Hamilton fumes as new faces fill the podium: 2021 Monaco Grand Prix report

The moment Charles Leclerc secured pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix is also the exact moment his weekend fell apart.

Ferrari insisted no risks would be taken with reliability, and the gearbox would be changed if necessary to give Leclerc the best chance of scoring points. But after checks on Saturday night and Sunday morning, the team was confident that wouldn’t be necessary, as no damage could be seen. The message was clear: “The Monégasque driver will start today’s race from pole position, as per the qualifying result.”

Only, he wouldn’t.

The pandemic might mean this was a Monaco Grand Prix light, with fewer spectators, fewer events and nowhere near the level of razzmatazz as usual, but it can’t lessen the sporting heartbreak of seeing a driver robbed of his big chance to win his home race for the first time.

It felt like all of the air had gone out of the race before it even began when Leclerc radioed back to Ferrari on his first lap out of the garage: “No, no, no no. The gearbox guys”. A few minutes of frenzied working on the car later and the first message to the FIA confirmed a pit lane start at best. Then it was final, and the pole-sitter was not starting the race at all.

“Whether it’s related to the crash or not, I don’t know,” Leclerc said. “In the garage it was very difficult to feel OK, but now I guess I’m getting used to this feeling here.

“I’ve never finished a race here. It’s a difficult one to take and I feel for the team. The mechanics checked everything and all the parts were fine, but then this happens and it’s just a shame for everyone.”

With that confirmed, Red Bull’s Jonathan Wheatley asked FIA race director Michael Masi if he wanted all cars to move up one place on the grid, a request that was met with pretty short shrift even if it was a polite response. The cars would stay where they were, with Red Bull having been keen to switch Max Verstappen to the inside to cover off any potential attack from Valtteri Bottas.

The prospect of Leclerc v Verstappen into Turn One – and perhaps then for the full race – was so much more enticing than Verstappen v Bottas, although the latter two did provide some drama as Verstappen’s initial launch was not good compared to the Mercedes. Still, Monaco being Monaco, he was quick to chop across the track to block Bottas’ path, and that was pretty much that.

At least, it was from Verstappen’s point of view. When Bottas came in for his one and only pit stop – under more pressure from Carlos Sainz than with the hope of jumping the Red Bull – the front right wheel nut machined onto the axle and couldn’t be removed. The Finn could see shavings of aluminium flying from the front right, and like Leclerc, jumped out of his car early.

“I don’t know what happened in the pitstop to be honest, I don’t know yet if it was human error or a technical issue,” Bottas said. “But, in any case, we need to learn from it. It’s a big mistake by us and it should not happen.”

Suddenly it was a Verstappen, Sainz and Lando Norris top three and, seeing as all three had stopped by that point, there was little chance of it changing.

But in a slightly quirky development, Leclerc’s failure to start from pole and Bottas’ retirement from second meant not a single driver was running lower than their grid slot. That didn’t mean they were all happy, though…

Prior to the Bottas drama, Mercedes was first to make a move by pitting Lewis Hamilton from sixth on the road, aiming to jump Pierre Gasly, who in turn was chasing Norris. But the two ahead of him put in quick in-laps, meaning Hamilton failed to get the expected undercut and immediately voiced his displeasure at his team.

That only got worse when Sebastian Vettel pitted a lap later and jumped both Gasly and Hamilton with a brave pit exit, holding on around the outside of the AlphaTauri at Massenet in a ballsy move missed by television cameras.