Raceday Recap: A Weekend of Penalties in Monaco

Most F1 fans either love or hate the Monaco Grand Prix, but there was no debate that this year’s race was more unpredictable than most. From suspicious pit lane penalties to an astounding number of DNFs, let’s discuss what made this year’s competition stand out.

This weekend, Kimi Antonelli added another pole position to his Formula 1 career, with Max Verstappen hot on his tail after qualifying P2. The Ferrari boys had an impressive showing after making it into Q3, with Lewis Hamilton qualifying 3rd and Monte Carlo native Charles Leclerc qualifying in 4th. Isack Hadjar secured a 5th place start for Red Bull, followed by Mercedes’ George Russell starting from 6th. McLaren teammates Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris celebrated the team’s 1000th Grand Prix by starting from 7th and 8th. Pierre Gasly surprised fans by taking the P9 grid spot for Alpine, with Liam Lawson finishing out the top 10 in the RB.

An emotional Kimi celebrates his pole position. Photo courtesy of F1.

From the first lap, the unexpected happened: Max Verstappen’s car stalled at lights out, causing him to drop to the back and retire on lap two, a heartbreaking call from the pit wall. Next, Sergio Perez received a drive through penalty on lap 10 for being out of his grid box during the grid start. Monaco is not known for its variety of overtaking opportunities, so the majority of advancements up the standings were due to when drivers decided to pit. Valtteri Bottas complained about his brakes smoking over the radio early in the race and officially retired his Cadillac around lap 23. Haas called Ollie Bearman into the garage on lap 30, and Norris followed suit on lap 45 due to issues with his power unit. Lance Stroll crashed out of the race on lap 60, forcing each driver to go through the pit lane. The safety car led for 5 laps before going in, but just a few seconds later Charles Leclerc, the home favorite, lost his grip and rammed into the barrier for a devastating result. This crash brought the safety car back out until lap 68 when a red flag was called, stopping the session and calling all of the drivers into the pit lane for an official race restart. Carlos Sainz scraped the wall on the first lap back racing after being tagged by Nico Hulkenberg, becoming the 7th driver to fail to finish the race.

Throughout the race and afterwards, penalties were given to a variety of drivers, which caused most of the drama from this race. After his initial penalty, Perez received yet another after the race for being out of position during the race restart, causing Cadillac to lose their sole point as he dropped to P15. Speeding in the pit lane caused so many penalties to be distributed that the commentators questioned whether it was the drivers’ fault or due to an error in the technology. George Russell, Lewis Hamilton, Franco Colapinto, and Oscar Piastri each received a 5 second penalty for the issue, and Pierre Gasly picked up two on separate occasions. Russell faced even more discipline when he did not serve his penalty on his first available pit stop, earning himself a drive-through penalty for failing to serve the first one correctly. Nico Hulkenberg was given a 10 second time penalty for causing a collision with Carlos Sainz. Lastly, before his crash, Lance Stroll was penalized for exceeding track limits.

Pierre Gasly mourns what could have been after losing out on a podium. Photo courtesy of Les Alpinistes.

After leading for the entire race, Kimi Antonelli claimed his fifth win of the season, with Lewis Hamilton and Isack Hadjar joining him on the podium. Oscar Piastri ended up in 4th place, followed by the Racing Bulls: Liam Lawson with a career best finish in 5th and Arvid Lindblad in 6th. Pierre Gasly, who had been running for the podium for multiple laps, missed out after receiving a post-finish line penalty, dropping him down into P7. The last three points scorers came out of nowhere: Alex Albon finished in 8th, Esteban Ocon in 9th, and Fernando Alonso in 10th after Sergio Perez was forced to drop down the positions.

While this season’s Monaco GP was only entertaining because of the excessive penalties, the end of the race was extremely nerve wracking with the many yellow flags, safety cars, and even the red flag and race restart. What did you think of the race? As always, thank you for reading, and don’t forget to follow @thewinningformulablog on Instagram!

Lights out and away we go,

Lucy xx

EDIT 06/12: As of today, Alpine’s request for a Right of Review has been answered with happy news - Pierre Gasly’s podium has been reinstated, causing everyone else to drop down 1 place in the race results. This means that the 10th place point is again being taken by another team, now to be Haas. Gasly will receive the points from his rightful 3rd place finish, and there is no word on any other penalties being repealed.