Monaco GP: Martin Brundle salutes ‘unbeatable’ Kimi Antonelli, gives verdict on speeding penalties in F1 race | F1 News

F1 fans have often said to me, ‘we are thinking of going to Monaco, where should we get a grandstand seat and isn’t race day all about follow the leader?’

I have to point out I don’t know as I haven’t sat in a grandstand seat for over 40 years because I’m in the pits and commentary boxes, but do advise them to fully absorb the sights, sounds, and incredible atmosphere, and enjoy all track running on Friday and particularly qualifying on Saturday, usually the best of the year, and hope to get lucky on Sunday for a good race.

This year’s race gave us a full house as far as I’m concerned. The weather was great, qualifying was a last driver over the line cliff-hanger, and then one of the more chaotic races unfolded on Sunday, which was still playing out more than two hours after the chequered flag.

It’s rare that I feel the need to study the official final classified results to be sure of who finished where having just talked about it uninterrupted for two and a half hours, but I did on this occasion.

Kimi Antonelli made less mistakes than all the other front runners despite his relatively limited experience, and claimed pole position in sensational style. As race day would demonstrate too, he has found an overdrive for even more speed and is totally at one with his car and team. I thought he’d make mistakes here and clout the barrier at some point, but he was committed yet precise and controlled.

The grid was bustling as always and informative too in different ways, but all thoughts were on the short dash to the first corner. Kimi had Max Verstappen to his left who’d done a tremendous job in qualifying in his Red Bull on the front row.

Behind him were the two fast starting Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, surely this would be big pressure for the teenager?

Not a bit of it, he made the perfect start, didn’t lock his front brakes into the first corner, and then dominated the race, building a half-minute lead before the safety car was called when Lance Stroll crashed in the final turn on lap 60 of 78.

Antonelli just missed the pit entry and so pitted on lap 61 but comfortably retained the lead, which of course was diminished with the two Ferraris and the rest of the pack catching him right up behind that Safety Car.

‘Speeding penalties necessarily brutal’

There was a significant sub-story to this whole race, that of speeding in the pit lane. A few drivers had fallen foul of that even just doing their reconnaissance laps to the grid. It was a situation which had been noted between the race director and teams during practice too.

Pit-lane speed is measured by distance between various loops in the track surface, and as always drivers were finding a way to cut into the pits slightly early to save a metre or two. Because of the tight confines, the speed limit in Monaco is reduced from 80 kph to 60 kph. Despite doing everything right drivers were being penalised for 60.1 kph. Rules are rules because if that’s fine, then 60.2 is only a fraction more and so must be fine too. Just like when a car is half a kilo underweight, in F1 it’s necessarily brutal.

There were many of these tiny infractions, including manageable five-second penalties for Hamilton and Oscar Piastri. But it would ruin George Russell’s race because during his pit stop under the Safety Car, the Mercedes team were obliged to serve his five-second speeding penalty before commencing a tyre change, and at the same time all cars were obliged to come through the pit lane to allow the crashed car in the last corner to be cleared.

There was confusion as he queued up behind his teammate and he would receive an effective 20-second drive-through penalty, which would put him at the back of the bunched-up field. A critical podium chance was lost but I have no doubt George will return to form and luck.

It was arguably even more painful for Pierre Gasly in his Alpine who was both infuriated and heartbroken to receive two pit-lane speeding penalties 20 minutes apart, for 60.1 kph and 60.4 kph. He would cross the finish line in third place which would normally mean a trip to the legendary royal podium, but 10 seconds of penalties would demote him to seventh through no fault of his own. The team have demanded a right of review, but I suspect that’ll change nothing.

‘Antonelli sealed win in superb style’

‘Safety Cars create Safety Cars’ is an old saying and on the first Safety Car restart local hero Leclerc would crash into the same barrier as Stroll on the final corner of the lap and retire on the spot. He remains convinced it was all about enduring brake problems, but the track was also breaking up on the way into that corner, such that a race halting red flag was shown so that race control could head out and inspect the asphalt.

After a couple of passes with a sweeping machine and a bit poking around, it was declared there’d be a restart with a couple of sighter laps behind the Safety Car and then a standing restart on the grid, as is now normal unless conditions and visibility are poor.

Now Antonelli would have Hamilton, who had been going along nicely all race in second place beside him on the front row. Once again, the young Italian launched perfectly and simply checked out again up front. The youngest ever winner of the Monaco Grand Prix would claim his fifth straight victory in superb style, he really was in a class of one around the Principality, with pole position, fastest lap, and leading every lap. He’s just getting better and better…

Hamilton’s second place was timely and poured salt into Russell’s wounds as it moved the Ferrari driver up to second in the world championship.

One of the biggest disappointments of the race was Verstappen not getting away properly from the very original start 143 minutes earlier. He would retire at the end of the first lap, and we were all robbed of the chance to watch him try every trick in the book to pass Antonelli in the early stages, assuming he could keep up of course.

Hadjar impresses on ‘wild Monaco weekend’

In the sister Red Bull, Isack Hadjar would inherit Gasly’s final podium spot after a sterling drive despite carrying power unit issues along with many angsty radio calls. He also survived two stewards’ enquiries for potential Safety Car and red-flag infringements, the latter when the team began to do disallowed work on his car before ceasing that procedure. It was a great drive from Isack.

Piastri would come home fourth having had that speed limit penalty, but with very little raw speed out on track. It was a painful day for McLaren having also lost Lando Norris with a second consecutive retirement due to power unit issues. The team still feel confident about upcoming improvements and races.

Liam Lawson told me pre-race that his car would likely not be fixed in time and his best-case scenario was a pit-lane start. He did though make the grid and came home in a very fine fifth place. He was backed up by rookie team-mate Arvid Lindblad in an equally fine sixth place winning a total of 18 points for what is currently a very cohesive Racing Bulls team.

There were five post-race penalties, one of which was for Sergio Perez in his Cadillac, which provisionally had scored their first ever championship point. Bizarrely Sergio had two start line penalties, on the original grid he started 16th instead of 18th as Gabriel Bortoleto was forced to start his Audi from the pit lane after it stalled during a practice start, and so he was absent from 16th on the grid in front of Sergio’s proper slot.

On the second start after the red flag, Perez was slightly right of his grid slot and took a further penalty, relegating him to 15th of 16 finishers.

Nico Hulkenberg was also in the points for Audi but he took a post-race penalty for collecting the back of Carlos Sainz’s Williams in a scrum at the hairpin. It was harsh but inevitable due to precedents. Nico ended up 13th.

Sainz was eliminated, which is a shame because Williams looked on for a double points finish after using both of their cars in sync to help build pit stop gaps by slowing the pack behind down. Alex Albon would at least finish in the points in eighth.

Esteban Ocon was ninth but I don’t remember seeing much of him in the race, and through the barrage of penalties came the relentless Mr. Fernando Alonso scoring Aston Martin’s first point of the season. I doubt he threw a big party though.

The Stewards handled 30 cases and the final results were issued just before 9pm. That was one very wild Monaco Grand Prix weekend, and Kimi Antonelli was serene and unbeatable throughout.

Formula 1 heads straight to Spain for the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix with live coverage on Sky Sports F1 from this Friday. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime