The Monaco Grand Prix has produced its fair share of chaos and controversy over the decades, but no one could have accurately predicted how the 2026 edition of the race would shake out.<\/p>\n
Kimi Antonelli<\/a> achieved the first grand slam of his F1 career as he converted pole position into a dominant victory, leaving Mercedes<\/a>\u2019 rivals in the distance to secure a fifth consecutive Grand Prix win over Lewis Hamilton<\/a> and Isack Hadjar<\/a>.<\/p>\n Antonelli arguably had the most straightforward race day as others endured mechanical failures, crashes and the most penalties we\u2019ve seen so far this season<\/a>, with seven drivers retiring from the Grand Prix. Some were more unexpected than others, including Max Verstappen<\/a>, Lando Norris<\/a> and home hero Charles Leclerc<\/a>.<\/p>\n There was plenty to keep an eye on over the weekend, so here we\u2019ve rounded up 10 of the best photos from Round 6\u2026<\/p>\n Antonelli fulfilled the tradition of jumping in the Monaco harbour to celebrate his “incredible” win<\/a>, which helped him increase his lead in the standings<\/a> to a mighty 66 points over the lead Ferrari of Hamilton. He controlled the race perfectly, leading throughout and consistently delivering the fastest lap times en route to his fifth victory of the year.<\/p>\n The other side of the Mercedes garage didn’t get to experience the same elation with George Russell<\/a> as he received a late drive-through penalty for failing to serve his initial five seconds for speeding in the pit lane, which subsequently dropped him outside of the points.<\/p>\n The team found out about the updated punishment during the red flag period, prompting the Briton to run to make his case to the stewards, but it was to no avail and left him feeling “beyond frustration”<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite some uncertainty around how the post-race investigation would pan out, Hadjar<\/a> was ultimately able to celebrate his first podium since being promoted to Red Bull.<\/p>\n It wasn’t a comfortable weekend for the 21-year-old as he started with a crash in FP1<\/a> before facing a host of issues with his engine, power and drivability of the car. Add relentless pressure from an increasingly frustrated Russell just behind and it made for a challenging race, but he clung on to claim a momentous P3.<\/p>\n Red Bull’s sister team turned their race around in magnificent fashion as it looked like Liam Lawson<\/a> might not even make lights out at one point. Both he and Arvid Lindblad<\/a> hadn’t had the smoothest time with their cars in Monaco, struggling to turn properly around tight corners like the hairpin, but Racing Bulls<\/a> found a fix just in time.<\/p>\n The pair went on to deliver their best performances of their respective careers as Lawson took P5 ahead of his team mate, rounding out a fantastic double points score for the squad.<\/p>\n Leclerc will never be shy about his adoration for the Circuit de Monaco, having grown up in the Principality, but the track doesn’t always show the same love back. With many of his friends and family in attendance, the Monegasque driver was hit by the home race curse once again as his brakes stopped working properly<\/a> and he went into the wall at the final corner, throwing away the chance of a third podium here.<\/p>\n Carlos Sainz<\/a> suffered a devastating end to his race after Williams<\/a> seemed to be edging towards a double points finish just like Racing Bulls. Running at the tail end of the top 10, he fell victim to traffic at the hairpin after the restart and was tagged by Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg before colliding with Franco Colapinto a couple of corners later, forcing him to pull aside and abandon his car.<\/p>\n The action that unfolded in the pit lane was even more impactful than usual in this year’s Monaco Grand Prix, especially for Pierre Gasly<\/a>. The Frenchman was left heartbroken after he believed he had claimed a podium in what is the closest thing to a home race for him.<\/p>\n He did indeed cross the line as the third finisher, but two separate five-second time penalties demoted him to P7, provoking Alpine to request a Right of Review<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hamilton got the opportunity to celebrate with his former team boss as Toto Wolff made a rare appearance on the podium, which the Mercedes Team Principal later admitted left him with “mixed feelings”<\/a> as his two drivers experienced such contrasting fortunes in Monaco.<\/p>\n It was a similar situation for the seven-time World Champion, who had to balance celebrating his podium with debriefing Ferrari’s bad luck with Leclerc<\/a>.<\/p>\n F1 hasn’t faced the challenge of managing 22 drivers around the narrow streets of Monte Carlo in a decade, and the congestion certainly created an interesting challenge.<\/p>\n From trying to find the space for a clean lap in Qualifying to avoiding any major contact whilst being bunched up, the competitors were trying to push the limits further and further as each session ticked down.<\/p>\n Spare a thought for Norris, who retired from a second consecutive race with a mechanical failure. The Briton and his team mate Oscar Piastri<\/a> were already downbeat about McLaren’s lack of pace<\/a> in Monaco, but it was made all the worse by the fact that the team were meant to be celebrating their 1000th Grand Prix<\/a>. It’s a phenomenal milestone, but they may want to forget the race itself as they were left scratching their heads over the underwhelming performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Monaco Grand Prix has produced its fair share of chaos and controversy over the decades, but no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-724163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}