MONTE-CARLO, MONACO – MAY 25: Lando Norris of Great Britain and McLaren Formula 1 Team drives on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco at Circuit de Monaco on May 25, 2025 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Ciancaphoto Studio/Getty Images)

On the tight, glitzy streets of Monte Carlo—where passing is as likely as spotting a sensible yacht—Lando Norris finally did it. He took pole position and turned it into a Monaco Grand Prix victory Sunday, dodging strategy traps, tire mandates, and late-race mind games to stand atop the most glamorous podium in motorsports.

This wasn’t just any win. It was Monaco. It was McLaren. It was Lando. And yes, it involved a mandatory two pit stop rule that was supposed to inject chaos but mostly resulted in a high-speed game of chess—played with supercars and egos.

“It feels amazing,” said Norris, who had every right to sound like a man ready to drink champagne from something very expensive and Italian. “This is what I dreamt of when I was a kid—so I achieved one of my dreams.”

The race started with Norris locking up into Turn 1, which around here is basically a Monaco rite of passage. But he held the lead, and that was half the battle. Behind him, Charles Leclerc stayed close enough to rattle the McLaren’s mirrors, while Oscar Piastri kept Max Verstappen at bay in third, as the grid climbed up to Casino Square in a blur of million-dollar carbon fiber and Monaco real estate that costs even more.

Down at Portier, Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto got squeezed by Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and bounced off the barriers like a pinball. He continued, but a Virtual Safety Car was triggered, giving Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly a chance to roll the dice with early pit stops. It didn’t help.

Then came lap eight, when Gasly apparently forgot where the brake pedal was and T-boned Tsunoda’s rear end at the Nouvelle Chicane. Tsunoda soldiered on. Gasly hobbled back to the pits, broken and bent. At least the chicane was still standing.

The strategy race kicked off for real around lap 15 when Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar dove into the pits, triggering a chain reaction among the frontrunners. Norris pitted on lap 19, surrendering the lead to Leclerc. McLaren tried to undercut Ferrari with Piastri, but Leclerc covered him off with pit-lane precision on lap 22.

Verstappen stayed out, hoping to make his aging tires last longer than a Kardashian marriage. It didn’t work. By lap 29, he’d had enough and pitted, rejoining in fourth, still behind Piastri.

Then Alonso, who’d been circulating quietly like a wine merchant in a Le Mans pit lane, pulled over at Rascasse. No crash, no fuss—just a graceful exit. Somehow, still no safety car. Monaco stayed Monaco.

By halfway, Norris had built a six-second cushion back to Leclerc, who had nine seconds on a rapidly fading Piastri. The Aussie eventually blinked first, stopping for the second time on lap 49. Leclerc followed suit, and Norris, covering both, made his final stop a lap later.

This left Verstappen at the front—just where he likes to be. But he wasn’t there to win. He was trying to turn the whole race into a slow-motion thriller, backing Norris into Leclerc in the hope that someone would panic, or maybe crash, or ideally both. The strategy nearly worked. Norris suddenly had Leclerc crawling up his tailpipes like a tax audit.

“The worst bit really was just the end,” Norris said. “Max was ahead and kind of backing it up… I had to manage it quite a lot.”

It was like watching a guy trying to race while being mugged from the front and the rear simultaneously. But Norris held firm. Verstappen finally made his second stop on the penultimate lap, and the McLaren was unleashed. Fastest lap? Yes. First win at Monaco? Absolutely. One for the history books? Without question.

Piastri brought home third, making it a tidy haul for McLaren and extending his own championship lead. “It was still a well-fought race but I’m very happy,” Norris said. “My team are very happy and therefore, we’re going to have a wonderful night.”

Verstappen wound up fourth, a frustrating position for a man who usually considers second place a personal insult. Lewis Hamilton took fifth for Ferrari—yes, that still sounds weird—after jumping Hadjar early on. Esteban Ocon brought his Haas home in seventh, ahead of Liam Lawson in the second Racing Bull. Williams teammates Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz rounded out the points, because apparently anything can happen in Monaco… except passing.

MONTE-CARLO, MONACO – MAY 25: Race winner Lando Norris of Great Britain and McLaren, Second placed Charles Leclerc of Monaco and Scuderia Ferrari, Third placed Oscar Piastri of Australia and McLaren and Zak Brown, Chief Executive Officer of McLaren on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco at Circuit de Monaco on May 25, 2025 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Mark Sutton – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

F1GRAND PRIX DE MONACO 2025 – RACE RESULT

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Greg Engle

Greg is a published award winning sportswriter who spent 23 years combined active and active reserve military service, much of that in and around the Special Operations community.

Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.

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