The most successful team in the history of the Monaco Grand Prix extended their record of victories in the race last weekend.
But McLaren’s 16th Monaco Grand Prix win was also their first for 17 years. Their last came courtesy of Lewis Hamilton in the rain-hit 2008 race.
For all the talk of it being a predictable race, the win for Lando Norris means no driver has scored consecutive wins in the last 10 Monaco grands prix. Compare that to the preceding round at Imola, which Max Verstappen won for the fourth time in a row, and upcoming event at the Circuit de Catalunya, where Verstappen is bidding for his fourth straight win, to follow the previous five which were all won by Hamilton.
Verstappen was only a late red flag away from scoring his third Monaco Grand Prix win. Although he finished off the podium he remains a constant thorn in the sides of the McLaren drivers.
While Norris trimmed Oscar Piastri’s lead to three points, Verstappen is still within striking distance, 25 behind. What’s more, he’s the only driver to have led each of the last four races, and thanks to that he has now led more laps than any driver this year: 175 to Piastri’s 168 and Norris’s 102.
Norris recorded the sixth win of his career, giving him the same number of victories as Piastri. Given McLaren’s form this year, we could see that stat again a few times this year. Having won the season-opening race, it took Norris until round seven to take his next win. Valtteri Bottas was the last driver to take so long to follow up a season-opening win, taking his second victory in round 10 of 2020.
Once Verstappen pitted, Norris had clear track ahead of him and used it to take the fastest lap. This was the 17th of his career, putting him level with Daniel Ricciardo and Rubens Barrichello.
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He also took pole position with a record-breaking lap of 1’09.954, the quickest lap of any configuration of the Monaco track. Norris therefore claimed the third ‘hat trick’ of his career, having also done the pole-fastest lap-win treble at Melbourne this year and Zandvoort last year.
Isack Hadjar put in a superb qualifying lap to start fifth, and came home sixth, both his best results to date. Remarkably, it puts him ahead of his former team mate Yuki Tsunoda in the championship. Liam Lawson, the driver Tsunoda replaced at Red Bull, finally got his first points of the year with eighth, having lost his potential score in the sprint race at Miami following a post-race penalty.
A tough weekend for George Russell saw him fail to extend his 18-round streak of Q3 appearances due to an electronic problem on his car in qualifying. He finished outside the top 10, and so his run of scoring points in 17 consecutive grands prix also ended. With Andrea Kimi Antonelli also out of the top 10, this was the first point-less race for Mercedes since last year’s Australian Grand Prix, 28 rounds ago.
Fernando Alonso was also out of the points, in deeply unfortunate circumstances. He was running well inside the top 10 when his power unit developed a problem. If he fails to score this weekend, it will be his worst start to a season since his debut season for Minardi in 2001, which he ended point-less.
His compatriot Carlos Sainz Jnr enjoyed a better weekend ahead of their home event. His 10th place finish not only meant he scored points, but that he sustained his record of never failing to score in Monaco since his debut in 2015.
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Over to you
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Monaco Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
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