Monaco has a new race winner, Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen win the Monaco GP for the second time in his career in a race that wasn’t easy at all thanks to the weather.

Finally conquering Monaco Max Verstappen manages to extend his lead in the Divers Championship over his teammate Sergio Perez who couldn’t display his skill after starting 20th.

As always the Monaco GP is one of the most awaited races of the year. Being one of the most iconic street circuits in F1, the expectations for this race were high. With the Drivers Championship being so closely battled between Perez and Verstappen many wanted to see them race each other.

Qualifying

As per usual, Saturday was qualifying. However, in Monaco, the quali can have more weight than the actual race itself. Thanks to the fact that. overtaking in this circuit is so difficult, your starting position matters a lot if you want to win.

Just as we started qualifying cars knew that passing Q1 was a must if they wanted to score points. The surprise came when one of the favorites to win the race, Sergio Perez saw an early end after crashing out. This meant that he was going to start P20 on Sunday.

Then the real action came in Q3. With just enough time to make two laps, at most three, the drivers started pushing to the limit. First came Esteban Ocon who put himself in provisional pole. Secondly, followed Charles Leclerc but it didn’t last long as Fernando took the pole from both. With the time already up, Verstappen was in his final flying lap. He had around 0.200 seconds under Fernando when he entered the third second. However, he pushed to the limit and managed to beat the time by just 0.084 seconds. Max took the pole after one of the best qualifying sessions of the season.

Afterward, Leclerc was given a 3-position penalty for “blocking McLaren rival Lando Norris” making him move into 6th place.

Race day

Fernando Alonso, closer than ever to the 33rd win; Max Verstappen looking to conquer, once and for all the Monaco GP; the race was set to be memorable. Both had a great start and managed to maintain their positions. Alonso tried pushing Max to the limit but with almost no space to overtake him, Fernando was locked behind.

On the back, many small touches occurred. Some cars had to pit early on to repair the damages. Perez pitted early but not due to damage, he wanted to put the Hard tiers and hopefully finish the race with them and win positions as everyone entered the pits. Little did he know that his plan was going to be sent out of the window thanks to the weather.

The rain started to fall on Monaco and things started to get slippery and dangerous. Many close encounters with walls and other cars occurred. Just as some drivers started changing to Inters Fernando was called into boxes. Everyone thought this was the best move until they put Medium tiers instead of Inters. This error on lap 54 cost him any chance of winning as Verstappen came in the following lap and put Inters. Alonso had to pit once again this time for Inters but it was too late. Max had over 20 seconds of advantage due to the two pit stops and with the conditions Monaco was currently at it was impossible to cut down that time with the laps left.

Max finished the race with more than 27 seconds over Fernando who took second place, Ocon took third and his third podium in Formula 1.

Sergio Perez finished 16th and didn’t see any points added to his name. Charles’ home race cures continued as he finished 6th just as he started.

With this result, is Max Verstappen’s and Sergio Perez’s competition over? Can Perez recover from this?