2026 Monaco Grand Prix Race Review

Linus O'Howell
54 minutes ago
5 min read

Antonelli Wins Again in Monaco Race of Attrition

In a Grand Prix that had Safety Cars, Red Flags, and 7 DNFs, nothing was able to faze Andrea Kimi Antonelli as he stretched his Championship lead to 66 points! Lewis Hamilton was able to stay out of trouble to take his second consecutive second-place finish for Ferrari, whilst Isack Hadjar somehow managed to find his way onto the Podium!

The Biggest Talking Points

As the 5 lights went out, disaster struck for Max Verstappen as his Red Bull car bogged down, quickly resulting in a DNF for the 4-time World Champion! Almost all of the hype and excitement heading into this Race was about whether Max would be able to challenge Andrea Kimi Antonelli down into Turn 1, and instead, he took the corner in last place! Speaking of Kimi Antonelli, he led the two Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, whilst Lando Norris lost a place to Pierre Gasly after nearly being squeezed into the wall by his teammate Oscar Piastri! The two Haas cars also came together on Lap 1, eventually leading to an Oliver Bearman retirement, whilst not a lot happened in terms of on-track action for the next 60-odd laps! However, there are a couple of things to talk about, like Isack Hadjar having major issues in his Red Bull to the point where he was costing George Russell around 2 seconds a lap, whilst Lando Norris would eventually be forced to retire after his McLaren suffered yet more mechanical problems! Williams were then playing tactics from a year ago, where Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon would take it in turns to back the rest of the pack up, allowing them to make their pit stops and remain in the points! Unfortunately, Albon made a mistake throughout this process, letting Arvid Lindblad jump a position, and we’ll get back to why that’s important in a bit!

Anyway, on Lap 56, Lance Stroll found himself in the wall at Antony Noghes, resulting in a Safety Car that completely changed the trajectory of this Race! See, throughout the Race, there had been a ton of issues with drivers picking up time penalties for speeding in the pit lane, with the likes of Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Pierre Gasly, and Oscar Piastri all falling foul! Due to Stroll’s crash, the drivers were forced to follow the Safety Car through the pit lane, a decision that resulted in Gasly getting another 5-second time penalty, whilst Mercedes made an absolute blunder by touching Russell’s car before he could serve the 5-second time penalty! Then, on the Safety Car restart, chaos struck once again as Charles Leclerc found himself in the wall at the exact same place as Lance Stroll (8 laps prior); an absolute horror story for the home hero! Unbelievably, the track surface was literally breaking up heading into that corner, meaning the Grand Prix had to be Red Flagged as it simply wasn’t safe to continue in its current predicament! Now, during the Red Flag phase, George Russell’s miseries continued as he was given a Drive Through Penalty, both Lewis Hamilton and Isack Hadjar were under investigation for Safety Car infringements (both of them got away with it, however), and amazingly, Arvid Lindblad was able to get his one and only pitstop completed; I told you him getting ahead of the two Williams was important!

When the Race finally got back underway, Andrea Kimi Antonelli was able to keep Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari at bay into Turn 1, quickly bolting off into the distance, whilst George Russell decided to back the pack up for some reason, creating a massive amount of chaos that saw Nico Hulkenberg clunk Carlos Sainz into the wall! Two corners later, Franco Colapinto also took out Carlos! Russell would then drop to the back after serving his Drive-Through Penalty, resulting in Pierre Gasly moving up into P3 (he overtook Hadjar at the restart), although that wouldn’t matter as Gasly had a cruel 10-second time penalty to serve! Instead, it meant that Isack Hadjar would get to celebrate his first Red Bull Podium, even though he would have to wait hours for his result to be confirmed! Also, rather unbelievably, Nico Hulkenberg would receive a 10-second time penalty for his incident with Carlos Sainz, meaning he dropped out of the points, promoting Sergio Perez into the points! However, Checo would then receive a post-Race penalty, meaning Cadillac’s dreams were dashed, whilst Fernando Alonso

The Standout Drives in the Race

I’ve given out five 10’s for the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix, and the first one is obviously for Andrea Kimi Antonelli! Kimi Antonelli was miles clear of the rest of the pack today, and the fact that he didn’t falter on multiple starts, particularly the second one, is massive! The second driver I’ve given out maximum points to is Isack Hadjar, and I honestly have no idea how Isack ended up on the Podium today when it looked like he was in serious trouble of retiring at one point! The third driver I’ve given a Perfect 10 to is Liam Lawson, and once again, Liam is doing a fantastic job! The next driver I’ve given a 10 to is Arvid Lindblad, who scored his career best result as Racing Bulls scored a fantastic 18 points! And the final driver I’ve given a 10 to is Fernando Alonso, and I don’t care whether he needed “500” penalties and retirements for him to get into this position, but Fernando scoring a point in that diabolical Aston Martin is sensational! Elsewhere, Lewis Hamilton, Alex Albon, and Esteban Ocon all had strong showings, whilst my heart goes out to Pierre Gasly, who was pretty much faultless besides his pitlane speeding incidents!

Drivers Who Had a Shocker

It’s probably going to surprise you, but I actually haven’t given out a single 1 for today’s Race! Yes, both Charles Leclerc and Lance Stroll crashed at Antony Noghes, but it’s pretty hard to expect them to avoid the walls given that they were both dealing with brake issues (and then there’s the broken tarmac, which is another thing entirely)! Franco Colapinto also had a bit of a messy afternoon, whilst both Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez missed really good opportunities to finally score some points (I won’t nearly be as harsh on Checo, though)! Max Verstappen will also be gutted after his dream of a third Monaco Grand Prix victory was dashed instantly, and then there’s George Russell, who may just be the unluckiest person in the world right now!