2025 Monaco Grand Prix Race Review

Linus O'Howell
May 25
4 min read

Norris Keeps Calm to Take Key Monaco Grand Prix Victory

Despite a little bit of stress at both the start and the end of the Race, Lando Norris kept his nerve to take a massive victory around the streets of Monte Carlo! Home Hero Charles Leclerc pushed hard in second whilst Oscar Piastri rounded out another double Podium for McLaren!

The Biggest Talking Points

Well, this should be interesting! At the start, Lando Norris locked up into Turn 1, but he was still able to keep his McLaren ahead of Charles Leclerc’ Ferrari before Gabriel Bortoleto found himself into the wall after Andrea Kimi Antonelli sent one up the inside before the tunnel! I honestly don’t know what Kimi was doing here, but at least Gabby was able to get back going! This incident actually brought out the Virtual Safety Car, and this resulted in “free pitstops” for Yuki Tsunoda, Pierre Gasly, and Oliver Bearman! However, not long after the Race got back underway, Pierre went flying into the back of Yuki, resulting in the Gasman having to retire! This was on Gasly in my opinion, and the fact he kept going was crazy dangerous! Anyway, with the mandatory 2-stop rule in place, it very much became a Race of teamwork, and one of the teams to benefit from that was Racing Bulls! See, Liam Lawson backed the entire pack up to the point where Isack Hadjar was able to make both of his pit stops and still come out in P8! This meant that everyone behind Lawson lost an unbelievable amount of time, and that included the two Mercedes!

Back out at the front, everyone had made their first round of pit stops with the order still the same, but Lando and Charles were both annoyed at how much lapped traffic they had to get through! Fernando Alonso, who was having a great Race running in the points, had a mechanical failure, taking him out of the Race meaning Fernando is still pointless in 2025! Back to team tactics now as Williams got Carlos Sainz to back the pack up for Alex Albon to make his 2 pit stops, but after that was done, Albon let Sainz through to return the favour, resulting in both Williams scoring points (so good job from them)! Personally, my highlight of the Race was George Russell completely cutting across the chicane to jump ahead of Albon! Now, George did receive a drive-through penalty for this, but he was so much faster, he served his penalty and still came out ahead of Alex which is just cinema! Back to the front of the pack, and Max Verstappen was just goal hanging for a Red Flag towards the end of the Grand Prix, and this added a little bit of stress to Lando Norris’ Race as both Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri were able to catch up to the back of him! However, with it being Monaco, no overtakes were possible, and Verstappen pit on the penultimate lap to open the doors for Norris to set the Fastest Lap which about sums the entire day up!

The Standout Drives in the Race

I’ve given out three 10’s for the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix, and the first one is obviously for Lando Norris! Lando did 80% of the job yesterday, but he got off the line well enough and didn’t make a mistake running behind Max Verstappen, so congratulations to him! The second driver I’ve given out maximum points to is Isack Hadjar and what a job Isack has done this weekend, he has been threatening to pull out a result like this all season, and to finish P6 is amazing! The other driver I’ve given a Perfect 10 to is Esteban Ocon because wow, P7 for Haas given their inconsistency is so impressive and great to see! Esteban is definitely a bit of a Monaco specialist! Charles Leclerc also deserves a lot of praise because a Podium felt more delulu than anything heading into the weekend, Liam Lawson did brilliantly to score his first points of the season whilst also helping his teammate out, and Fernando Alonso is just so unlucky because he was doing such a good job once again!

Drivers Who Had a Shocker

I’ve actually given out a 1 for today’s Race, and that is for Pierre Gasly! Maybe I’m being a little harsh because I haven’t given out a 1 for a while, but Pierre ultimately ran into the back of Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull today, and then he dangerously drove all the way back to the pits! I’m sorry, but that’s good enough from someone as talented and as experienced as Gasly! I mean, Yuki had a pretty poor day, but that was mainly down to yesterday, but I will be more critical of Andrea Kimi Antonelli because I feel he caused the incident with Gabriel Bortoleto!