107 Pursuit

The widely awaited Monaco Grand Prix has just went underway this weekend in 2024! Let’s recap this legendary grand prix by going over all major moments!

The largest moment discussed during media day is the adoption of Oscar Piastri by Charles Leclerc. This was started with the ongoing joke of Piastri declaring every race his home race. Leclerc offers to adopt Piastri to make Monaco his home race. This becomes the running story for the rest of the weekend.

Even official F1 administrators were in on the joke when labeling Piastri as ‘Oscar Piastri-Leclerc’ in the practice session and data sheets.

McLaren rebrands for the Monaco GP in honor of world champion Ayrton Senna. Senna has won six times in Monaco and McLaren switches from their usual Papaya orange to yellow, green, and blue, to celebrate 30 years after Senna’s death in their cars and uniforms.

In Qualifying, we see lots of interesting outcomes with Max Verstappen’s struggling in his Red Bull. The car performs differently on the Monaco track leaving the team disadvantaged. This does not mean that Red Bull fails to bring results. In Q1, Verstappen puts in his all and makes the fastest lap with ten mins to go. However in the end of Q1, Russell makes the fastest lap. This displays the amount of performance Red Bull retain throughout multiple race weekends even if a car is not built for a certain track. Alonso, Sargeant, Perez, Bottas, and Zhou, are eliminated.

Ocon, Hulkenberg, Ricciardo, Stroll, and Magnussen are eliminated in Q2 with dominance from McLaren. Lando Norris sets the fastest lap of the session.

Verstappen struggles once again during Q3 with Ferrari and McLaren holding the top spots. He breaks this pattern by making third with less than five mins to go. However, in these last five mins, Sainz and Norris make their way to the top leaving Verstappen, Hamilton, Tsunoda, Albon, and Gasly, eliminated in Q3. The grid starts with Leclerc on pole, with Piastri, Sainz and Norris following. Verstappen explains the car was slippery and he hit the wall. Truly a qualifying session dominated by McLaren and Ferrari.

Let’s look at the race!

On the opening lap of the grand prix, Sainz experiences sparks coming out from his car and is ultimately out, bringing out the yellow flag. Piastri remains closely on the tail of Leclerc. Sainz almost loses his third place restart but since the lap was considered incomplete, he retains his third place on the grid and successfully restarts the race.

The red flag is later brought out on lap 1 due to a serious collision between Perez and the two Haas’. Perez car gets absolutely crushed with one of the Haas’ hitting his wheel. Both Haas’ and Perez DNF the race. Luckily, all three drivers walked away safely.

(Not to be direct but it kind of looks like a big toe…)

Lap 1 seems to be the lap where all the action happened but also on this lap, the Alpines experience contact with Ocon resulting in a DNF. Ocon admits he was at fault for the incident which has caused discussions at Alpine about the next steps regarding Ocon.

Throughout the race, Piastri and Leclerc engage in pace battles with Leclerc controlling the race pace and subsequent pressure from Piastri needing to pick up speed.

Something unique throughout the race is that the intervals between drivers are relatively high. This is seen on the sidebar.

Tsunoda is seen to have a 27s interval to Hamilton but at one point, it reached 45s.

Futhermore, Bottas completes an exceptional overtake against Sargeant on a track where overtakes are difficult.

Also throughout the race, Sainz, being a team player, controls his speed and purposefully goes slow to back Norris into Russell and support his teammate even further.

Lastly, Charles Leclerc breaks the Monaco curse and wins the Monaco Grand Prix! This is the first time a Monégasque has won the Monaco Grand Prix in 93 years. The Monaco curse leading with three DNF’s and two top 10 finishes, Leclerc wins the GP at last, meaning more to him than ever.

The final grid:

1. Charles Leclerc
2. Oscar Piastri
3. Carlos Sainz
4. Lando Norris
5. George Russell
6. Max Verstappen
7. Lewis Hamilton (+1 for fastest lap)
8. Yuki Tsunoda
9. Alexander Albon
10. Pierre Gasly
11. Fernando Alonso
12. Daniel Ricciardo
13. Valtteri Bottas
14. Lance Stroll
15. Logan Sargeant
16. Zhou Guanyu
17. Esteban Ocon (DNF)
18. Sergio Perez (DNF)
19. Nico Hulkenberg (DNF)
20. Kevin Magnussen (DNF)

And people say Monaco is boring?

Next up: The Canadian Grand Prix!!