4 hours ago
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McLaren's Lando Norris won the Monaco Grand Prix for the first time with a copybook drive, controlling the race from start to finish.
Norris navigated the potential pitfalls of a new rule requiring drivers to use three sets of tyres during the race to lead throughout and beat Ferrari's Charles Leclerc for the Briton's second victory of the season.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri took third, well clear of Red Bull's Max Verstappen, with Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton a distant fifth.
Norris' victory cut Piastri's lead at the head of the championship to three points, with Verstappen dropping to 22 behind in third.
The race began amid uncertainty as to how the new rule imposed to increase jeopardy would play out, and amid predictions of wild strategies and potential chaos.
As it turned out, it was relatively straightforward for the front-runners, largely because the only intervention by the safety car was an early virtual one after a crash for Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto on the first lap.
Norris converted his excellent pole position - his first since the season-opener in Australia - into a lead at the first corner as the top 10 moved off in grid order.
Norris negotiated both pit-stop periods as he, Leclerc and Piastri all followed the same strategy of starting on the medium tyre followed by two stints on the hard, splitting the race more or less into thirds.
Verstappen went into the race at a disadvantage in having only one set each of the medium and hard tyres available, which required him to use the softs.
Red Bull ran him on an inverted strategy starting on the hards and switching to the mediums and delayed his final pit stop as late as possible.
That left the Dutchman out in front after Norris, Leclerc and Piastri had made their second stops with about 28 laps to go.
It appeared as if Red Bull were hoping for a crash and a red flag, which would have allowed him to keep the lead and change to a third set of tyres for free.
The result was that Verstappen backed Norris into Leclerc and Piastri and closed up the top three, but no crash happened and Verstappen had to stop with one lap to go for his final set, dropping to fourth.
Although the hope behind the new rule was that it would add spice to the race, the spice was all theoretical as teams were on tenterhooks waiting for incidents that would require quick decisions.
But although Alpine's Pierre Gasly crashed into the back of Yuki Tsunoda's Red Bull early on and broke his suspension and Fernando Alonso retired his Aston Martin with an engine failure, there was not a safety car that led to a strategy scramble.
At the first pit stops, the only change in order saw Hamilton jump ahead of Alonso, who then dropped back from the Ferrari, managing his engine problem before retirement.
Alonso, still on zero points, has now had his equal-worst start to a season ever, matched only by McLaren-Honda's dire 2015.
Behind Hamilton, Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar finished sixth, making two pit stops within a few laps of each other early in the race to end up on hard tyres and run to the end.
Haas driver Esteban Ocon was seventh, ahead of the second Racing Bull of Liam Lawson and the Williams of Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz.
Albon annoyed his good friend George Russell as he managed the traffic to manipulate the race to ensure he and Sainz could pit and both finish in the points.
Russell, complaining Albon was driving erratically, eventually cut the chicane to take the position and refused to give it back, saying he would "take the penalty".
Russell was expecting a five-second penalty, but in fact he was given a drive-through, and he finished 11th, his race already ruined by the electrical problem in qualifying that left him 14th on the grid.
