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Antonelli wins Monaco from Hamilton after dramatic endingImage source, ReutersImage caption, Kimi Antonelli has won the past five grands prix to lead the championship by 66 pointsByAndrew Benson
Kimi Antonelli took a dominant victory in the Monaco Grand Prix ahead of the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton after a chaotic ending that featured two safety cars and a red flag.
The 19-year-old Italian’s fifth win in a row, in combination with a dire race for Mercedes team-mate George Russell, who finished 13th and out of the points, puts him in total control of the championship.
Antonelli leads Hamilton by 66 points, with Russell now down to third, two points further adrift.
Russell dropped to the back from third place because of a drive-through penalty that he had to serve when the field was compressed two laps after the restart.
Pierre Gasly finished third for Alpine, but was immediately dropped to seventh with a penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
That promoted Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar to the final podium position, ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri on the occasion of the team’s 1,000th grand prix.
The madcap ending was one of several key stories, including:
Antonelli’s supreme display to take total control of the championship
Russell’s recent dose of bad luck seemingly killing his title chances
A costly error from Charles Leclerc at his home race – which he refused to accept was his fault
The chaos caused by the track breaking up and an unusually high number of penalties – six – for drivers speeding in the pit lane
Image source, ReutersMercedes’ Kimi Antonelli maintained the lead when the race restarted with eight laps to go
Antonelli kept his cool through two race starts – the initial one and the final one after the red flag – to hold the lead off the line for the first time this season and utterly dominate the race.
An absolute masterclass from Antonelli for his first Monaco win underlined his credentials as the likely world champion this year, even if there are currently scheduled to be 16 races still to go.
The talk before the race was whether Antonelli could for the first time this year keep his position off the grid.
In fact, he got away well, and instead it was Max Verstappen’s Red Bull alongside him who suffered an engine problem off the line and was passed by the entire field before retiring after limping around the first lap.
That left Hamilton chasing Antonelli but any sense of competition evaporated almost immediately.
The Mercedes was 2.9 seconds clear at the end of two laps and continued to build a lead of more than five seconds by the end of 10 laps.
He had to back off a little to manage overheating brakes for 10 laps but then was able to pull away again.
Antonelli was more than 20 seconds clear of Hamilton when the first safety car was called with 18 laps to go after Lance Stroll crashed his Aston Martin at the final corner.
But even though Antonelli missed the pit lane entry the first time around – asking his engineer whether to pit and being told too late that he should – he stopped the next time around and retained his lead.
Before long, what had been a soporific race turned into a surreal one.
First, Stroll crashed his Aston Martin at the final corner, causing a first safety car.
As the cars prepared to get going again, Leclerc crashed at the same place in the same way even before the race had restarted.
That led to a red flag as officials took a look at the track surface at the crumbling final corner, known as Antony Noghes.
And that meant another restart that Antonelli had to negotiate, this time with the fast-starting Ferrari alongside him.
But again he was perfect and the race surrendered to him.
Hadjar drove an excellent race battling power-unit problems and was helped by a masterstroke from Red Bull in not stopping under the first safety car, which gained him positions on Russell and Piastri.
Racing Bulls had a good day with Arvid Lindblad taking the best result of his rookie season with sixth place behind team-mate Liam Lawson.
Gasly was seventh ahead of the Williams of Alex Albon and Esteban Ocon’s Haas.
And Sergio Perez took 10th for what could be the first point for the new Cadillac team, although he faces an investigation for being incorrectly positioned on the restart after the red flag.
If he is penalised, the final point will mark the first of the season for Aston Martin, for whom Fernando Alonso finished 11th.
And there may be questions as to why so many drivers – more than a quarter of the grid – ended up speeding in the pit lane.
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