Verstappen carves through chaos to win in rain at 2023 Monaco GP: F1 race report

“We were always chasing Ocon and on the gearbox of Ocon,” Sainz said. “I saved my tyres, we were on the hard tyres and it looked like he had a slow pitstop, I was flying on the in-lap and we decided to go for the overcut. With the pace I was going, maybe we should have been a bit more patient but it’s how it is.”

Patience was the name of the game up ahead, with Verstappen having to battle serious graining for a spell because he would give up track position to Alonso if he made his pitstop first.

“Fernando starting on the hard made me do a very long stint, probably almost double to what we would have liked,” Verstappen admitted. “But because of the rain in the area, we couldn’t really stop.

“I mean, if it would have been nice and sunny, I would have stopped, put the hard tyre on, then you catch up and wait until Fernando does his pitstop. But we couldn’t do that because the risk of rain was around so I had to stay out. The tyres were graining, I had to go through that graining phase that wasn’t that easy. Then luckily it picked up a little bit.

“But then of course it started to rain…”

On Lap 50, the rain appeared up at Mirabeau, working its way across the track to impact the hairpin and Portier at first. Stroll had already picked up more damage by that point but came in for  intermediates on Lap 52, following Bottas who was doing the same. A lap later, Zhou and Albon made the same call.

It was exactly why Aston had started Alonso on the hard tyre, putting him in a position to make one stop straight onto intermediates. Except, despite seeing Verstappen lose nine seconds compared to his previous lap – and over six to Stroll and Bottas’ previous – the decision that team and driver came to was to fit mediums to replace his worn hards.

“For me, it was very clear that the track on that lap we stopped was completely dry, apart from Turn 7 and 8,” Alonso said. “So how would I put on the inters? It was completely dry, 99% of the track. So I stopped for dries.

“The weather forecast, it was a small shower, a small quantity of rain as well what we had as a team. And we had a lot of margin behind us to put the dry tyres and if necessary then the inter tyres. Maybe it was extra safe. I don’t know.

“That minute and a half that it took to go through Turn 5, 6, 7 and 8 again, it changed completely. The out-lap on the dry tyres, it was very wet when I got to those corners. The lap that we stopped, it was completely dry.”

Alonso was forced to immediately pit again at the end of his out-lap, with Verstappen also then bouncing his way off the barriers on his way in for intermediates with no pressure from behind. Had Aston gone for inters in the first place, the lead would have been Alonso’s.

“We had really worn tyres to go through there was not really enjoyable,” Verstappen admitted. “Clipped a few barriers, especially on my in-lap I think. It was very, very difficult. But even on the intermediates after that, it was still very slippery through the second sector. It was quite wet there.”

Drivers were wrestling with their cars even after disposing of their slicks in an often chaotic period of the race, where drivers showed immense skill and control. Only Stroll, crashing out at the hairpin, saw his race ended. But there were costly errors.

Mercedes had timed its stops perfectly in a way that Aston hadn’t, only pitting Russell once to fit intermediates from hards in a move that kept him in third place briefly. That was until the treacherous surface at Mirabeau saw him run wide, then reverse back onto the track and be hit by Perez as he rejoined.

The five-second time penalty Russell received was accepted without protest – “Yeah I couldn’t see anything” – but it was the off itself that saw him slip behind Ocon and Hamilton. Similarly, Sainz went off at Mirabeau and dropped to eighth behind Leclerc and Gasly.

Perez’s miserable day had already seen him run into the back of Kevin Magnussen at the Nouvelle Chicane before he then hit the barrier at the Swimming Pool with a big moment in the wet, but he was never threatening the points. Unlike the McLaren pair who both cleared an ailing Yuki Tsunoda into Ste Devote to move up to ninth and tenth with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri respectively.

Not that Verstappen totally cruised home, the leader brushing the barrier on the run to Rascasse as he tried to maintain a rhythm and not let his pace drop. But he had a comfortable margin and negotiated all conditions to become Red Bull’s most successful driver in terms of race wins.

“If you have a good car for a while, you can break these kinds of numbers,’ Verstappen said after his 39th victory for the team. “But yeah, it’s great. I would have never thought that I would be in this position in my career. When I grew up, I wanted to be a Formula 1 driver and winning these races is amazing. It’s better than I could have ever imagined, for sure.”

And it was another highly impressive weekend, but had Alonso and Aston Martin backed up its starting bravery with what appeared a more obvious call mid-race, it could well have been the Spaniard’s 33rd win that was being celebrated.

2023 Monaco Grand Prix race results

*Includes point for fastest lap
**Includes 5sec penalty