Charles Leclerc cruised for the entirety of Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix to score his maiden victory in the historic event on home turf.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver started on pole and drove 78 perfect laps around the 2.074-mile circuit to outpace McLaren’s Oscar Piastri by over seven seconds at the checkered flag.
Leclerc’s previous best finish in Monaco was fourth.
“No words can explain that,” said Leclerc. “It’s such a difficult race, I think the fact that twice I’ve been starting on pole position and we couldn’t quite make it makes it even better in a way. It means a lot, obviously.
“It’s the race that made me dream of becoming a Formula 1 driver one day. It was a difficult race emotionally because already 15 laps to the end you’re just hoping that nothing happens, already the emotions were coming.
“I have to say that I was thinking to my dad a lot more than what I thought while driving. Obviously he’s given everything for me to be here, and it was a dream of ours for me to race here and to win, so it’s unbelievable.”
The start of the event featured a massive pileup, which forced a red flag. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Haas F-1’s two drivers of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg tangled, sending all three drivers out of the event prior to the completion of lap one.
From there, it was a caution-free race as Leclerc remained strong up front.
Behind second-place finisher Piastri, Carlos Sainz placed third to earn Ferrari a double podium finish. Lando Norris and George Russell completed the top five.
It was a trying day for points leader Max Verstappen as he was unable to advance from his sixth-starting spot.
“Of course, the most important thing is that Checo (Sergio Perez) was OK following his crash,” Verstappen said. “There was a lot of damage to his car, which was very unfortunate, but luckily he was fine. The red flag ultimately meant that our strategy was ruined, so everyone was just managing tires until the end of the race and the pit stop did not change much either.
“We had to really slow down a lot to make it to the end of the race and I tried to pass George (Russell) for two laps but it was extremely difficult. The ride of the car was still not great today and we just didn’t have the pace in qualifying. It ended up being a very boring race for us and not much we could do. It’s been a bad weekend for us but the positive is that we know what the weakness is in the car and if we can improve this we should get back a lot of lap time.
“A season like last year doesn’t happen often and we are realistic; we stay very strong as a team, don’t overreact, analyze the race and go from there.”
Lewis Hamilton, Yuki Tsunoda, Alexander Albon and Pierre Gasly completed the top 10.
At the checkered flag, the top-10 drivers finished precisely where they started in the event.
American Logan Sargeant placed 15th aboard his Williams Racing Mercedes.