Big Bear Nolan's Blog

48 hours ago, Formula One completed its crown jewel race of the season in the Monaco Grand Prix. Usually this race which is normally ran the Sunday on Memorial Day weekend in the United States is known as one of the least chaotic races. However what happened on the streets of Monte Carlo on Sunday was anything but calm. So I want to see what made this one so good.

1. Reliability Issues

The streets of Monte Carlo are normally difficult to manage but a lot of competitors found themselves in trouble. Max Verstappen couldn’t even compete in the race because his car which qualified P2 did not start. Lando Norris had issues that forced his team to retire his car. Charles Leclerc who was in position to get a podium in his home race had a brake failure and crashed. Others like Valteri Bottas and Lance Stroll had issues but Verstappen, Norris and Leclerc were the big three that had notable issues. Heck even the winner in Kimi Antonelli was complaining about issues but those never resulted in anything serious.

2. Penalties

If you got up early enough to watch this race, one thing you would’ve noticed was a LOT of yellow or red exclamation points next to drivers names. Those meant they were either under investigation or penalized. On pit road mostly, drivers were having mishaps trying to navigate the tight corners. One of the notable moments was the day George Russell had. The Mercedes driver had penalty after penalty for failing to properly serve his penalties. And Pierre Gasly crossed the line in 3rd place but didn’t get rewarded with a podium because he had a time penalty.

3. Fun mix of names up there

Like what I stated earlier, there was a fun mix of names up in the top 10. Antonelli, Lewis Hamilton And Isack Hadjar finished in the top three spots in that order. But Gasly even with the penalty still finished 8th, both Racing Bulls in Liam Lawson and Oliver Lindblad had top 10 finishes and Alex Albon and Esteban Ocon each got respective top 10 finishes for Williams and Haas.

For an average F1 race at Monaco, I have to admit this one was a really fun one and hopefully future years in Monaco or simply more races this season can continue to have action. Even if the young Antonelli cruses to the World Drivers Championship.