Max Verstappen wins Monaco Grand Prix to extend World Championship lead

Max Verstappen withstood a late downpour to win the Monaco Grand Prix in crushing style.

The world champion, starting from pole, beat eventual runner-up Fernando Alonso into the first corner and cruised away to take the chequered flag nearly half a minute ahead.

His Red Bull was unbeatable and his touch assured as he extended his championship lead to 39 points over team-mate Sergio Perez, who endured a poor day and failed to score.

Lewis Hamilton came from fifth on the grid to finish fourth, a place behind Esteban Ocon of Alpine, the Frenchman taking the third podium of his career.

The race was a procession for the first hour or so before George Russell complained of rain at Turn 3 on lap 51 of 78. He said it was ‘spitting’. Lewis Hamilton later upgraded that to ‘dangerous’.

Verstappen led from start to finish despite pressure from Fernando Alonso early on in the race

Fernando Alonso (right) finished second, with Esteban Ocon (left) securing third

Between the two comments the question was when to pit. The leaders, still on their original tyres, did not want to waste a change of rubber before they could be certain a downpour was incoming. At first, the rain was patchy before growing circuit-wide.

The two teams who called it right soonest were Mercedes and Alpine. Russell and Hamilton and Ocon and Pierre Gasly pitted for intermediates. Alonso’s Aston Martin team got it wrong, bringing him in for dries before rectifying the error – a mistake that cost him an outside shot at victory. 

Verstappen was slithering about but held on to the track well enough before filing into the pits. ‘I have to drive super-slow because my tyres are fucked,’ he said. Once reshod, there were no further worries for him.

Hamilton was lying fourth and doing fine. Russell, up from eighth, was fifth, where he finished.

Rain arrived later in the race and caused chaos with drivers going off and having to change tyres

George Russell was handed a five-second time penalty for an unsafe rejoin onto the track

Some of the field struggled for sure-footedness as the heavens opened. Times slowed dramatically.

Carlos Sainz, hardly assured all afternoon, spun at Mirabeau, one of the earliest cites of rain. Lance Stroll crashed his Aston at Lowes. Kevin Magnussen hit the wall as his Haas team stubbornly kept him out on dries when the track was like a bath.

Russell was handed a five-second penalty for rejoining the track unsafely – putting himself in the path of Perez, who finished 16th, having stopped five times. It made no difference because his margin over sixth-placed Charles Leclerc of Ferrari was large enough.

Up until the intervention of the weather, it had been a boring race. Verstappen had lapped nine cars by the halfway point and the leading dozen positions stood as per the grid. Thank goodness for the hand of God.