Charles Leclerc, who had started the race on pole position the previous two times, finally won his home Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday. It was a case of third times fortunate for him.
Charles Leclerc from Monaco maintained a lead throughout, finishing more than seven seconds in front of Oscar Piastri, who came in second.
After the race, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc gave a heartfelt homage to his late father by telling Sky Sports that he was thinking of him while he raced to the finish.
“It’s unbelievable, because he gave everything for me to be here and it was a dream of ours for me to race here and win here,” he exclaimed.
Charles Leclerc also had to weather a spectacular first lap in which a fifth of the field went down, resulting in a red flag for the race and a protracted wait while marshals reconstructed parts of the barriers and cleaned debris from the circuit.
Carlos Sainz of Ferrari had to use a run-off after puncturing shortly after the start due to contact with Piastri, which sparked the mayhem.
The Red Bull driver spun around the walls, his vehicle collapsing and strewing debris all over the track, until coming to a rest in a crumpled wreck with only one tire remaining, in a separate incident that also had Kevin Magnussen clipping Sergio Pérez while attempting to overtake him.
While all of the drivers were able to escape the collision, Nico Hulkenberg, Magnussen’s teammate, was also involved, and the drivers were all forced to withdraw from the race.
Alexander Albon had to withdraw from the race due to an additional incident in the pack as he collided with Pierre Gasly, his Alpine teammate.
The race restarted after a long delay to replace the barriers that Pérez crashed into, and Sainz was able to regain his original position in third place on the grid thanks to the red flag.
With McLaren’s Piastri positioned between the two Ferrari drivers in second place, he managed to finish in third place.
Together with Charles Leclerc , who became the first Monégasque driver to win on one of the sport’s most illustrious circuits since 1931, they celebrated on the podium. Leclerc claimed in the aftermath that the race inspired him to “dream of becoming a Formula One driver one day.”
Max Verstappen of Red Bull was only able to place sixth.
