At the end of a race launched an hour late due to torrential rain, Sergio Pérez won this Sunday, in Monaco, the seventh round of the World Championship and the third Grand Prix of his career, after Sakhir in 2020 and Baku in 2021. The Mexican Red Bull driver, third fastest in qualifying on Saturday, edged out Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen, still leading the driver standings.
The curse on his land continues, for Charles Leclerc, who had to settle for a fourth place. Plagued by several misadventures in the streets of “his” city since his first on the circuit in 2017, the Monegasque driver will still be waiting to put his name on the race list. Best qualifying time, he paid for the strategic errors of his team.
He was furious on the radio after a pit stop too late to put on intermediate tires that allowed Sergio Pérez to overtake him, taking a five-second lead. During this time, the Frenchman Pierre Gasly, who started in seventeenth position on the starting grid, animated the race with several overtakings. He will finish in eleventh position. Lewis Hamilton, who had a hard time overtaking Esteban Ocon for a long time, finished in eighth place.
The terrible accident of Mick Schumacher
The striking image of this race which astounded the spectators: that of Mick Schumacher’s single-seater broken in two after the German lost control of his Haas and crashed into the barrier during the second corner of the the swimming pool. The young German driver from the Haas team (23 years old) was fortunately able to immediately reassure his team: “I’m fine”. He then extracted himself from his car, before the deployment of the red flag to evacuate the debris. A few minutes earlier, his teammate Kevin Magnussen had given up.
When the race resumed with a rolling start on a now dry track, Red Bull (medium tyres) and Ferrari (hard tyres) once again adopted a different strategy. With the four drivers held in a handkerchief (less than a second), Sergio Pérez retained the lead ahead of Carlos Sainz, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, despite damaged front tires and pressure from his pursuers.
“A dream come true”
“It’s a dream come true. I only realize that we just did it. There was a lot of pressure at the end, I couldn’t make any mistakes. I’m super excited, it’s a great day for me and for my country,” said the Mexican driver with a smile after the race. His teammate at Red Bull, Max Verstappen, was rather satisfied with his third place which allows him to widen the gap at the top of the drivers’ classification: “It’s a rather good result. This race was epic. It’s a decent day for me. »
The next Grand Prix will take place on June 12 in Baku, Azerbaijan. This round was completely crazy last year with the setbacks of Max Verstappen, the reigning world champion, and Lewis Hamilton, his runner-up. Sergio Pérez won ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Pierre Gasly.