Antonelli flawless, Russell left shocked: Monaco Grand Prix winners and losers

Kimi Antonelli tops the PlanetF1.com list of Winners and Loser after Monaco, while it was a very different race for George Russell.

Here is PlanetF1.com’s full list of winners and losers from the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix.

Kimi Antonelli and George Russell headline Monaco winners and losers

Winner: Kimi Antonelli

Having completed the most important quest of the weekend on Saturday by taking pole position, it was always more likely to be a case of whether something would go wrong for him rather than if anyone else could get ahead.

The start was obviously a scenario that could have gone wrong, but there was no need to worry: the Italian made a great getaway, and also didn’t have to worry too much into Turn 1 as Max Verstappen was taken out of the equation the instant the lights went out.

From there, Antonelli simply looked peerless: he drove away from the pack, seemingly at will, and was set to lap most of the field before the late race red flag.

“Big time I was frustrated, because Lewis was starting next to me this time and knowing how good they start, I was like, well, I cannot say, I’m going to say a bad word, but I was like, “Oh man.” Antonelli revealed afterwards.

“But luckily, the start went OK. Also, he had a lot of wheel spin, so that also made my life a little bit easier into Turn 1. But yeah, it was not easy to refocus after the red flag.”

On an afternoon like what Antonelli had, the other danger was in letting his mind wander, and relaxing into his position of dominance in his awareness of just how great his championship advantage was going to grow.

But none of these potentials played out: Antonelli was simply wheel-perfect from start to finish and, with Russell enduring a nightmare, the Italian’s championship lead is now quite vast: the thick end of three race victories separate him from Hamilton in second and Russell in third.

It can’t be ignored that there is an element of fortune playing into just how well things are going for Antonelli at the moment, championship-wise, but the 19-year-old is seizing every single opportunity that is coming his way – it’s impossible for him to do any better.

Loser: George Russell

Russell’s afternoon was one purely indicative of the dangers of not maximising qualifying in Monaco, and it all started with losing significant amounts of time due to being cooped up behind the slow Isack Hadjar in the first stint.

Pitting on Lap 32 to undercut Hadjar worked out well, but it was during this stop that he picked up his initial penalty for ‘speeding’ in the pitlane (more on that soon!), while he was fortunate to escape anything more drastic for touching the white line on pit exit.

But it was in the serving (or lack thereof) of this penalty when he came in behind Antonelli under the Safety Car on Lap 61 that his race was really ruined.

This was purely down to a team communication error, which Toto Wolff acknowledged afterwards, but it meant that the resulting drive-through penalty scuppered any chance of Russell salvaging any sort of result from the day.

It can’t be said that Russell did much wrong on race day, and third place was entirely likely without the final death knell of the drive through – it’s the latest in a growing list of misfortunes that has set back his season, without the driver himself being to blame.

“I’m beyond frustration now, I’m just struggling to comprehend how on earth the season is panning out the way it has done,”Russell said afterwards.

While Formula 1 is all about high-precision engineering and the fundamental performance of a car goes 99 per cent of the way towards a driver’s success, the final ingredients are in the more intangible factors such as luck and mental resilience.

But the scruffiness of execution of the weekend – the failure to nail the lap in qualifying, the lack of clarity over what the team was doing upon a pitstop – shows that, right now, some of the ingredients, including luck, are missing for Russell in a way that they aren’t for Antonelli.

In terms of confidence, only Russell knows where his headspace is really at: Antonelli now knows what he can do and does not look like the little boy lost he was last year, and the weight of knowing that he has a championship-winning car under him as the opportunity slips through his fingers must feel heavy.

But there is one positive he can cling to: the lack of a clear potential usurper to the intra-Mercedes battle means it’s far easier for Mercedes to stave off the point at which choosing a driver to prioritise will come.

Winner: Lewis Hamilton

In terms of outright pace, there was very little to separate the two Ferrari drivers this weekend but, on execution, Hamilton delivered ahead of Charles Leclerc on this occasion.

Qualifying ahead of Leclerc as the home hero crashed on his final run set this train in motion, Hamilton looked set to finish behind Leclerc had the Safety Car intervention not played into his hands.

With Hamilton having been one of the drivers penalised for pitlane speeding, the intervention allowed him to serve his penalty without losing track position to Leclerc as the Monegasque was forced to queue behind him.

Hamilton then tried to keep up the pressure on the man who succeeded him in his Mercedes seat – a wonderful demonstration of two very different generations fighting for the win at very different points in their careers – but he had to settle for second.

Leclerc might have ended up in second without the Safety Car intervention, given Hamilton’s penalty, but he ended up in the barriers twice during the weekend and, while the braking issues were a hugely significant factor in his race-ending result, he comes away from this weekend second-best to his teammate.

Loser: Max Verstappen

Verstappen’s day came to an end as rapidly as the death of his engine revs off the line at the start, with the power unit – which was fitted for what was planned to be its final race anyway – clinging on to wheeze the Dutch driver around and back into the pits for retirement.

It was a hugely anticlimactic moment, robbing us as viewers the chance to see the four-time F1 World Champion test the mettle of the man who could yet prove to be the one to challenge his supremacy.

Verstappen reported afterwards that he had experienced some strange behaviour on the formation lap, but wasn’t expecting an outright failure.

“As soon as I dropped the clutch, that was it,” he said.

“The engine bogged down completely, and after that, the noise that I heard from the engine, once I got some power back out of Turn 1, was very bad.

“So I immediately just lifted it off and brought it home.”

Stalling off the line at the front in Monaco is perhaps one of the scariest places for such an occurrence, given the narrowness of the streets but, somehow, all managed to avoid the stricken Red Bull.

“I was just praying that everyone would go right, but everyone luckily reacted very well,” he said.

It was a day to forget for Verstappen, another moment of misfortune in a season that, so far,

Winner: Isack Hadjar

As my PlanetF1 colleague Oliver Harden wrote in his Conclusions this morning, Hadjar is showing the resilience in adversity that has been the stumbling block of many of his Red Bull predecessors.

After his crash in practice, it would have been remarkably easy for Hadjar to go into a performance slump, leave some margin on the table in fear of rubbing his car up against the barriers again, and toil around in the midfield in anonymity.

But, instead, we got a display from him that is far more what’s expected of a second driver at a frontrunning team: in the absence of Verstappen, Red Bull still had skin in the game.

It wasn’t an easy afternoon: Hadjar spent the day battling power issues that, at any other circuit, would probably have meant falling to the back.

“I think very early, from I would say Lap 12, something like that, I started having driveability issues and it was just undriveable,” he said.

“In Monaco, especially here, it’s not like you can allow yourself to skip using first gear, second gear, and this is where the problem was. It was very hard to drive.

“I was down on power at some point. Also on the final restart, on that start, still need to figure out our problems, but I kept pushing and we’re here. I’m happy.”

The podium briefly looked like it had slipped through his grasp on the restart as he lost positions to Russell and Gasly but, with both having penalties, Hadjar had to “send it like I never had before” in order to keep up and stay within the penalty range.

Hadjar, who is well known for his self-critical honesty, was open about being uncomfortable with the car throughout the weekend but, despite this, bounced back magnificently from a tough start to salvage a good result in Verstappen’s absence: it’s perhaps the first time since the middle of Sergio Perez’s stint with the team that Red Bull seems to have found that fallback.

More from the Monaco Grand Prix

Monaco Grand Prix driver ratings: Antonelli masterclass, Russell in turmoil

Monaco GP conclusions: Mini Max, no Russell sympathy, Hamilton mystery

Winner: Racing Bulls

Standing in the pits before the race, there was clear concern around Liam Lawson’s car as Racing Bulls mechanics gathered around to pore over it.

But ready the car they did, “two minutes before the green light” Lawson revealed, and the Kiwi was able to make the start and capitalise upon his already strong qualifying session.

Both drivers always looked set for points, but the red flag changed the complexion as Lindblad was able to make his tyre change, having not pitted up until that point.

On the restart, Lindblad got past Alex Albon through Mirabeau and even got alongside Lawson into the hairpin as the Racing Bulls held off the Williams.

A beaming Lawson paid tribute to his team’s efforts, saying that the work that went into giving him a competitive car was “very, very cool”, while Lindblad said he felt it was a “well-executed” from both himself and the team, as the rookie driver made no mistakes throughout.

Loser: Lando Norris

The reigning World Champion’s reign is unlikely to continue, with Monaco showing McLaren does not have the consistency of the likes of Mercedes to be able to mount a proper title defence.

Mercedes, Red Bull, and Ferrari all looked quicker, suggesting McLaren’s slow-speed and mechanical grip isn’t amazing, while Norris’ race was undone by a power unit issue – one that struck at quite a dangerous part of the track and needed an alert Russell to take avoiding action.

Norris’ race had been largely undone by getting cooped up behind Pierre Gasly throughout, and was even starting to lose ground to the Alpine by the time of his issue.

With Piastri coming home a subdued fifth after making little impact on the race, it was an anonymous weekend for the reigning Champions, and a second consecutive retirement for Norris has sapped any lingering hope that the title might still be on.

Loser: Sergio Perez

The Mexican driver was almost the hero of the hour in Monaco, as he looked, briefly, like he’d scored 10th place and Cadillac’s first points after fighting through engine vibrations and braking discomfort to reach the chequered flag.

On the restart, Perez stuck his nose up the inside of Alonso to get ahead of the Aston Martin and then up to 11th after the collision between Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz.

With Hulkenberg being given a 10-second time penalty for that, it moved Perez up into the points – but the Cadillac dream wasn’t to happen.

Perez had resumed the race from outside the box and, while marginal and not giving him “any benefit”, it resulted in the penalty.

Unfortunately, it ultimately was down to an error that cost Perez dearly, which ended up giving Aston Martin a point that could prove critical in the battle at the back, but there are clear signs that, as Cadillac and Perez become fully race-sharp throughout this year, the potential for points is very much a real one.

Winner: Aston Martin

With Alonso scraping that 10th place, it’s in such results that the entire year’s result could be decided and, as a consequence, a difference of millions in prize money next year.

It’s for that reason that Aston Martin is a winner, rather than any other factor: there’s precious little positive to take away from Monaco as, at a track where outright engine power is not critical, the AMR26 was still nowhere.

Given how Monaco is a track that rewards a good chassis, the implication of such a showing is that there is not much to cling onto as things stand.

Loser: Kim Kardashian

With the world of vacuous celebrity worship always brought into focus during high-profile events such as the Monaco Grand Prix, the attendance of the mystifyingly well-known Kim Kardashian brought with it the opportunity to ingratiate herself on the world stage.

Instead, as social media almost overwhelmingly showed, all her attendance ignited was toxicity by way of ‘flame wars’ between rabid fans of various WAGS pointing to how ‘their’ WAG was, somehow, superior to the partner of any other driver.

Kardashian appeared more interested in maintaining an aloofness from the entirety of the event, declining to engage with the most inane of questions from a polite Martin Brundle on the grid.

With this begging the question again of why celebrities are given such high-profile grid access if they are averse to giving the sport the time of day in even the most barebone fashion, this aloofness was followed by a rather pathetic display of her security fumbling an umbrella over her head as the champagne sprayed.

Other videos have since emerged, showing that Kardashian even had the audacity to pick up the towel set aside for Kimi Antonelli after the chequered flag, apparently of the belief that it had been placed there for her rather than the race winner as she dabbed her brow from the exertion of being photographed.

In a sport that is already barely connected to the real world, a savvy Kardashian could have revelled in the environment and emerged with a whole new legion of fans as her alleged relationship in the paddock continues.

If this was her attempt, it was a remarkable fail.

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