Ferrari driver from Monaco Charles Clecker won the pole position on Saturday. He had a serious accident at the very end of his qualification and was worried that mechanics would have to change gearboxes, which would mean losing five seats.
On Sunday, shortly before the start of the Monaco stage, Ferrari announced that Clecker would be able to start the race from the first place, but in the warm-up laps the athlete reported problems with the gearbox and went to the pits. Shortly afterwards, Clecker’s participation was withdrawn from the stage.
For this reason, Verstapens started from the “pole position”, who managed to keep the “Mercedes” driver Valters Botas from Finland in the first straight. Verstapens held the lead for the rest of the race and won.
Ferrari Saints of Spain, Ferrari driver, was second with 8,968 seconds behind, but Briton Lendo Norris (“McLaren”) took the bottom step of the podium, losing 19,427 seconds to the winner. This season has already climbed the podium twice this season.
“The victory here is very special,” Verstapen said after the success. “For the first time in my career, I climbed the podium on this track.”
“The most important thing in the race was to save the tires. I think I control the situation well today,” the winner added.
The fourth was Mexican Serhio Perez (“Red Bull”), followed by former German world champion Sebastian Vettel (“Aston Martin”), Frenchman Pierre Gasli (“Alpha Tauri”), seven-time British champion Lewis Hamilton (“Mercedes”), Canadian Lens Strol (“Aston Martin”), as well as the ninth and tenth place winners are the Frenchman Esteban Ocon (“Alpine Renault”) and the Italian Antionio Giovanni (“Alfa Romeo”).
After the 29th lap, Botass entered the pits, but the mechanics failed to remove his front tire, which meant that the race for the bag was over. He and Leckler were the only riders who failed to reach the finish line.
The race takes place on the streets of Monte Carlo, which are very narrow to overtake maneuvers, so pilots always try to get the best positions in the first laps.
In the 33rd lap, Hamilton had entered the pits, but the maintenance of his car had not run as smoothly as he would have liked, as a result of which the British lost two positions and retreated to the seventh place, where he also finished. Hamilton was able to set the fastest lap time, for which he earned one extra point.
The 17th and 18th places were taken by the new pilots of “Haas” Nikita Mazepin from Russia and Mick Schumacher from Germany, who was allowed to start by the flight attendants, even though he crashed during the training session and did not participate in the qualification.
After five stages, Verstapen is the leader with 105 points, Hamilton has four less points, and Norris is third with 56 points. Botass is in fourth place with 47 points, but Perez finishes the leading five with 44 points.
In the first stage, Hamilton won in Bahrain, in the second stage in Italy, Verstapen retaliated for him, and in the next two stages – in Portugal and Spain – Hamilton won two more victories.
In 2020, the seventh F-1 title in his career and the fourth in a row was won by the British Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes. Previously, only the legendary German driver Michael Schumacher managed to win seven times.
Hamilton teammate Finn Valteri Botass finished second, while Dutchman Max Verstapen from the Red Bull team took third place.
The Mercedes team also won the seventh Constructor’s Cup in a row.
It is planned to have a record number of races this season (23).
