Leclerc claims second podium of season at home race in Monaco.
Monaco Podium Results
Lando Norris claimed his second victory of the season, and his first in the Principality of Monaco, with Charles Leclerc bringing home his second podium finish of the 2025 season. Oscar Piastri landed the final spot on his 7th trip up the steps this year, making McLaren's 6th double podium finish of the season. Honestly that's pretty insane to me, and shows that the rest of the field has a lot of work to do in order to catch up to the Papaya pair.
Team Highlight: Ferrari
Personally, I was rooting for the home hero Charles Leclerc to win this one, and even more hopeful that Lewis Hamilton would finally be in control of the Ferrari and show us what he could do for the Scuderia. With that being said, I decided to focus on the famous Prancing Horses for this update, which I hope you all enjoy!
Qualifying Recap
Leclerc looked strong during all three qualifying sessions, and had an amazing one lap pace in comparison to his previous outings this season, which saw him briefly take pole at the end of Q3. Unfortunately for Leclerc and Ferrari, Norris narrowly beat him for the highly coveted pole position, which was a huge blow to the Monegasque since his home Grand Prix is a race that is normally decided by the pole sitter.
Hamilton seemed to be doing fairly well until he was penalized for impeding the reigning world champion, which saw Hamilton take a three place grid penalty for the mistake. In his defense, Hamilton's race engineer, Riccardo Adami, had previously told him that Verstappen was not currently on a flying lap.
Unfortunately for the new driver/engineer pair, this confusion was just the most recent in a series of unfortunate events that suggest the duo has not quite worked out all the kinks in their new working relationship. Either way, Hamilton would end up starting the race from P7 on the grid, which was decent considering how the 2025 season has played out for him so far.
Monaco GP Recap
At the start of the race, Lando Norris had a huge lock up coming into Turn 1, which I was sure that Leclerc was going to take the lead as a result. Unfortunately for the hometown hero, Norris was able to pump his brakes just enough to keep the McLaren in control and stay in the lead.
After that, we got to see Kick Sauber rookie Gabriel Bortoleto run into the wall after a hard fought battle with Mercedes’ rookie Kimi Antonelli, which ended up bringing out a virtual safety car on the first lap. Thankfully, Bortoleto did not receive any injuries and was actually able to continue driving, although he would now be down a lap to the rest of the grid.
⏪ Rewind to the opening lap... and Bortoleto's battle with Antonelli where the Brazilian ended up in the barriers #F1 #MonacoGP pic.twitter.com/GuXRTMpgK1
— Formula 1 (@F1) May 25, 2025
Other than that initial incident, things went relatively normal as far as Monaco goes, except for one thing: Go slow tactics.
The “go slow” tactics that were being employed by the Williams and Racing Bulls teams impeded traffic all over, allowing them to utilize team positioning to prevent undercuts and maximize their pit window. Despite all that, Leclerc did display some great pace throughout the race, and was able to avoid being undercut by Oscar Piastri which was a huge feat amongst all the traffic on the Monte Carlo circuit.
Honestly though, it was pretty painful to watch half the grid driving so slowly around the circuit, and it was frustrating enough for George Russell to blatantly overtake Alex Albon off track. Russell would then refuse to give the position back to Albon, and received a Drive Through penalty as a result. Personally I think this was a very justified penalty, although I do believe that this should call for a change in the rules of Monaco, in which drivers should be required to stick to a “minimum” lap time.
I'm not sure what happened to Hamilton after all the pit stops were said and done, but somehow he was almost 1 minute behind the leaders by the end of the race, which was kind of crazy. I thought he had a strong showing all weekend, and even though he still hasn't quite adjusted to the Ferrari, I was sure that he would have been closer than that. All in all, Hamilton finished the day P5, which is just his second best finish of the season.
Gasly 💥 Tsunoda #F1 #MonacoGP pic.twitter.com/FMaJzg9sFd
— Formula 1 (@F1) May 25, 2025
Another thing that surprised me was every driver that had to retire was either able to limp back to the pits, or was in a location of the track where there was no need for a safety car intervention, which is highly unusual for the Monaco GP. If I was going to place a bet on this race, it would have been on a safety car, and I definitely would have lost that one!
Overall though, the pair of Prancing Horses looked the best they have all season, which has got to be a huge boost of confidence for them, and hopefully we'll get to see their performance continue to improve throughout the rest of the year.
Looking Forward
F1 will be heading to Barcelona for Round 9 of the 2025 season, home of Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso, and the Spanish Grand Prix! Thank you all for joining me for this update, and I hope to see you on the next one!