I know a lot of people find Monaco boring, but I am not one of those people. Monaco is my favourite track on the calendar and actually quite a few things happened in this race. This weekend was also important for Williams who were celebrating their 750th race.

Before the race even began, polesitter Charles Leclerc retired from the race with a suspected drive shaft issue. Now, in qualifying he did crash into the barrier at the chicane, effectively ending Q3 with only 18 seconds left, meaning he would take pole having set the fastest time. However, he wrecked the car pretty badly and there was a chance that his gearbox would need to be replaced. That would result in him getting a five place grid penalty for the race the next day. On race day, his gearbox was still the same and he wasn’t in the race. Now there is no real proof that the two problems are related, but there is also no proof that they are unrelated, so we will just have to wait a little bit longer to see what the Scuderia say. It does suck for Leclerc because he has never finished a race in Monaco, and that is his home race.

Once the race was underway, it went in typical Monaco fashion with everyone pretty much racing by themselves. In very not typical Monaco fashion, however, there was not a single yellow flag during the race, or even a safety car.

It was a bad day for Mercedes. Hamilton had a frustrating race in which he only managed to finish seventh after a bad overcut attempt saw him stuck behind Pierre Gasly the entire race. The race for Bottas was even worse. Bottas was doing well in P2 until he was called in for his pitstop. He sat in the pits for almost a minute before they had to retire his car because his right front wheel would not come off. It seems that the wheel nut had become machined to the axel.

On the other end, Red Bull had a great day with Perez finishing fourth and Verstappen claiming victory. Perez, unlike Hamilton, had an excellent strategy which saw him rise from P8 to P4. Verstappen got to claim not only his first victory at the track, but his first podium as well. There was a lot of celebration at the Red Bull garage, as this race gave them the lead in the Constructor’s Championship by one point. This win also means that Verstappen is now leading the Driver’s Championship, for the first time in his career, by four points.

The other two drivers rounding out the podium were former teammates Carlos Sainz in second, and Lando Norris in third. Another person who had a great race was Sebastian Vettel who finished in fifth and was voted driver of the day. Similarly, was Pierre Gasly who managed to keep Hamilton behind him the entire time and finished in a great P6. Lance Stroll finished the race in eighth, Esteban Ocon in ninth and Antonio Giovinazzi rounding out the top ten.

Overall, I thought it was a good race which managed to change some major things in both championships. There is nothing quite like the history and prestige of Monaco and I always look forward to it every year.

In two weeks we are back to racing in Baku for another street race. Baku is known for it’s exciting racing so I can’t wait to see what this year’s race holds.