Formula 1 2023 Monaco Grand Prix results

Red Bull maintained its perfect victory sweep at the start of the 2023 season, with Max Verstappen's commanding victory in last weekend's Monaco Grand Prix.
But, as ever, there was plenty more to the overall event story – with Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin taking to the stage even more centrally than usual this season and Sergio Perez having an awful weekend that may have already blown his ...

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Having started from seventh on the grid on the hard tyres, Gasly rose up the order as others pitted, and by lap 44 he was in third place.
Up and down the pitlane, drivers were being told that rain was expected but rather than have Gasly wait for a possible opportunity to switch straight to intermediates, the team called him in for medium tyres just a few laps before the rain hit.
He was thus ...

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Leclerc was penalised for impeding Lando Norris in the tunnel in Q3 after his team failed to warn him early enough about the fast-approaching McLaren driver.
The penalty dropped Leclerc from third on the grid to sixth, making his life much harder for Sunday's race, in which he eventually finished in the same position.
Leclerc, who has regularly had bad luck in Monaco, tried to be positive ...

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The Red Bull driver lined up last for Sunday's race, having crashed out of qualifying in Q1.
He went on to pit five times in a dismal race which saw him lapped twice by team-mate and race winner Max Verstappen, who now leads the championship by 39 points.
Despite it marking Perez's first scoreless race of the season, the Mexican said his mistake was "very costly" and "unacceptable".
He ...

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Alonso switched from his old hard tyres to mediums as the first signs of a shower hit some areas of the track. 
After it intensified and spread over the whole circuit, he quickly came in again for intermediates.
Alonso held onto his second place, but Krack insists that had the Spaniard made a single stop instead of two he still wouldn’t have beaten race winner Max Verstappen.
He ...

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Sainz was incensed when Ferrari called him into the pits on lap 33, one lap after the Alpine of Esteban Ocon that Sainz was shadowing during the entire first stint.
Despite a slow stop from Alpine, Sainz didn't manage to overcut the Frenchman and he felt Ferrari should have been more patient as he had more pace in hand on his tyres, which he had been able to save while being stuck behind the ...

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Russell looked like benefitting from a slow stop for Alpine's Esteban Ocon and a late call to intermediates for Ferrari's Carlos Sainz to climb to third as rain hit the principality in the final third of the race.
But after his pitstop for intermediates on lap 55, Russell appeared to get distracted by a yellow flag for a lapped Lance Stroll and joined the Aston Martin driver up the Mirabeau ...

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Sainz survived early contact with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon at the Nouvelle Chicane with minor front wing damage to keep the podium in sight through the opening half of the race.
On lap 33 of 78, Ocon suffered a slow stop as he switched to fresh mediums, with Ferrari opting to pit Sainz on the following tour in an attempt to utilise the overcut and cover off Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who was ...

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Initial drizzle in the second sector during the race's second half bloomed into heavier rain, which prompted a series of cars to make the leap onto the intermediate tyre in a bid to anticipate worsening conditions.
Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll led the switch, with Zhou Guanyu and Alex Albon following suit.
Alonso subsequently made his first trip to the pitlane at the end of the 54th lap ...

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Lewis Hamilton and George Russell bagged a 4-5 result to mark the debut of the heavily-revised W14, which has now gained more conventional sidepods and new front suspension.
While the positions were unchanged, Russell was hit with a five-second penalty for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner as he made contact with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez at Mirabeau.
Although Hamilton had the pace in ...

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Polesitter Verstappen had built a comfortable lead over second-placed Alonso, but with rain looming the Aston Martin driver enjoyed a strategic advantage by starting on the hard tyre, while Verstappen began to struggle on worn mediums.
As the rain eventually hit and then intensified, Verstappen pitted on lap 56 of 78 for intermediates and managed to undo Alonso's tyre advantage as well as the ...

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Verstappen, who had comfortably led from pole all race, kept his head cool on worn medium tyres when a brief but intense rain shower spiced up the second half of what was shaping up to remain a lifeless Monaco race.
Having held off on making a pitstop to get rid of his old tyres because he didn't want to give up track position to the chasing Fernando Alonso on hards, Verstappen was rewarded for ...

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The Dutchman converted pole position successfully despite having to contend with the rigours of a wet race among the final third of the race, extending his stint on the medium tyres to cover off the looming threat of rain.
With a dry start to proceedings, the medium-shod Verstappen covered off any threat of a pass from Alonso on the hards at the start, and immediately began to cement his lead ...

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Verstappen led every lap, ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, but had to negotiate his way through a heavy rain shower. He clipped the wall just before pitting for intermediate tyres but benefited when Alonso stopped for slicks just before the rain arrived.
Verstappen had one more wall hit with nine laps to go at the exit of the Swimming Pool section, but survived for his 39th F1 ...

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Long since a mainstay of the Formula 1 calendar, and almost as long since derided for its dull on-track action and ostentatious partying, the Monaco Grand Prix faces among the most criticism of the calendar’s circuits.
At the same time every year, the harbour of Monte Carlo fills up with ever bigger vessels for a weekend of champagne, celebrity, social media posturing and glamour, a word ...

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With the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix cancelled owing to extreme flooding in the region, attention was turned last week by reported claims that Ferrari had made an offer to Hamilton for the 2024 season.
While Hamilton’s current Mercedes contract is coming to an end and Ferrari would always consider the driver if he was ever available, the Briton has long since pledged his loyalty to the Silver ...

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Norris hit the barrier in Q2 and his crew had to replace left-front suspension components before he could resume in Q3.
However, they didn’t change anything on the right front, where Norris also had a touch with a barrier during the session.
The Englishman admitted that he had to overcome concerns about going flat out straight away in Q3 with the repaired car.
In the end, his final ...

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In a frantic end to the Q3 shootout, Alonso, Alpine's Esteban Ocon and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc all traded provisional pole until Red Bull world champion Max Verstappen clinched his first Monaco pole with a hair-raising final sector.
The Dutchman said he "clipped a few barriers" in the process and Alonso also admitted he took a few "uncomfortable risks" in his hunt for his first pole ...

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Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer has been under pressure since his CEO Laurent Rossi made critical comments about the Enstone outfit’s ‘amateurish' form and mistakes that have been made.
With handy timing, Esteban Ocon qualified a surprise fourth in Monaco, while Gasly had a less than perfect session but still earned a respectable seventh place.
The former was boosted one ...

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Sergio Perez crashed out of qualifying at Sainte Devote and, due to the tight confines of the principality street circuit, his RB19 was hoisted out of the way - allowing photographers to capture its floor.
Given engineers estimate 60% of car performance is now generated by the underbody aerodynamics following the 2022 switch to ground-effect rules, teams have kept this area a closely guarded ...

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As Hamilton’s Mercedes was lifted into the Monaco skyline following his barrier collision at Mirabeau towards the end of FP3, everyone was treated to a view of the W14’s underfloor, an area of the car that we’re rarely able to catch a glimpse of.
The timing of the incident was especially annoying for Mercedes, whose team boss Toto Wolff called it an act straight out of Cirque du ...

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Aston Martin has shone with the ability of Fernando Alonso to out-brake rivals into corners and then jump back on the power early.
With those contrasting traits, the tight Monaco lap was thought to be the green team’s best chance of topping the leaderboard.
How the Q3 thriller unfolded
After qualifying in the principality, Aston hasn’t done that. But the battle came down to the wire ...

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Red Bull's Max Verstappen will start the race from pole position after a stunning final sector effort in qualifying. He will be joined on the front row by Aston Martin's star driver Fernando Alonso, who looked set for pole until Verstappen's late heroics demoted him to second on the grid.



Esteban Ocon will line up a strong third for Alpine ahead of the top Ferrari of Carlos Sainz ...

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The Dutchman overcame a two-tenth deficit to Alonso in the final sector to make a last-gasp swoop for the fastest time, his resulting 1m11.365s cementing his first pole position in qualifying at the Monte Carlo circuit.
Verstappen had set a banker with a 1m12.102s at the start of the session, but the lap was immediately outclassed by Alonso, who grabbed a 1m11.706s to raise the bar considerably ...

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Verstappen will start ahead of Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) after the one-hour qualifying session, which is split into three segments with five cars each being knocked out in Q1 and Q2 before the top-10 shootout of Q3.
Besides the thrilling ending to Q3, where pole changed hands four times in the final two minutes, the big shock was last year’s race winner ...

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The Ferrari driver appeared to slow in the tunnel as Norris' rapid McLaren approached from behind on a flying lap, forcing him to take evasive action.
Leclerc had been set to line up third for his home race, but will now drop to sixth. Norris will start 10th for Sunday's race.
The FIA stewards said Leclerc "had finished his final lap of Q3 and was in the Turn 4 through Turn 10 complex ...

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The Red Bull driver made a successful swoop for pole in the dying stages of Q3 to deny Alonso the chance of a first F1 pole since 2012, using the final corners to overturn a deficit of two tenths accrued in the opening pair of sectors.
Thanks to the vastly improved form of the Aston Martin team in 2023, Alonso has been able to consistently run at the front after years of struggling with ...

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Ocon stunned the paddock when he set a 1m11.553s effort with just a handful of minutes remaining in Q3 to take provisional pole.
Explaining the decision to run early in the final phase of qualifying, Ocon said: "We got done exactly in Miami for that.
"We left it late, we got done with the red flag for Charles [Leclerc] at the end and we wanted to avoid that.
"We wanted to go earlier with ...

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Hamilton, who crashed in FP3, got out of Q1 at the last minute with his final run, and the same thing happened as he made it out of Q2 with his last lap.
In the final segment, he earned sixth on the grid, with the potential to move up a place if third-placed Charles Leclerc receives a penalty for impeding Lando Norris.
Hamilton also acknowledged that the upgrades Mercedes introduced this ...

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Hamilton hit the barriers late in final practice on Saturday to trigger a red flag. As his W14 was recovered, it was raised several storeys high to allow photographers to capture the underbody design.
With engineers estimating that 60% of car performance is owed to the floor, following the 2022 shift to ground-effects, the underbody aerodynamics have been a particularly closely guarded ...

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On his second qualifying lap of Q1, Perez lost the rear of the car turning into Sainte Devote, slapping the left-rear corner of his Red Bull RB19 into the barriers.
Perez's accident brought out the red flag and caused sizeable damage to his car.
"Unbelievable day. I cannot believe what I what I've done," Perez responded to the costly incident.
"It just caught me by surprise, just getting ...

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The two-time champion headed a thrilling Q3 session at two points, but was pipped on both occasions by Max Verstappen as the Red Bull driver's prowess in the final sector decided pole in his favour.
After his first flying lap in Q3, Alonso felt that he "drove like an animal" to briefly head the session, but had to dig deeper in his second run in his bid to overturn Verstappen.
He reckoned ...

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Red Bull's championship leader was down in fifth after the first barrage of Q3 runs. Amid scintillating pole bids by Esteban Ocon, Charles Leclerc and Alonso, Verstappen then had the last word as the chequered flag dropped.
Despite two personal bests, he was still trailing Aston Martin driver Alonso heading into the final sector, but with a stunning recovery, his 1m11.365s effort pipped the ...

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Before the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, Honda announced it would return to F1 as a fully-fledged engine manufacturer by supplying works power units to Aston Martin from 2026, when F1 moves to new engine regulations with a higher degree of electrification and sustainable fuels.
Honda is the last of the six manufacturers that registered for the new engine cycle to commit to a programme, which ...

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First held in 1929, the famous street race has made efforts to modernise via the construction of a new pit facility, while for 2023 it has notably relinquished control of its oft-maligned TV broadcast production and handed over sponsorship and advertising after past conflicts with F1's own partners.
However, the circuit layout has largely remained unchanged. This has left the emphasis to shift ...

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Sergio Perez posted the first representative lap time with a 1m15.641s to go top, managing to avoid a stopped Esteban Ocon in the tunnel as the Alpine driver reported a loss of power.
The Frenchman returned his car to the pits after a swift reset at the steering wheel, but this forced him to spend the next 20 minutes in the garage.
Pierre Gasly found a glimmer of hope for Alpine by going ...

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Former Mercedes chief strategist Vowles joined the Grove outfit as team principal, with his official starting date listed as 20 February.
He has used his brief tenure so far to evaluate the 10th-placed outfit, which is currently without a full-time technical director to lead its in-season car development.
Vowles reckons the nine-time constructors' champion, bought by American investment firm ...

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Qatar stepped in at a late stage during the COVID-hit 2021 season to fill a hole in the calendar left by the cancellation of other events.
The country subsequently signed a 10-year deal with F1 to start in 2023, with 2022 skipped to avoid any clash with the FIFA World Cup.
After the initial F1 event had to deal with the compromises created by small pit garages that were designed for MotoGP ...

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"In the next 10 years.. I'm going to be punchy and say yes," said Wolff. "But I think with F1 Academy we are creating such a strong pathway that, when the first one comes, more will follow. That's the plan."
Speaking at the Financial Times Business of F1 Forum in Monaco, organised in conjunction with Motorsport Network, the former Williams development driver delivered her vision for the series ...

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