Monaco GP: Perez holds on to claim victory in wet/dry thriller

Sergio Perez got the early tyre calls right and held on to win the Monaco Grand Prix.

Heavy rain caused the start to be delayed by over an hour in Monte Carlo, but once the racing began it was a tense battle between Ferrari and Red Bull.

But it was the Checo who had the pace on a brief stint in intermediates to get track position and then keep the rest at bay to take the chequered flag.

Race Review

A rain shower forced a delay to the start as teams scrambled for wet tyres. Two formation laps took place before further heavy downpours caused a prolonged red flag.

Drivers returned to the track behind the Safety Car with Lance Stroll and Nicholas Latifi touching the barriers even at slow speed.

When the racing action finally got underway, Leclerc led the way as drivers adjusted to the conditions.

Pierre Gasly was among several drivers to immediately pit for intermediates and made some important overtakes on those still running the full wets.

Perez would be among those also to use intermediates, with Leclerc and Max Verstappen doing the same a few laps later.

The undercut would see the Mexican jump ahead and then take the lead when Carlos Sainz changed to hard dry tyres.

Ferrari also called Leclerc in on the same lap as his teammate with the Monegasque unable to respond to a late message to stay out.

That meant he lost more time stacked behind Sainz and dropped to fourth behind Verstappen as his race unravelled.

A big crash for Mick Schumacher at the Swimming Pool section caused a Safety Car followed by a red flag to fix the barriers.

The German would lose the rear on a wet patch exiting the first chicane with his Haas car splitting in half upon impact into the Techpro.

Both Red Bulls would switch to the medium tyres under the red flag but didn’t get a significant benefit when the race resumed.

Fernando Alonso in seventh would set a very slow pace some three seconds slower than the cars ahead, holding up Lewis Hamilton and the rest of the pack.

With the race becoming a timed one rather than the full 77 laps, Perez began to struggle with graining on his front tyres entering the final 15 minutes.

That allowed the top four to run within two seconds as Sainz had to avoid running into the Red Bull through the hairpin but couldn’t get close enough for a move.

Due to Alonso’s slow pace, the leaders then came up on lapped traffic in the closing laps but Perez held his nerve to take the third win of his F1 career.

Sainz settled for second as Verstappen’s run of winning every race he’s finished this season came to an end in third.

For Leclerc, it was a first-ever finish in any category at his home race but fourth certainly wasn’t what the Monegasque was hoping for.

George Russell maintained his record of top-five finishes in fifth, ahead of Lando Norris in sixth for McLaren.

Alonso’s strategy worked in seventh, with Hamilton, who had a tangle with Esteban Ocon early on, a frustrated eighth.

The Frenchman would finish ninth, but a five-second penalty for the incident with Lewis dropped the Alpine outside the points in P12.

That promoted Valtteri Bottas to P9 and Sebastian Vettel rounding out the top 10 for Aston Martin.

Despite his early charge, Gasly just missed out on points in 11th ahead of Ocon and Daniel Ricciardo in 13th.

Stroll and Latifi finished 14th and 15th with Zhou Guanyu producing one of the saves of the race as he battled Yuki Tsunoda at the back of the field.

Alex Albon and the two Haas’ were the only retirements.

Full results from the Monaco GP can be seen below: