Five Winners, Five Losers: Monaco Grand Prix
- Peter Johnson
- Jun 9
- 9 min read
Winner — Kimi Antonelli
It’s going to be a long season for journalists who will sooner rather than later run out of new superlatives to throw Kimi Antonelli’s way.
The young Italian claimed his fifth straight victory in emphatic fashion on the streets of Monaco, with nobody else getting a look in as he tore off into the distance not once, but twice.
Antonelli produced a spellbinding lap on Saturday to pip Max Verstappen to pole, and was a whopping 0.394 seconds up on teammate George Russell around the season’s shortest lap.
On Sunday, Antonelli aced the start, albeit aided by Verstappen’s troubles, to hold position on the opening lap for the first time this season.
Storming into the distance to leave Lewis Hamilton in his wake, Antonelli’s lead came most under threat at the second standing start on Lap 71 following Charles Leclerc’s crash. A lead that had stood at 30 seconds was cut to zero, but Hamilton’s fast-starting Ferrari was unable to threaten at the restart and dropped back by six seconds by the chequered flag.
As is customary these days, a quick word for the records broken by Antonelli over the weekend: he became the youngest driver to win around Monaco, and in holding his nerve at both restarts, also became the youngest man to achieve a Grand Slam in the sport’s history.
With a 66 point-lead and 156 points to his name after six Grands Prix and three sprints, the young Italian has dropped just 18 points all season.
Nobody has ever failed to win the title after building such a points advantage, and Antonelli is the overwhelming favourite to see it home even with 16 races still to go.
Winner — Lewis Hamilton
It has been quite the reprieve for Hamilton on the back of his worst-ever F1 season to be sitting second in the drivers’ standings six rounds into 2026.
The Brit took his third podium of the season to reach his highest championship position since 2021 and looks like a man reborn in his current machinery.
Ferrari may have expected a little more given their pre-race weekend tag of favourites, but the seven-time world champion appeared to extract all he could from his car across the event and was once again comprehensively quicker — and cleaner — than teammate Leclerc.
Following Verstappen’s early departure from the race, the Brit ran second for its entirety and frankly was not in the same league as Antonelli. However, he was one of few drivers besides the championship leader to enjoy a drama-free weekend, with even his five-second time penalty for speeding in the pitlane rendered null and void as he served it during a pitstop under the safety car.
It was not lost on Hamilton that he was older than the combined ages of his fellow podium sitters Antonelli and Isack Hadjar, but it is fantastic to see he continues to relish the challenge of modern F1 despite his recent disillusionment. That first win in red seems like a matter of time.
Winner — Isack Hadjar
In contrast to Antonelli and Hamilton, who enjoyed relatively smooth weekends, Hadjar endured three days of utter chaos.
The young Frenchman was the first man to clobber the wall in Monaco, with an accident at the second swimming pool chicane in FP1 bringing out the red flag. He was off the pace throughout the other practice sessions, too, before an impressive P5 in Qualifying brought him back into the frame.
Running fourth for the first part of the race, Hadjar consistently complained of a lack of power and maintained his position ahead of Russell purely down to Monaco’s lack of overtaking spots.
Eventually falling down the order during the pitstop phase, Hadjar inherited third following Leclerc’s crash and penalties for Russell and Pierre Gasly. However, given his travails throughout Practice and persistent engine difficulties throughout the race, it was a heroic outcome for the Parisian.
Hadjar also survived a post-race investigation into an alleged red flag infringement, but can now rest assured that third place is definitely his.
Winner — Racing Bulls
It was a phenomenal weekend for Red Bull’s junior team, who were perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of the catalogue of retirements and penalties elsewhere.
Neither driver did anything hugely spectacular, but both did what they had to do and stayed out of trouble, which is so often the key to a good result in Monaco.
Indeed, Liam Lawson equalled his previous best finish in F1 with fifth, while rookie Arvid Lindblad, who had looked out of his depth on Friday, enjoyed his outright best result in sixth.
The team’s first double-points finish of the year takes them well clear of Haas in the Constructors’ Championship and they now occupy a comfortable sixth, just two points shy of Alpine.
Winner — Aston Martin
After having the slowest two cars in Saturday’s qualifying session, it almost beggars belief that Aston Martin will be one of the happiest teams following the Monaco Grand Prix.
The car still looks an absolute handful, with Fernando Alonso avoiding a spectacular crash at the Nouvelle Chicane during practice with a stunning save. Lance Stroll was unable to perform any such heroics on Lap 56 of Sunday’s race as he locked up at Anthony Noghes and ploughed into the barrier.
On a day when both of F1’s oldest current competitors used their experience to the full, Alonso kept his cool and continued to pick up positions as others around him — or rather in front of him — fell victim to penalties or incidents.
Crossing the line in 11th, the Spaniard then moved up a spot when tenth-placed finisher Sergio Pérez was penalised for an infringement at the post-red flag restart.
It may only be a single point for Alonso, but it was Aston’s first of the season and enough to lift the team off the bottom of the Constructors’ standings.
On a personal level, his 10th-placed finish means that Alonso has now scored points in an astonishing 22 different F1 seasons.
Loser — George Russell
For a second race running, the single biggest loser on the grid was Russell.
The Brit began the Monaco weekend by bringing some mind games to the table, suggesting the championship was now Antonelli’s to lose.
Unfortunately for Russell, though, all the evidence appears to be that the Italian is in his head rather than vice-versa.
While Antonelli snatched pole on Saturday, Russell was almost four tenths down in sixth. Come Sunday, the Italian drove off into the Monégasque sunshine while Russell remained stuck behind Hadjar’s faulty Red Bull and was eventually lapped by his own teammate.
One of many recipients of a harsh penalty for pitlane speeding, Russell was then further punished when his team didn’t wait for five seconds before servicing him during his second pit stop.
The resulting drive-through penalty was compounded by the red flag, with the Brit dropping to the back of the field on Lap 73.
With a second consecutive point-less weekend, the pre-season championship favourite now finds himself third in what was expected to be a two-horse title race, with a 68-point deficit.
Even if Antonelli doesn’t score at all in the next three races, Russell would need to win all of them to go top of the standings.
He did say the title was now Antonelli’s to lose; such a statement has perhaps never been so true.
Loser — Charles Leclerc
Free from his Monaco curse for the last couple of years, Leclerc once again had a weekend of misery at his home Grand Prix.
It started off so well with a brand new contract and the fastest lap of anybody in FP1 on Friday. Second in both FP2 and FP3 suggested he was in the hunt for pole position and a likely victory thereafter, but things took a turn in qualifying.
Pushing too hard in Q3, perhaps seeing his chance at pole evaporate as Antonelli and Verstappen came to the fore, the Monégasque clipped the barrier at Tabac and punctured his right rear tyre. He ended the session fourth.
Inheriting third at the race start, Leclerc ran a comfortable race, and with a bunched up field following Stroll’s crash, there were ruminations of a miraculous home victory.
Such dreams were short-lived, however, with Leclerc having a near-identical shunt to that of the Canadian driver at the restart. He refused to take any responsibility for the incident in the media, blaming instead his Ferrari’s rear brakes.
Leclerc will bounce back from this weekend, but there is a creeping feeling that he is now on the backfoot within his team. Hamilton now leads him in both the qualifying and race head-to-head this season and has been driving far better recently.
Ferrari’s golden boy may have pledged his long-term future to the team, but in the here and now he is looking slightly outclassed.
Loser — Pierre Gasly
What heartbreak for Gasly to cross the finish line thinking he had earned a podium in Monaco, only to find he had in fact finished seventh following a post-race penalty.
Another victim of the pitlane speed limiter fiasco in the final round of stops, the Alpine team elected not to inform their driver of his incoming ten-second penalty.
Under normal circumstances, a P7 finish for Gasly and Alpine would have been a thoroughly respectable result, but given the number of high-profile casualties from the race and the prestige of being a Monaco podium finisher, it was instead a gut-wrenching result.
He continues his run of having scored every weekend so far this season — a record that now only Antonelli and Hamilton also boast — but third place would have been a deserved next step after a string of top eight finishes earlier in the season.
Personal disappointment for Gasly aside, the penalty — which cost him nine points — may yet cost the team down the line, too, with Racing Bulls picking up an extra four points as a result and now sitting just two behind in the Constructors’ standings.
Loser — Cadillac
Alpine were not the only team to endure post-race heartbreak, with F1’s new boys also coming tantalisingly close to a historic result.
Pérez crossed the line in tenth place for Cadillac, which in the moment gave the team their first ever world championship point.
However, Pérez was already under investigation for a starting procedure infringement committed on the Lap 71 restart, so the eventual penalty was not wholly surprising.
What it was, though, was entirely avoidable, and it was also Pérez’s second such penalty of the afternoon following a similar offence on Lap 1. Unlike the pitlane speeding drama, he was the only driver to make such an error, and to do it twice was unforgivable.
Cadillac may not get such a good points-scoring opportunity for the rest of the season, but the team’s disappointment will be compounded by the fact that it was Aston Martin’s Alonso who inherited the point, which sees them drop below Aston to 11th in the championship.
Depending on how the season pans out for the two lowly teams, that mistake from Pérez could yet cost Cadillac around $9 million.
Loser — Audi
The only team other than Cadillac to fail to score last weekend, the Monaco Grand Prix was another underwhelming event for Audi.
With a positive end to 2025, a solid driver lineup and a new identity as a works team, hopes were high for a strong campaign at Audi.
However, the team has now not scored at any of the last five weekends, with Gabriel Bortoleto’s ninth place at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix the team’s only points-paying result of 2026.
Bortoleto was consigned to a pitlane start in Monaco following his crash during qualifying, and did well to make it up to 11th following Pérez’s post-race penalty. Had it not been for his costly error on Saturday, he would surely have been higher.
Nico Hülkenberg, meanwhile, had a brief flirtation with the top 10, but eventually finished where he started in 13th after a small collision with Carlos Sainz at the late restart.
Ninth in the Constructors’ Championship and now just one point ahead of Aston Martin, Audi have to turn the ship around soon.
Edited by Meghana Sree
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