The F1 show was back in Monaco, having skipped the venue last season for the first time since the race joined the calendar in 1955. It was Max Verstappen who came away with a victory around the narrow streets of the principality in the FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX DE MONACO 2021.
Charles Leclerc had earned Ferrari’s first pole position since the 2019 Mexican Grand Prix, but pole position on the grid was empty for the race start. A driveshaft issue discovered by the team before the race, left Leclerc’s car trapped in the garage and meant that he would not start the race.
With the vacant slot, Max Verstappen was essentially the pole sitter, although he was starting from P2 on the grid. Valtteri Bottas had the better start from the inside of the circuit, but Verstappen blocked Bottas on the short run to the first corner.
In classic Monaco style, the first half of the race was pretty orderly, with no one taking the risk to try overtaking. The exception was Mick Schumacher, who launched his car around the inside of his teammate Nikita Mazepin in the hairpin early in the race.
Lewis Hamilton pitted on lap 30 for hard tyres, trying to undercut Pierre Gasly, who he was stuck behind for many laps. AlphaTauri responded by pitting Gasly the following lap, getting him out ahead of Hamilton by about a car length. A lap later, Sebastian Vettel left the pit lane. He came out alongside Gasly and the two were side-by-side up Beau Rivage. Vettel came out ahead.
Mercedes pitted Bottas a lap after pitting Hamilton, but it was disaster in the Mercedes pit box. The team couldn’t get the right-front tyre off, likely because the wheel nut was cross-threaded. The team kept trying, stripping the threads from the wheel nut and making it impossible to remove the nut in the pit box. This brought Bottas’ race to an end.
As the race started to wind down, Sergio Perez was closing in on the back of Lando Norris in P3. But with the difficulty of overtaking around the narrow streets, an overtaking attempt would never come.
Hamilton pitted for tyres with 10 laps remaining in the race for a new set of used soft tyres to earn the fastest lap of the race and the bonus point that accompanies it.
But it was Verstappen who walked away with the most points of the weekend, earning 25 towards his championship, putting him in the lead of the World Drivers’ Championship for the first time of his Formula One career. Carlos Sainz took the second step of the podium in the sole remaining Ferrari and Lando Norris earned his third podium in Formula One.
Next up is another street circuit, although it’s dramatically different from Monaco. The teams will be in Baku for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in two-weeks, for the race on June 6.
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| DNF | ||
| DNF |
