Max Verstappen Wins the Monaco Grand Prix

Max Verstappen won the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix by a commanding 27 seconds. Verstappen led the race for the entire distance after starting from pole position. The victory marks his 39th career win. With a surprise mid-race downpour, the circuit conditions deteriorated quickly. After 51 laps, the rain led to multiple drivers losing grip. Monaco is a tight turned circuit that doesn’t offer many opportunities for forgiveness when losing grip.

Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) finished in second, where he started behind Verstappen. Esteban Ocon (Alpine) secured his first podium of the year, finishing 3rd. The Mercedes team found pace early in the race to catapult Lewis Hamilton and George Russell into fourth and fifth place, rounding out the top 5 and securing a large chunk of points for the Mercedes team.

Hometown driver, Charles Leclerc, finished 6th, which will be a disappointing race for him after losing out on his qualifying position due to the three place grid penalty from which he never recovered. The woes continued for the Ferrari team as Sainz fell victim to the rain and had a spin out that caused him to slide into one of the track run offs. He was able to recover the car and finish in 8th place.

Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate was not able to finish in the points after crashing in qualifying.

Max Verstappen Offered His Thoughts on the Race

After the race Verstappen stated to F1.com, “It was quite a difficult one because we were on the medium initially and Fernando was on the hard tire. We didn’t want to go that long, but we had too. The rain was coming, and we didn’t know really what was going on. The tires were graining and then took a few laps to get through that graining phase and the pace picked up a little bit, but it was still very tricky to drive. Then it started to rain lap by lap, and then we had to make the call to go on to the inters.”

He continued, “It was incredibly slippery. When you are that far in the lead you don’t want to push too hard, but you don’t want to lose too much time, so it’s quite difficult in that scenario. I clipped the walls a few times, it was super difficult out there, but that’s Monaco!”

You can find more coverage on the race at F1.com.

Full Monaco Grand Prix Results