F1. Monaco 2026 Review
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By Gavin Huet, Chelsea Wintle, Aiden McLaughlin and Graeme Woolf
Driver of the Weekend
Chelsea: This weekend marked Kimi Antonelli’s fifth win on the trot, and it’s hard to pin that on anything other than skill, talent, and the comforting bosoms of Toto Wolff and Pete Bonnington. Antonelli was solid all weekend – dominating in qualifying, and genuinely nailing a start where he had two Ferraris breathing down his neck. He did benefit from a first lap power unit failure from Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, but was genuinely unthreatened across the weekend. We’re in the middle of watching something that is potentially very special indeed.
Gavin: Maybe we need to introduce a new rule and ban Kimi Antonelli from being awarded any more Driver of the Weekend accolades, for at least this season. Crofty kept calling him the “young prince of Monaco” but I think there is an argument right now for skipping the prince stage and just anoint him King Kimi. Apart from the Friday session the Mercedes driver was bossing the weekend. He will make mistakes, there will be reliability issues, he will encounter bad luck, but for now he is on top of the world and is getting the maximum from his car, unlike his teammate George Russell who is resorting to mind games, and, according to one pundit, is coming third in a two horse race.
Aiden: At the risk of being repetitive, Kimi Antonelli. Everyone is starting to run out of superlatives for the Italian youngster, but he just keeps producing the goods. George Russell tried to play mind games with him at the weekend and it simply didn’t work. The record books continue to be rewritten by this phenomenal driver.
Graeme:I normally don’t like choosing the driver who wins the race but there’s really no other choice this weekend. Kimi Antonelli continues to drive his Mercedes like he stole it. He is setting new records each week that he wins. With 5 race wins on the bounce now, it surely must come to an end soon, but in this form, would you bet against him?
Talking Point
Chelsea:There were so many moments, it’s hard to pick just one, but I’m going to go with Ragin’ Isack Hadjar. Since being promoted to the big boy seat next to Max Verstappen, Hadjar has gone from sobbing non-starter in Melbourne 2025 to perpetually furious malcontent in Monaco. “Something is going to explode! The engine is not healthy now!” etc, etc, until he lucked himself into third place and all was forgotten. It’s entertaining, but a little old now to be honest; time to change the record.
Gavin: There have not been many real overtakes at Monaco in more than fifty years and the new regulations have not changed that, but do they need to? F1 is a three day sport, it is not just the ninety minute race. The cars can now follow a lot closer, which caused some stress but ultimately you can hold off your rivals if you want to. Some teams, such as Williams, did this to maximise their race. But if you can’t manufacture an overtake you should at least be able to monitor pit lane speeds correctly. Five drivers received penalties, some after being warned about the possibility. The FIA say it is because of the pit lane configuration to cater for 11 teams, well in that case they got it wrong didn’t they?
Aiden:Why did so many drivers get caught speeding in the pit lane? Well, it seems like we can actually blame the new team in the paddock, Cadillac. The speed limit in Monaco is 60 kms/hr vs 80 kms/hr at other tracks, and every infringement in the Principality was less than 1km over the limit. Cadillac is positioned at the end of the pit lane and in Monaco, this space is more open than previous years. This seemingly encouraged drivers to cut the white line and that’s what caused the small amounts of speeding. Confused? Yeah, me too.
Graeme:I’m going rogue this week and am going to ignore all the obvious talking points. This probably went under the radar of most people, but I had a laugh during the post-race interviews on track. When Isack Hadjar was being interviewed, all I could look at was Lewis Hamilton in the background having a good look over the winning Mercedes car. He had his mental clipboard and was noting all sorts of things down in his head. He was on his knees having a good old rummage round. I love his passion for the details. It shows that he’s always looking for improvement and to grow. It’s brilliant.
Gossip Time
Chelsea: There was a reasonable amount of chaos across the race, with seven drivers failing to finish, another seven being penalised for various infringements, and Gasly being penalised all the way off the podium. Most interesting were the five penalties dished out for speeding in the pit lane, a number so unusually high that it indicated a process issue rather than something to do with the drivers themselves. Not so, say the FIA – it was all down to the line the drivers were taking into the pit lane – which they had been warned about – and the penalties stood. Apparently this is a new issue due to pit lane changes to accommodate an 11th garage, so while I came into this section wanting to get mad about stupid regulations, they appear to be quite sensible. As you were.
Gavin: All those people upset that Martin Brundle got the cold shoulder from Kim Kardashian on his grid walk – seriously? That grid walk is more scripted than Kim’s leaked sex tape! Fans whinging that the celebrities aren’t true fans of the sport and have broken all kinds of agreements that Martin can interview them and they should be banned just love a bit of outrage and quickly pivot to moaning about the engine regulation and lack of overtaking (see above).
In more serious news, remember last year when George Russell said that if Max Verstappen joined Mercedes, he wouldn’t be the one leaving the team? Right now I would guess that he would in fact be the one to go. He has had no luck this season and has reacted badly to it too. He needs to get it right soon or he will face a lot of scrutiny. Max and his entourage will be turning the screws, even if they have no intention of moving to Mercedes.
Aiden:Is Valtteri Bottas on his way out at Cadillac? The American outfit have been quick to shoot down the rumours, and although he might see out the season there, Cadillac will certainly want younger blood in at least one of their seats sooner, rather than later. IndyCar’s Colton Herta looks to be the chosen one and will be in some free practice sessions as this season progresses.
Graeme:Time must nearly be up for Martin and his Grid Walk. Back 2 or 3 years ago, it reached its peak and was great entertainment, but all Monaco’s one consisted of was Martin trying to get past the throngs of people on the grid while only talking to two old F1 people who the average fan wouldn’t have heard of. He also got snubbed by Kim K, brushed off someone called Cynthia and pushed by numerous security guards. It’s over Sky UK, call time on it and save Martin and all of us from any more pain.
Looking Ahead
Chelsea:Six in a row for Antonelli? There’s no reason why the young man shouldn’t continue his winning streak, but I’m more interested in whether Sir Lewis Hamilton can maintain his momentum. Hamilton is riding the highest he’s been since, arguably, 2020. Unlike Charles Leclerc, he’s yet to sign with Ferrari for next season, but he seems to be enjoying his racing more than ever right now. Lewis has won six times at Barcelona-Catalunya – surely it’s time for number seven?
Gavin: The European leg has well and truly kicked into gear now and Barcelona is next on the calendar this weekend. Will George Russell continue his one man band of tattling on every other driver while failing to serve his own penalties correctly? Will Charles Leclerc remember how to make red cars go fast or will he still blame brake manufacturer Brembo? (Didn’t Lewis need a whole new brake setup from Brembo when he first joined Ferrari last year?) Is this the start of some Red Bull performances? I guess we will get a lot of Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz interviews so at least that will be interesting.
Aiden:Monaco was the first of four races in five weeks as the European season gets underway; next up is Barcelona this weekend, which is a huge contrast to last weekend, with its long straights and a mix of high and low speed corners. Can Gorgeous George get back on track and start to make up some ground on the young Italian?
Graeme: Screw looking ahead, I’m still looking back! Over the weekend 2 iconic venues in my sporting sphere hosted events that I watched a chunk of. One was of course Monaco and the other was Lords in London. There were a number of eery similarities that got me thinking. Both events were far from perfect; Monaco’s pit lane timing monitors were accused of being off, a chunk of track came loose creating late race drama & as always there are very few chances to overtake. Meanwhile at Lords, the pitch created all sort of question marks over its suitability for test cricket and there are suggestions it’ll take 3 years of no cricket to get right. Maybe that’s what both venues need. Take some time off to refresh and work on getting these crucial aspects right and come back better for it in a few years.
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