The greatest single weekend in motorsport took place this past weekend, and like always it was led off in the pristine principality of Monaco.
As the yachts pulled into the Marina, the cars took to the track. Despite the unparalleled dominance of the Red Bulls, the eyes were on the Mercedes garages with hopes to catch a glimpse of the new floor that was teased.
Like most Monaco race weekends, the excitement fell onto Saturday, the unofficial race of the weekend, qualifying, and as per usual it delivered. Qualifying ended for the defending race winner just about as soon as it began, with Sergio Perez hitting the wall putting him dead last for the parade on Sunday. Checo wasn’t the only shocker of Q1… at least for most of it as Lewis Hamilton was in the elimination bubble with only one flying lap to go and with the flag out, he managed to squeeze out of Q1. Q2 was far more uniform, with most of the usuals making it to Q3. The surprises started early in Q3 with Esteban Ocon putting together a rapid lap to put him on an early provisional pole. Soon after that, the hometown hero Charles Leclerc set off on a terrific lap with Alonso setting off right behind him, the two setting nearly identical sectors but a struggle in the closing part of the lap put Charles right behind Ocon, and Alonso right in front with time closing. With only a handful of drivers left, a pole looked great for Alonso, that was until Verstappen. Verstappen looked slower through the first sector and was two tenths back going into Sector three, but he always finds a way… and that was no different this time as he would take pole at the flag.
Now that the race was covered, let’s get to Sunday. As the lights went out the race started like usual with the procession getting underway. The first 3/4’s of the race were just like every Monaco Gp, a really fast parade, but then the rain came. As the rain came down, the chaos began. Most drivers aimed for intermediates which seemed like the only answer, except if you’re HAAS who kept Magnussen out on older mediums despite the clear wet conditions, this ended just as predicted, with Lance Stroll in the wall… and K-Mag too, but Stroll displayed the race craft we’ve grown to expect from bumper carracks around the world but instead of at the fair, it was done on the crown jewel of open wheel racing.Unlike his teammate, Alonso remained in the hunt for the win with the gap to Max closing due to pit stops and the Ferrari’s nearly ending each other’s days, and with only a few laps to go it seemed the only predictable outcome would be another Red Bull win and with no extraordinary yellow flags to be seen, the only flag that would be waved would be the checkered flag signaling yet another Verstappen victory with Alonso and Ocon closing out the podium. It was a uniform way to end an overall exciting conclusion of the opening leg of the greatest weekend in motorsport.
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