“We Found The Diamond.”
Sorry this is taking a little longer than I’d like folks, but welcome back to Part 2 of the Triple Header of hell for last weekend. In Part 2, it’s time for F1’s jewel in the crown, the one that according to every media site on earth is the “one they all want to win”, the Monaco Grand Prix. And with it, Kimi Antonelli goes on a casual Sunday drive while all hell breaks loose behind him. Let’s talk about it.
Return to Jaguar
As a Ferrari fan, welcome to another tall glass of “It’s the hope that gets you”. On Friday, we had back-to-back Ferrari 1-2’s in Free Practice. The game theory added up – Ferrari’s smaller turbo has generally meant less spooling, less lag in firing it up, twinned with what it’s shown earlier in the year with solid downforce and mechanical grip, without the drawback of tyre wear given its Monaco. It was rough for Leclerc, who didn’t look comfortable with his brakes, but it looked good for the prancing horse.
Then Saturday arrived. Mercedes found some speed overnight and all of a sudden, Kimi Antonelli took over. Qualifying at Monaco is always a treat, and with active aero turned off for this race and regen not a factor, the drivers, maybe for the first time in this regulation set could truly go all-in. The finale was intense – Max Verstappen did what he did in 2023, pulling out a monster, purple final sector to take the top spot. But a weaker Sector 2 and Antonelli only losing four hundredths down the stretch was enough to, ironically, beat Max by about the same margin. Antonelli’s fourth pole of 2026, and Max with another reminder of what he can do when the car is anywhere near the window.
Shame it didn’t matter because Max’s engine was severely broken before he even got to the line, and when the lights went out, beyond the first phase the car was dead. Max brought it back to the pits and that was that. Antonelli vs the two Ferrari’s became the order of the day and Antonelli could do whatever he wanted. Slowly stretching out a gap over Maranello and never really looked back. The Ferrari’s went early on their mandatory stop, but it had no major impact, besides Lewis Hamilton picking up a five second penalty for speeding in the pitlane. More on that in a bit.
Further back, George Russell was going through it again. He was already bemused with qualifying four tenths slower than his teammate, and then he got stuck behind the last Bull in Isack Hadjar, who was having to nurse an engine deployment issue of its own. Russell got back ahead via an undercut during the pitstops, but by then he was in no man’s land competitively.
This race’s cake pretty much looked baked by two thirds distance, but then on Lap 60, all hell broke loose. Lance Stroll goes straight into the wall at Anthony Noghes. Safety Car deployed.
Time for a tangent real quick – By now, five drivers had penalties for Speeding in the pitlane, an unusually large amount. Why? Because Cadillac’s now in the paddock at the sport’s 11th team, there’s extra space in front of their garage. As a result, drivers being the exploitative entities they are, were cutting across the fast lane on pit exit. Now, F1 uses the car’s transponders and timing loops to determine average speed in the pitlane, a lot like the average speed cameras you get on UK motorways. Even if your limiter is on and capping you at 60 kilometres per hour like it should, if you’re shortening your distance travelled in the pitlane, there’s a risk that your average speed is going to go up past 60 kph if you don’t compensate. Hence, six times a penalty was given for pit lane speed:
- Lewis Hamilton
- George Russell
- Franco Colapinto
- Oscar Piastri
- Pierre Gasly (Twice)
This plays a huge role in this very congested sequence of Safety Car pitstops. Hamilton essentially serves his penalty for free because Leclerc has to stack behind him. Mercedes thinks they’ve served Russell’s penalty because he was stacked behind Antonelli’s stop (He’s a lap down at this point), so Mercedes don’t actually take the five seconds once he’s in the box. Now, the rules are that if you have a time penalty and come into the pits for a stop, you HAVE to serve the penalty. This is not optional. It’s a catastrophic mistake from Mercedes, because it leads to a Drive Through Penalty for Russell for not serving the original penalty properly.
And to make matters worse, just as we were going green again, Charles Leclerc puts it in the wall in the exact same way Stroll did. He’s pissed at his brakes and has been all weekend. The race is red flagged so the marshals can clean up the debris on entry to said corner. Turns out some of the asphalt had been torn up, with a heap of fragments on the outside of the turn. Not ideal, and some mitigation for the crashes seen. Again, more on that later.
That gets cleaned up, and we get an 8-lap standing restart for the win. Antonelli’s completely untroubled from Hamilton and coast to the win. Pierre Gasly sweeps around Hadjar, who still has deployment issues, and Hulkenberg gets 10-seconds for spinning Sainz round at the hairpin. Gasly celebrates what he thinks is a podium finish but seemingly forgets that the 10-seconds of time penalties he had drops him to seventh. Brutal.
Russell ends up out of the points because of the Drive Through, and Sergio Perez would have scored Cadillac’s first ever F1 point, but he got dinged a second time for parking outside of his box on the grid. Amateur hour, and it means that Fernando Alonso moved into P10 and picked up Aston Martin’s first point of 2026. Amazing given the heap of junk that car is.
Hard Truths
So what to make of the chaos afterwards? There were more penalties to clean up. Lewis Hamilton and Isack Hadjar were both accused of not following the “10 car lengths” rule while behind the Safety Car, both were cleared following the same ruling after Canada 2025 where mitigation would be applied for matters of safety. Hadjar was also accused of a Red Flag infringement. Not you’re not allowed to work on a car under Red (except tyre changes), but Red Bull attempted to change the spark plugs on the car. An FIA scrutineer pointed this out, Red Bull reverted the changes, and because Hadjar’s car had left in the same form it had before the red, no penalty was given. I don’t mind this, but I find it very interesting that there was no rule against even working or touching a car under red like that. Normally Motorsport is ruthless in that regard.
Alpine lodged a right to review for Gasly’s penalties, from what I’ve told it’s more for clarity sake, they know they’re losing their deposit. There’s good reason certain drivers were being warned about that exit and 17 drivers weren’t penalised for it.
As for the title battle – Can we even call it that at this point? Kimi Antonelli is flying. From Saturday onwards, he was essentially perfect. Drove circles around everyone. A Grand Slam at Monaco. At 19. His fifth win in a row, matching the best of Lewis Hamilton’s streaks. This is nuts. The bookies are giving him an implied probability of 80% (1/5 odds) for the title, and with a 66 point lead over Hamilton (Yes, Russell’s now third in a two-honse race), who’s to argue?
Russell looks like he’s just gone 12 with Evander Holyfield. It’s a weird place for him right how, where he spoke on Saturday that this is the first Mercedes that doesn’t suit his driving style, and that he may have to make adjustments. He also mentioned a lot of circumstances that may be exaggerating the issue, which isn’t totally invalid.
Russell has had a fair share of rough luck. Japan. The poor start harming him in China. A Japanese GP he likely wins if the Safety Car lands a lap later. The Canadian battery failure, and now enormous team incompetence at Monaco for the second year in a row. But there’s also a growing sense of something being missing from a driver who was one of the best in the sport 12 months ago. Whether its driving style, setup, or something more, this is the most questionable run of form in the British driver’s career, and now it matters so much more now its first Championship battle and he’s fading fast.
Lando Norris was able to prove that he could adapt and adjust to a car he didn’t like, and it won him a title. It can be done. But is it too late?
And one more thing I can’t ignore – Ferrari. There’s been strong rumblings in the paddock via the Italian media that Fred Vasseur has moved heaven and earth to get Lewis Hamilton a set of Carbon Industries brakes (The ones he were using for 12 years at Mercedes), throwing doubt towards a 50-year partnership with Brembo, F1’s only other major brake supplier. Allegedly, this has been happening as far back as the Japanese Grand Prix in April.
It adds more fuel to the fire that Leclerc’s been struggling with his braking since the very cold Canadian GP we had a fortnight ago. The 2026 cars are very different with how energy is managed, in that more is used to harvest the cars and less energy is going to the rear brake axles to keep them in their ideal operating window. Politically, it begs the question is this a desperation heave from Ferrari to keep Hamilton sweet, and maybe even a lack of support for Charles Leclerc? Is the pressure of the prancing horse spending north of $50m a year on the sport’s biggest name making Fred go to these kinds of lengths? It’s an eyebrow raiser for sure.
The Lightning Round
Lewis Hamilton (41), was older than the rest of the podium combined (40). Just about anyone else on that podium and it would have been the youngest in F1 history.
Speaking of Hamilton, it’s pretty clear we got our Kim Kardashian hard launch over the weekend. I’ll keep this brief – There are many, MANY valid reasons to be critical of her, without the need to veer into classic misogynistic language and stereotypes. Like for example, why she’s expanding her business into Israel. Kinda begs the question given Lewis’ public support for Palestine, was that support sincere? Or was it just to promote Lewis the brand? Can you date someone with opposing views like that on a large scale? Answers on a postcard, please.
And side point #2 on this – We need to stop treating Martin Brundle as a demigod when it comes to his gridwalks. I have deep respect for him as a broadcaster and journalist, one of F1’s greatest in that regard. But even he’s said publicly that it’s not that deep when someone ignores him on the grid. You can always say no, and that right should be respected, and we as fans need to stop the act of entitlement that being on the grid means having an obligation to talk to the media. You don’t.
So let me get this straight, the FIA’s ADUO programme was built off only evaluating the power of the internal combustion engine, and not the battery? In a sport that’s beaten its chest hard over its 50/50 power output? And said upgrade tokens can be used across the entire power unit? I love this dumb sport.
Also, a reminder because people have gotten very snappy with this in the last few weeks – Charles Leclerc is one of the three best F1 drivers in the world, he’s ultimately smoked two elite drivers in Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz, even with making one high profile mistake a year, and it’s a far more damning indictment of Ferrari masquerading as a top team on occasion that a driver of his quality only has eight wins in his eight seasons with them.
Nico Hulkenberg taking a 10-second penalty because of the stupid rules of engagement when he was clearly just avoiding Esteban Ocon alongside him is everything awful about this rulebook.
If we can’t even get flatout racing from F2 at Monaco in big 2026, what is the point? It’s time to make Monaco a time trial event. (And best wishes to commentator Chris McCarthy who had an epileptic seizure right before the Sprint Race, he’s a wonderful ambassador for raising awareness on it, and an excellent voice of junior racing)
The fact Audi left this weekend with zero points was an absolute disaster given they had Top 6 level pace at times across the weekend. Racing Bulls took what could have been their result and laughed (and jumped into the sea afterwards.)
The Verdict: 6/10 (Decent) – Look, for chaos factor alone, I can’t say this Monaco GP was bad. The first 30 laps were classic boredom, but the back half of everything post Stroll, the penalties, the crashes… yeah, I can’t ignore that I found that entertaining. Lucky bastards. See you in Barcelona.
