Pérez wisely decided to do the same on lap 18. Leclerc also stopped for the intermediates two laps later, but the pace differential was such that he lost the lead to the Red Bull man. Still, he remained second and well ahead of title rival Verstappen.
But then things got even worse for him as Ferrari botched their strategy to switch their cars to dry tyres, the end result being Leclerc in a furious fourth place, behind Pérez, Sainz and key man Verstappen.
Then there was another red flag, this time not from the weather but from a nasty shunt for Mick Schumacher, after losing the back end in the pool section, the impact heavy enough to rip the back end off his car. Fortunately, the young Haas emerged unscathed.
Red Bull changed their duo to the medium dry tire on the restart, but that didn’t seem to have any advantage over the hard compound Ferraris. On the contrary, he seemed to conspire against Pérez, not helped by an early block, but then defended calmly and skillfully to secure a very emotional third career victory.
Has the tension at the level of the flag appeased the Monegasque detractors? Probably not for this F1 fan – although the Ferraris were quicker in the end, there was no passing for either of the red cars. There were also several other instances of drivers being unable to pass much slower cars ahead of them, including Fernando Alonso at one point having a long train behind him.
F1 then heads to a street circuit that could hardly provide greater contrast, still offering plenty of excitement in terms of wheel-to-wheel action and race-changing incidents: Baku in Azerbaijan.
Verstappen leads the championship narrowly ahead of Leclerc and Pérez, followed further by Mercedes-AMG’s George Russell – who scored another superb finish in the points in Monaco, ahead of megastar team-mate Lewis Hamilton – and still winless Sainz.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-05-30 13:06:18
