Following the cancellation of last weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola due to extremely heavy rainfall and flooding in northern Italy, Formula 1 has returned to action in the iconic Principality of Monaco and this afternoon it was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who put in a sublime performance to defeat both his closest challenger, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, and the at times very challenging weather conditions.

Some question why F1 still makes an annual pilgrimage to Monaco, but I’m with all those drivers who describe its unique challenges as the ultimate test of their abilities despite the narrow circuit making ontrack overtaking almost impossible.



I feel so fortunate to have reported live from there over the years more times than from any other F1 venue than Silverstone. Thinking back to Imola, the Formula 1 world has long been referred to as the Piranha Club due to the cutthroat nature of the competition and the constant need for the drivers to deliver or risk being replaced, but the sport has shown a humanitarian side following the disaster which befell the Emilia Romagna region, with both F1 and the Ferrari team each donating one million Euros to a relief fund set up to help those affected. The food which would have been used for hospitality purposes during the Imola weekend has also been given to a group organising food banks to help those impacted by the flooding.

Various teams had been hoping to introduce long awaited upgrades to their cars in Italy, with Mercedes set to trial a new floor, front suspension and sidepods for its W14, all of which they hoped would enable Sir Lewis Hamilton and George Russell to better take the fight to Red Bull’s dominant RB19. Instead, the Brackley based outfit made these and other changes for Monaco even though the tight nature of the temporary street circuit was far from ideal for evaluating the benefits derived. Spain next weekend will prove far more useful in this respect.

Also on the Mercedes front, whilst 25 year old Russell has quietly signed an extension to his current contract Hamilton, who is 13 years his senior, has yet to agree terms to remain with the team beyond the end of this season.

There have been suggestions from often reliable sources that Ferrari is looking to attempt to lure the seven time champion to Maranello to either line up alongside Charles Leclerc next year or, if need be, with the latter being allowed to join Mercedes in a swap deal. All will depend on the latest upgrades to the Mercedes car and whether Hamilton still has confidence that his best option to gain that elusive eighth title is to stay where he is rather than look elsewhere.



The British driver has a longtime allegiance to Mercedes, the team having over the years given him the tools to achieve all bar one of his titles to date, and he has often talked about looking to end his racing career with them. In the build-up to the Monaco weekend he suggested he was close to agreeing an extension with Mercedes and the Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur denied an offer had already been made, but back in 2012 Hamilton had also talked of similar loyalty to Ron Dennis’ McLaren squad before leaving them for the then underachieving Mercedes with effect from the following season.

Having long earned wealth beyond his wildest dreams from the sport, money is no longer the key issue for Hamilton and deciding which team will best give him a winning car very much is.

He is already a personal friend of Ferrari’s executive chairman John Elkann and it remains to be seen whether the attraction of those famous red overalls will prove too great to resist or whether he will opt to finish his driving career with Mercedes before then staying on as a still very well remunerated brand ambassador for them.

Elsewhere re drivers, double world champion Alonso’s Formula 1 career has been a successful, but at times also a troubled one. At least the Spaniard is currently enjoying life with his latest team, Aston Martin, and the 41 year old arrived in Monaco sitting third in the Drivers’ Championship behind Red Bull’s Verstappen and Sergio Pérez and with his team second in the Constructors’ rankings. What has been most noticeable and impressive of late is how he is clearly trying to tutor his less experienced team-mate Lance Stroll, passing on driving and racecraft tips and preparing the Canadian son of the outfit’s owner Lawrence Stroll for a time when he is no longer around.

Wide-ranging new regulations will be introduced to F1 with effect from 2026 as the sport looks to increase its sustainability and reduce its carbon footprint and the teams already have one eye very much on the future, with power unit suppliers being a key issue. Last Wednesday Aston Martin, which currently utilises Mercedes power and has been outperforming the latter’s works team, announced that from 2026 onwards its Formula 1 cars will be propelled instead by Honda, with the outfit’s official title becoming Aston Martin Aramco Honda. It says something about the team’s self-belief and ambitions that it is prepared to ditch Mercedes in favour of the Japanese manufacturer.

Significantly and perhaps no surprise given Alonso’s age by 2026, he will presumably no longer feature in the team’s driver line-up as he has for some time been a persona non-grata with Honda after very publicly criticising its products when driving for McLaren.

The AlphaTauri team has also been in the news since Miami, with its new driver for this season Nyck de Vries under real pressure to improve his pace. Despite being 28 the Dutch racer and former Mercedes reserve driver is in his first first full F1 season and failed to score any points during the opening five Grands Prix and Sprint event of 2023. Red Bull and AlphaTauri’s highly experienced senior adviser Helmut Marko has given him until the Spanish Grand Prix next weekend to perform better or face the risk of being replaced.

The underperforming Daniel Ricciardo was very publicly dropped by McLaren at the end of last year to make way for the incoming Oscar Piastri and the Australian subsequently joined Red Bull and AlphaTauri as a reserve driver. When he visited AlphaTauri’s factory in northern Italy recently for a seat fitting rumours quickly sprang to life about him perhaps being set to replace de Vries if the latter doesn’t up his game soon. The seat fitting was actually no surprise though as one was required anyway in case Ricciardo is ever needed to step in temporarily for either of the AlphaTauri drivers.

If anything, it was unusual that he hadn’t had one already. 33 year old Ricciardo hasn’t been given an opportunity to drive either a Red Bull or AlphaTauri car at any stage since his arrival and, although officially a reserve driver, his role is far more as merely an ambassador for the teams. It also now seems likely that, if de Vries is dropped by AlphaTauri, he might well be replaced by New Zealand’s 21 year old rising star and Red Bull reserve Liam Lawson.

The two opening Formula 1 free practice sessions in Monaco always used to take place on the Thursday, making Friday an F1 rest day and the event as a whole a four day affair. However, with effect from last year the timetable was pulled into line with the rest of the calendar and so the drivers first appeared ontrack at 13.30 local time on Friday.

Another aspect of the Monégasque round becoming more like the rest of the season was that this year the television coverage was undertaken and broadcast worldwide by F1’s own tv team rather than by a company appointed by the Automobile Club de Monaco, a factor which was set to improve the at times questionable quality witnessed in previous years.

So much corporate hospitality and behind the scenes deal making tends to go on in Monaco as the teams reward existing sponsors and seek to woo new ones, but we need to remember that another key purpose of being there is actually to go racing. Despite the tight confines of the track and the closeness of the barriers some previous Monaco Grands Prix have been relatively incident-free, but all the team’s strategists were also aware that the Safety Car had been called into action in three of the past five races in the Principality.

The Grand Prix has usually been a one-stop affair for all who don’t run into any mechanical or accident trouble and, with track position being so vital, car set-up has always tended to be more focussed on single lap qualifying speed rather than race pace.

After Friday’s opening practice hour it was Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz who topped the timesheets ahead of Alonso, Hamilton and Pérez, although the action was twice halted by red flags after Nico Hülkenberg crashed his Haas car at the Nouvelle Chicane and then Alex Albon had a hefty off at Sainte Devote in his Williams.

Later on Friday reigning champion Verstappen went fastest in the second practice period, with Leclerc, Sainz and Alonso the best of the rest, but this time Sainz caused further red flags after making a mistake at the Swimming Pool exit. Hamilton proved to be the quicker of the two Mercedes drivers, but significantly the upgraded car was still half a second off the pace of Verstappen’s Red Bull.

Come yesterday’s third and final practice session the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Pérez led the way ahead of Stroll and Sainz, but the action was again disrupted. Firstly Haas’ Kevin Magnussen had to utilise the Sainte Devote escape road before then stopping at Portier following a hydraulic failure, resulting in a temporary Virtual Safety Car period.

Then near the end of the session Hamilton lost control of his Mercedes at Mirabeau and collided with the barriers, causing a further red flag stoppage. To make matters worse for the multiple champion he also received a fine for having exceeded the pit lane speed limit, as did Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou.

Qualifying is always a key part of every racing weekend, but it really is crucial in Monaco as a high grid position is vital for success in what has long been known as the jewel in Formula 1’s crown.

The air temperature was a very pleasant 24C and the sun was shining down on the track and all the boats gathered in the adjacent Port Hercule harbour as qualifying began, but last year’s winner Pérez soon condemned himself to starting last on the grid for today’s Grand Prix after carrying far too much speed into the Sainte Devote righthander and slamming into the barriers, causing more red flags. The subsequent top ten shootout proved to be an unpredictable thriller though, with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon going fastest before Leclerc and then Alonso usurped him. Cue major celebrations in the Aston Martin pit garages, but their elation was to be shortlived as Verstappen completed a stunning last sector to take his first ever pole position in Monaco.

This left us with the mouthwatering prospect of Verstappen and Alonso set to line up on the front row of the grid, with Leclerc and Ocon just to their rear. However, the Ferrari driver later received a three place grid penalty for impeding McLaren’s Lando Norris and would start sixth alongside Hamilton.

Race days in Monaco always have a really special atmosphere, but the weather is unpredictable and I’ve personally experienced everything there from baking sunshine to heavy rain. Today the cars left the grid at 15.00 local time to start the formation lap and the conditions were fortunately still similar to qualifying day, although some ominous dark clouds were already gathering above the nearby hills. When those famous red lights went out to signal the start of the race and the short sprint to Sainte Devote we had a clean getaway as Verstappen led from Alonso, Ocon and Sainz and on just the second lap Pérez pitted to switch to hard specification tyres, hoping to run on them to the end of the Grand Prix. As the race settled it was soon apparent that it was likely to be just a two-horse race for the victory spoils as Verstappen and Alonso edged clear of Ocon and Sainz.

On lap 32 Hamilton was the first of the leading runners to pit, losing his medium rubber for the hard alternative, whilst Pérez’s visit to the Principality soon just went from bad to worse with a need to pit for a new nose and front wing. A few tours later there was a hint of rain in the air and by two thirds distance the rain was really starting to fall quite heavily and particularly at the far end of the circuit.

Decisions had to be made about whether to risk staying out on slick tyres or pit for intermediate wet weather ones and the general consensus seemed to be for the latter. However, Aston Martin gambled on changing Alonso’s hard tyres for more slicks, this time of the medium variety, a strategy which was doomed to fail as just two laps later the Spaniard had to return down the pitlane for intermediates. In the interim the still leading Verstappen had a slippery moment at Portier and was more than grateful when his team immediately instructed him to pit for inters too.

Following a flurry of other pitstops, including the two Ferraris coming in line astern, the leading trio were Verstappen, Alonso and Ocon and so it remained to the chequered flag as the latter claimed his first Monaco podium finish. Hamilton was the best of the rest and earned the extra point for the fastest lap of the race, whilst Russell and Leclerc completed the leading sextet. McLaren deserved a mention too after Norris and Piastri finished in the final two points paying positions, even if both were lapped.

Next up comes the Spanish Grand Prix and, once today’s chequered flag had flown, it was time for the crews to pack up as quickly as possible prior to the massed ranks of F1 HGVs (an impressive sight in their own right) starting the just over four hundred mile route west and then south from Monaco to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

At the same time most team principals and senior management returned to their mainly UK based HQ offices before flying to Spain, with the drivers focussing on their fitness regimes plus perhaps a little simulator time before doing likewise. The cars will be ontrack in just five days’ time and the Spanish venue in Montmeló, just north of downtown Barcelona, will represent a very different challenge to the tight streets of Monaco.

2023 Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship

1 Max Verstappen 144
2 Sergio Pérez 105
3 Fernando Alonso 93

2023 Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship
1 Red Bull 249
2 Aston Martin 120
3 Mercedes 119