Following the chequered flag, he nervously took to the radio to ask if the team was upset with him, but no reply was forthcoming.
After 12 seasons of perfecting his radio communication with Peter Bonnington at Mercedes, never has the importance of an effective driver-engineer relationship been so clearly demonstrated.
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