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Monaco: there's no other race like it in the world. That said, sometimes 'race' is not an accurate description and it's more a high society event with added yachts and speedboats. Given how difficult it is to race here, this year's Grand Prix proved surprisingly lively and combative even before the rain showed up fashionably late to wreak havoc. It resulted in an entertaining day for the fans, and a testing one for all 20 drivers.
Lance Stroll (Accident, Lap 54): 3/10
We've been moderately surprised and impressed by how Lance Stroll has coped up to now in the face of having Fernando Alonso as his team mate at Aston Martin in 2023, and he compared reasonably well to the grand master in the first five races. But as is to often the case, Monaco separates the men from the boys and in this case it underlined just how good Alonso is while at the same time leaving Stroll embarrassed as he pin-balled his way round the streets of the principality until the AMR23 couldn't take the brutal treatment anymore. We lost count of how many collisions he had - with Albon, with Pérez, with Magnussen - before finally retiring with 25 laps to go. After 128 Grand Prix starts he can no longer claim inexperience, so there's just no excuse for this sort of thing. It's the kind of performance that reignites the accusations that he's only in the car because his father runs the company, and that's not a good look for anyone.
Kevin Magnussen (Retired, Lap 71): 5/10
Haas looked like they would be reasonably solid this weekend - not top ten, in-the-points sort of solid, but firmly in the midfield. Instead it all rather went away from them, and for Kevin Magnussen the rot set in when he suffered engine failure in final practice leaving him down on track time as the mechanics worked frantically to get the car ready for qualifying. In the end neither he nor his team mate Nico Hulkenberg made the cut at the end of Q1 and that meant there were both stuck in the long train of cars near the back, initially behind Logan Sargeant and then Valtteri Bottas, with Lance Stroll looming in his rear view mirror. He sustained damage when Sergio Perez ran into the back of him, and then tried staying out on slicks when the rain came down only to be forced to rethink, overcorrecting onto full wets until the decision was taken to simply call it a day before the finish.
