Max Verstappen again. The current two-time world champion won the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday in a race that had everything but great emotions and further reinforced his leadership in the Formula 1 World Championship. For the fourth time this season, the Dutchman from Red Bull climbed to the top of the podium. He was escorted by the Spanish veteran Fernando Alonso, who came second and did not fight the victory because of a bad strategic decision of Aston Martin and the surprising Frenchman Esteban Ocon who arrived third with his Alpine.
In the general classification, Verstappen is even more leader, ahead of his teammate, the Mexican Sergio Pérez, who had won on the streets of Monaco in 2022 and completed a weekend to forget with a track exit on Saturday that made him start at the end of the grid this Sunday. in which he had to pass five times through the pits.
The Mexican was sixteenth in the race and was able to maintain his second place overall, although Alonso, third, is close to 12 points. With respect to Verstappen, Perez is 39 points, when he had arrived in Monaco to 14 units.
The Red Bull star, who had started the race from pole, and perfectly controlled his competitors, maintaining at all times the first position and with only the rain, which was invited to the party in the last third of the race, as a setback.
"We didn't really know what could happen. We had to stay calm and drive in all conditions," said Mad Max after crossing the finish line on that external element, which did not prevent his victory in this 80th Monaco Grand Prix.
His victory deprived Fernando Alonso of climbing to the top of the podium, who started the race second and also maintained that position in the urban circuit of the Mediterranean microstate, where the narrowness of the routes of the route makes overtaking difficult.
Alonso got the second place despite the terrible strategy of his team in the face of weather difficulties. The 41-year-old Asturian driver was first called to the pits to fit medium tires on his car... before being called a lap later to put some intermediate wheels, better adapted to a wet track. "It was difficult. We had to work with the strategy. Max has run very well with the media (in the first part of the race) and then the rain came. That complicated things and it was not easy to drive in those conditions," Alonso admitted.
In a setting full of 'glamour', as usual in the place with the yachts moored in the port in the background, Monaco enjoyed an emblematic Grand Prix, on the calendar since 1955, and where the Frenchman Ocon, from the neighboring country, was the surprise and achieved the third podium of his career in Formula 1. "What a great weekend! We improved the car throughout the weekend," Ocon savoured.
Among the spectators, a large handful of stars, including PSG's Brazilian footballer Neymar or British actor Tom Holland, who showed the chequered flag.
Monegasque fans could not celebrate a success of the local idol, Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), who was sixth, behind the Mercedes of Britons Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
Leclerc, who had finished third in Saturday's qualifying session, finally started sixth due to a three-place grid penalty for upsetting the McLaren of Britain's Lando Norris, who was ninth on Sunday. The other Ferrari, that of Spaniard Carlos Sainz Jr, had to settle for an eighth place.
Formula 1 continues its season next weekend with the Spanish Grand Prix at the Montmeló circuit, on the outskirts of Barcelona.
Source: AFP
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