McLaren’s Lando Norris won Formula 1’s iconic Monaco Grand Prix from pole position Sunday, completing a flawless weekend and making up lost ground in the championship race.
He finished ahead of hometown favorite Charles Leclerc, who took second for Ferrari, and McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, who claimed third.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, the reigning world champion, finished in a distant fourth place after a gamble on tire strategy didn’t work out.
The 78-lap race took place on a sunny day on the streets of Monaco, the wealthy principality on the French Riviera that turns into a racetrack once a year.
Norris qualified first Saturday in a race in which grid position is uniquely important. He led from the start, fending off a valiant attempt by Leclerc to overtake him in the first few corners. He faced another challenge late in the race as Verstappen stayed out in the second stint, creating a roadblock for Norris and allowing Leclerc and Piastri to close up.
“It feels amazing! It’s a long race. It’s a long, grueling race. But good fun,” Norris said in a postrace interview.
“We won in Monaco! An amazing weekend,” he said. “This is what I did dream of as a kid.”
The race carries significant implications for the championship. Piastri still leads the standings, but his 13-point advantage over Norris has narrowed to just 3 points. Verstappen is another 22 points behind Norris, sitting third in the title race.
It was a much-needed comeback weekend for Norris, who hasn’t won a Grand Prix since the season opener in Australia in March. Norris, who began the season as the betting-odds title favorite, had struggled in previous races and fallen behind Piastri in the title standings. Monaco could be a turning point.
Piastri said he had some struggles throughout the race weekend but took some positives from his third-place finish.
“Pretty happy with that overall,” he said. “Small points on the board, another trip to the podium in Monaco. So not bad.”
A new rule causes strategy gambles
Leclerc, who realized his own childhood dream by winning the Monaco Grand Prix last year, said his failure to qualify in first place again sealed his fate this year.
“We lost the race yesterday,” Leclerc said Sunday, referring to his narrow defeat for pole position to Norris.
The glitzy event attracted celebrities who were photographed over the weekend, including singer-songwriter Dua Lipa, actor and racer Patrick Dempsey, fashion model Naomi Campbell and French soccer manager and former player Zinedine Zidane.
There was strategic jeopardy in the race after F1 introduced a rule for the Monaco Grand Prix requiring that every driver must make at least two pit stops through the race, an attempt to spice up an event in which the narrow streets make overtaking difficult. The rule created a series of permutations on tire strategy, forcing teams to rethink their approaches.
As they raced past Casino Square in Monte Carlo each lap, some drivers gambled on early pit stops in hope of making up ground later, and certain teams used their second drivers as roadblocks to create gaps for their leading drivers.
A group of cars down the order made their first pit stops early, saving time because of a “virtual safety car” caused by Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto’s hitting the wall. Others — most notably Mercedes, which qualified poorly — sought to go long on their race-starting tires in hope of quicker pit stops due to a safety car. It didn’t come.
Finishing fifth was Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, ahead of rookie Isack Hadjar of Racing Bulls in sixth and Esteban Ocon of Haas in seventh.
In postrace interviews broadcast on the F1TV app, the drivers expressed mixed feelings about the new rule. Some said they executed on it well, like Liam Lawson of Racing Bulls, who finished in eighth place. Others thought it was detrimental to the racing, like Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz of Williams, who finished ninth and 10th, respectively.
“I didn’t like it,” Albon said, accusing the Racing Bulls team of initiating the tactic to slow the rest of the pack down. “It’s not really how we want to go racing. I don’t like going racing like that. ... It just makes this messy, messy race. I could have brought a pillow in the car and a coffee and chilled out for a bit.”
Norris pitted on lap 20, the first of the front-runners to do so, and came out in fourth place. He made his way back to the lead as rivals came in for new tires and never quite relinquished it. Verstappen pitted late twice in hope of a lucky safety car or a red flag, but the strategy didn’t help him make up ground.
Norris takes a step back from social media
After he put in a brilliant qualifying performance to win pole position, the jovial Norris told reporters he’s taking a step back from social media as he focuses on the championship race.
He said it has helped improve his performance and mentality after he made a series of errors and admittedly fell short of his expectations over the last two months.
“I’m very, very happy, because I feel like it’s a waste of my life. I have better things to focus on,” Norris said Saturday. “I have had many things to focus on and try to improve on. There’s many, many factors that add up to a day like today. I can certainly say that’s one of them. So I’m happy. Everyone can do their own thing, but for me, I’m happy to stay away from that.”
Norris said his goal was to achieve “consistency of results” to call his Monaco performance a “breakthrough.”
“I can look at it both ways. I can see, easily, the positive — it’s a breakthrough in that I had a good Saturday. And for me, that’s at least a step in the right direction, which I’m very, very happy about. But it’s still one weekend. And like I said, consistency is a big part of it, too,” he said Saturday after qualifying. “I’ll be happier if I know and I can get to that point where I’m confident into every session that I can perform like I did today, because I think my performance was at a very, very strong level.”
