Christian Horner: "Winning here is special, it always means just that little bit more, every driver wants this one on their CV. And for us it's our third in a row for the Team and our seventh in total here in Monaco. We knew coming into this weekend that this would be our biggest challenge of the season so far and Monaco threw everything at Max today. He managed the medium tyre and then the changing conditions well, made the switch to the intermediate tyre and saw it home. Another fantastic drive. Unfortunately, it was a difficult weekend for Checo. Despite his best efforts, there was very little he could do after yesterday's qualifying. Knowing Checo though, he will learn from his mistakes and respond quickly in Spain. What we are seeing here at track though is just the shop window to everything that is happening on a daily basis back at the factory. The win here today is representative of the performance and dedication by the Team as an overall on a wider scale. A brilliant win with many lessons but one we will certainly savour."
Scuderia Ferrari leaves Monaco with a handful of points after rain that arrived for the final quarter of the race did not do Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz any favours, as they took the chequered flag in sixth and eighth places respectively.
At the start, Carlos and Charles ran in their grid positions - fourth and sixth - stuck in a not very quick train behind Esteban Ocon who was dropping back from the leaders, Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso. Carlos tried to attack the Alpine driver but he was unable to get ahead, not even managing to pass him in the pit stops, having stayed out one lap longer than Ocon. Trying the overcut was not easy as Sainz also had to defend from Lewis Hamilton. Charles tried to go much longer, staying out on track until lap 44, when rear tyre degradation reached a point where he had to pit to switch from Hard to Medium. Eight laps later, the rain hit the Monaco track, when Sainz was fifth, with Russell yet to pit ahead of him and Leclerc was seventh. At first only part of the track was wet, so the drivers attempted to keep going on slicks, but eventually conditions worsened and everyone came in for Intermediate tyres. Carlos then went off the track in sector 2, losing positions to Hamilton, Leclerc and Pierre Gasly. As Russell switched straight to Intermediates he was able to stay ahead of the Ferraris. By the end of lap 55, the top ten had all changed tyres, with Charles and Carlos running sixth and eighth respectively to the finish.
Now for Sainz's home race. The Championship resumes immediately with the seventh race, the Spanish Grand Prix taking place next weekend. Carlos will naturally have plenty of support from his fans, watching the Madrileņo in action from their own Grada55 grandstand.
Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal: In the first stint of our race the pace was okay: Carlos tried to push a couple of times to get ahead of Ocon who was slow in front of him, allowing Verstappen and Alonso to get away at the front. Then when the rain came, we were P5 and P7 and we decided to take a risk and try for P3. The conditions were very difficult to manage because the rain turned out to be worse than forecast, so you cannot really blame Carlos for the mistake, but we need to look at why our pace was not so strong in the wet.
Looking at the weekend as a whole, our qualifying pace was good and we have to aim to repeat that next week in Barcelona. The field is so tight you have to put everything together and the slightest mistake is costly. We will have some updates on the car which should be a step forward in terms of performance, so let's wait and see what we can do in Spain.
Lewis Hamilton finished fourth and George Russell fifth in the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix. Lining up fifth and eighth respectively, it looked like there would be little action or change in positions until rain fell just past the halfway point of the race.
Both drivers boxed for the intermediate tyre on lap 55, the strategically optimal time to make the switch, gaining positions. By this time, Lewis had already made a pit stop while George had run a long first stint on hard tyres and had yet to stop.
In the challenging conditions, George ran down an escape road on his out-lap and dropped to P5. As he re-joined, contact was made with Perez and the Brit was given a five-second time penalty, although the gap he pulled to Leclerc behind rendered that academic.
Lewis ran from the stops to the flag in P4, closely following Ocon's Alpine. He also claimed the point for fastest lap.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO: This was a solid result and good points for the team after a race where it would have been easy to make mistakes or move backwards through the field. The strategists called it exactly right today in terms of switching to the intermediate tyres, and that's what jumped us ahead of Ferrari to get P4 and P5. Lewis stayed cool throughout the race - even when his medium tyres went off in the opening stint, we were able to protect position and then take advantage of the rain. George shouldn't be too hard on himself, either - he drove a nice first stint to have the opportunity to capitalise on the rain and then the conditions were just so tricky to drive, that a small mistake cost him quite dear. But this was an afternoon where the team worked well, and our drivers showed their quality, too, and that shows in the points scored. We brought a big package to this race, and it has performed well. We have seen some positives in Monaco, which we know is not a representative circuit, and it will be next week in Barcelona when we get a more precise idea of competitiveness. We don't want to get ahead ourselves, and I think we're all looking forward to learning more about the car, and to seeing if we've made a step in performance against our immediate competitors.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: Considering our pace this weekend, fourth and fifth isn't a bad result. Ultimately though, we weren't quick enough and we've got work to do if we want to see our drivers standing on the podium. The race itself was well handled by the Team. There were points where our options were getting limited. We didn't have the pace to undercut Ocon or Sainz with Lewis, so they all emerged from the first stop in position order. With George, who was in a similar race with one Ferrari and one Alpine, we decided against the undercut and were waiting for rain, a safety car, or a red flag. That came but the transition was tricky. Only half the track was wet, but where it was, it was really damp. We seemed to make the switch at the correct time, but George got caught out with a lock-up during the warm-up phase. Luckily, he continued but our chance of a podium had evaporated. He did a good job to build enough of a gap to the Ferrari of Leclerc that his penalty didn't affect his position when it was added after the race.
We now shift our focus to Barcelona immediately. We're looking forward to seeing how the car works around a more normal track; we're expecting to have more work to do but it's going to be useful to understand where we must focus our efforts. We're in a good fight for second in the Constructors' Championship and while that's not our goal, it looks like we're going to be able to have some fun racing with Ferrari and Aston Martin as we work on closing that gap to Red Bull.
BWT Alpine F1 Team claimed its first podium of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season as Esteban Ocon delivered a dry to wet masterclass and kept his cool to finish in an impressive third place in Monte Carlo in the Monaco Grand Prix. Pierre Gasly capped off a fantastic Sunday for the team with a seventh-place finish.
In Alpine's 50th start in Formula 1, Esteban made it a memorable occasion by claiming his third podium in the sport and ensured he made it a first visit to the rostrum since winning the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2021.
Esteban had to keep calm under sustained pressure from Ferrari's Carlos Sainz and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton throughout the 78-lap race. And with rain hitting the track in the final third of the race, both drivers switched to Intermediate tyres and remained composed amid the tricky conditions to deliver a fantastic team result with 21 points scored.
The team moves up to fifth in the Constructors' Championship with Esteban ninth and Pierre tenth in the Drivers' rankings.
Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal: "What a brilliant day for the team here in Monaco. Congratulations to everybody today, from those trackside, to our staff members across Enstone and Viry for their hard work in delivering a car that has proved its capability to fight for the podium. Today was all about staying composed under pressure - notably for our pit crew, engineers and strategists - in dealing with some challenging circumstances with the varying tyre strategies and unpredictable weather. It was also about two world class race drives from both Esteban and Pierre to deliver such a strong team result. Well done to everyone and this result must serve as motivation for more results like this during this season."
Andrea Stella, Team Principal: "Two cars in the points at the end of a dramatic Monaco Grand Prix is a very positive outcome. We executed the race well; our drivers ran smart races, staying out of trouble in difficult conditions, and our pace looked very strong in the final third of the race on the Intermediate tyres. It was a shame that portion of the race wasn't a little longer to allow us to capitalise on the pace both Lando and Oscar demonstrated.
"I would like to praise, in particular, the work of our garage crew this weekend. Yesterday, the mechanics did phenomenal work to get Lando out in Q3, and today they executed clean pit-stops, including a difficult double shuffle in awkward conditions. There's a depth of talent there, of which we are immensely proud and will keep building for the future."
Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake fought in the streets of Monaco, made treacherous by the elements, as Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu narrowly missed out on the points. Starting from the back rows on the grid, both drivers climbed the rankings, with Valtteri closing in 11th place and Zhou in 13th. The ten positions gained overall were the biggest improvement from any team during a race that was profoundly affected by a downpour just after the halfway mark.
The team will now move to Barcelona for the next round of the championship, another important step as the team continues to assess the new aero package introduced in Monte Carlo.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: "The team executed a good race to recover as much ground as possible, and in the end no other team made up as many places as we did. We knew we had a big job on our hands after yesterday's qualifying, so we chose to be aggressive with our calls: we pitted Zhou on the first lap, to switch him to hard tyres and try a strategy that would allow him to move forward. When the rain came, we were the first to switch to the intermediate tyres, with Valtteri, and in the end we were able to make up quite a few places. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to get into the top ten, but we cannot fault ourselves for the work we did today, especially on a track where overtaking is so difficult. We can take heart from today's performance and the way we rebounded after yesterday's struggles: now we have to focus on Barcelona, where we must make a step forward as we keep extracting performance from our upgrades."
Mike Krack, Team Principal: "Starting from the front row and finishing second with Fernando in the Monaco Grand Prix is a tremendous result for the whole team - and a significant marker for how far we've travelled together. This was a difficult race to manage: we fitted Fernando with the Hard compound, hoping to use the strategy to jump Max later in the race. Then the rain came! Initially, the downpour wasn't too heavy, and we fitted Mediums because an old, worn Hard tyre is incredibly difficult to manage on a wet track. The rain immediately increased, and switching to Intermediates was the logical choice just a lap later. That made no difference to the result - we wouldn't have caught Max anyway. Fernando drove magnificently in treacherous conditions to equal AMF1 Team's best-ever result - bravo. Lance struggled with damage after a couple of hits on lap one, but he drove with a good amount of verve, overtook a couple of cars and was battling hard. That was great to see. He correctly judged the switch to Inters but was managing the brakes in the wet and lost his front wing after a tangle with the barriers. Starting 14th, it was always going to be a tricky race for Lance - but he kept his head up throughout. Now we go to Spain - with the aim of getting both cars in the points once again."
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen finished 17th and 19th respectively at the Monaco Grand Prix, Round 7 of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, held Sunday at the Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo.
Hulkenberg started from P18 on Pirelli P Zero Yellow Medium tires and came in as planned at the end of the first lap to take on White hard tires. Hulkenberg was issued a five-second time penalty for causing a collision and that was served when he pitted on lap 56, coming in for Cinturato Green intermediate tires, as rain moved in across the Principality.
He then stopped once more, on lap 60, to switch to Blue wet tires as conditions deteriorated. Stewards deemed that the initial penalty was not served correctly and duly issued a further 10-second time penalty, meaning Hulkenberg finished P17.
Magnussen took the start from P17 on hard tires and gained a spot early on, before expertly passing the Williams of Logan Sargeant into Mirabeau Haute. Magnussen extended his stint on slick tires while the rain fell before eventually coming into the pits on lap 57, having slid wide at Rascasse. That necessitated a front wing change and Magnussen emerged at the rear of the field, before pulling into the pits in the closing stages. Magnussen was still classified in a notional 19th place.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team retains seventh position in the Constructors' Championship on eight points.
Guenther Steiner, Team Principal: "We tried everything possible today to get into the points. There's no point in finishing twelfth, thirteenth or fourteenth so we decided to take a gamble at the end staying out and then pitting for full wets as you never know what can happen, but it didn't work out. The race was lost yesterday in qualifying, and we knew that if something special doesn't happen, we cannot get into the points. We tried, everybody was working hard to get it done. We got a penalty - we don't know what for on lap 1 - again, inconsistency from the FIA there, but it seems to be what now is normal."
Jody Egginton (Technical Director): "It was a super frustrating end to the race. Everything was going to plan for Yuki, his pace was good and he was able to manage tyre graining. Nyck was in a similar situation and, although he struggled a bit longer with graining, his pace was also good and he could move away from the pack behind once the tyres came back. So in the dry portion of the race, both cars were reasonably well placed regardless if it rained or not. The rain came and we boxed both cars on the same lap for Inters, which was the right call. However, Yuki immediately struggled with his brakes even with multiple adjustments to try and bring them in. They remained inconsistent, meaning he could not push the braking phases, hence his lap times suffered, both McLarens got past and he went off. Nyck was less affected by this issue and could achieve a good lap time progression on the Inter tyre, but even with the rain it was not possible to get him into the points today - it's never easy in Monaco. Overall, the car showed good pace in qualifying and during the dry part of the race here, which is promising, but not being able to finish the job and score the points which were there to be taken is very disappointing, especially on a day where we had one car ahead of all of our closest competitors. We now must understand the issues with braking, there is still much to learn about the aero update, and we look forward to taking the next step with the car in Barcelona."
Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: A tricky race with some graining on the slicks early in the race for both cars. This was worse than we expected and so we need to understand why that was.
Logan suffered a puncture shortly after fitting his only set of Hard tyres and so it became a difficult day for him, but he got some very valuable experience, especially of driving in the wet in Monaco.
Once the rain started, it was difficult to generate temperature in the tyres and brakes but once we were able to push a bit harder, the grip improved quite quickly. Our pace wasn't too bad, but with overtaking difficult, we weren't able to make any more positions.
Attention now turns to Barcelona and the revised track layout.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen won the Monaco Grand Prix with Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso in second. Esteban Ocon was third for Alpine. All the drivers on the podium took the chequered flag on the Cinturato Green intermediate. As was the case last year, all the compounds were used: three different types slick and two wets, including the new Cinturato Blue full wet.
As usual in Monaco, qualifying was decisive for the race result, with the top three on the grid finishing in the same order. Charles Leclerc had originally qualified third, ahead of Ocon, but received a three-place grid penalty.
Verstappen and Ocon started on P Zero Yellow mediums with the intention of switching to the P Zero White hard for the finish. But after the rain came, Verstappen could move directly to the intermediate. Alonso also started on the hard compound, but pitted for mediums which he ran for just one lap before changing to intermediates.
Half the teams split their strategies for the start: Mercedes, Alpine, McLaren, Alfa Romeo, and Haas all fitted their two cars with different compounds. The only driver to start on the P Zero Red soft was Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo), who stopped after just one lap to fit the hard tyres, as did Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) and Sergio Perez (Red Bull).
Rain started to fall about 25 laps before the end of the race, initially between turns 4 and 8. Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) was first to fit the intermediate and Kevin Magnussen (Haas) was last to visit the pits for rain tyres, swapping the hards for the full wet.
The new Cinturato Blue Full Wet tyre, which had been due to make its debut at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, was used by the two Haas drivers and Perez. It is the first Pirelli Formula 1 tyre that does not require the use of tyre warmers.
Bottas had the fastest time on the intermediates, setting a 1m24.637s on lap 76. Hulkenberg set the best time with the full wet tyres of 1m32.994s on lap 72. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) did the overall fastest lap of the race (1m15.650s) on lap 33 when he was on the hard tyres while the best performance on mediums came from Leclerc (1m15.773s) on lap 46. Magnussen had the longest stint, using the hard for 56 laps.
The rain caused the asphalt temperatures to drop sharply from 41 degrees C to 27 degrees C while the ambient temperature fluctuated between 28 and 23 degrees C.
Mario Isola: "The Monaco weekend was filled with emotions, both for the people watching the race in person and those following it at home on TV and online. Just like a year ago, all five types of tyre brought to Monaco were used, with the new specification of wet tyre - which doesn't require blankets - making its debut. First impressions of its performance seem in line with expectations, although you obviously can't really compare Monaco with anywhere else. When it was dry, the race was a chess game between those who started on the mediums and those who opted for the hards: actually, a bigger number of drivers than we had anticipated heading into the race. Just one person, Guanyu Zhou, went for the softs at the start. As is often the case in Monaco, it was at first a question of seeing who made the best of the traffic to find the right time to make the decisive move and pit. But then there was the uncertain weather, with the rain that everybody knew was coming but nobody expected to be quite so heavy. All this added up to a race that was extremely difficult to manage without making mistakes. The first stint on the medium was much longer than expected: not only did Verstappen complete 55 laps on this compound, but both AlphaTauri drivers did 53 laps, while Lando Norris did 50. On this track in particular, tyre management, even with graining, had to be carried out according to traffic and weather conditions - as was definitely the case today."
