F1 in Monaco: Finally, the cars were flat-out in qualifying

Many thought the Ferrari would be the car to beat here.

Credit: Alessio Morgese/NurPhoto via Getty Images

And so it proved on Friday during free practice 1 and 2, with the red cars topping the time sheets. But the 19-year-old Italian sensation Kimi Antonelli had something to say about that on Saturday, pipping both Ferraris to the top of FP3 with a lap time of 1:12.720—still almost four seconds slower than last year’s fastest lap, a record that should stand for some time.

The car balance the Ferrari pair had found on Friday wasn’t quite there the following day, and the best that Hamilton and Leclerc could do was third and fourth, with Max Verstappen in second, just a few hundredths of a second slower than Antonelli’s Mercedes when it really counted. After four wins on the trot, the young Mercedes driver was staring at the likelihood of a fifth.

That came true on Sunday, with a lights-to-flag victory that included setting the fastest lap. Verstappen’s day ended almost as soon as it began, with a power unit failure that saw him limp off the line and then retire, thankfully with no one crashing into him. Robbed of a chance to see Verstappen harry Antonelli with hopes of him making a mistake, all eyes turned to Hamilton.

After several years where he didn’t really gel with the ground effect cars, topped off by a terrible 2025 at Ferrari, Hamilton appears to have found his feet again and is much more competitive, but he had nothing for the Mercedes, which stretched out a lead and maintained it until the crumbling track surface at the final corner threw some uncertainty into the proceedings.