Verstappen survives rain madness to triumph in Monaco

Max Verstappen secured victory at the Monaco Grand Prix after overcoming a series of testing conditions to defeat Fernando Alonso.

With the Red Bull driver leading from Pole Position, the race was ultimately decided by a mid-race rain shower which threatened completely shake up the running order.

However, a well-timed switch to the Intermediate tyres, coupled with a misjudged pit stop from Aston Martin, ensured Verstappen maintained the lead of the race until the chequered flag.

Prior to the rain shower, the race looked set to be a strategy battle between Verstappen and Alonso, who had started the race on Medium and Hard tyres respectively, and sailed off into a huge lead over Alpine's Esteban Ocon, who held his P3 grid spot at the start.

With rain incoming, Verstappen was forced to prolong his opening stint on Medium tyres, much to the Dutchman's annoyance.

Aston Martin gambled on the rain staying away, and swapped Alonso's Hard tyres for Medium tyres just as the rain came, before swiftly pitting again for Intermediates.

The treacherous conditions resulted in a mistake for Verstappen, who hit the barrier at Portier, but survived to return to the pits for the Intermediates switch.

From there, the championship leader was unthreatened by the opposition, but still had a minor scare after a brush with the barrier at the Swimming Pool section in the closing stages of the race.

He took the chequered flag to secure a second Monaco win by over 25 seconds ahead of Alonso, with Ocon surviving late pressure to hold third.

Mercedes profit from wet conditions

With Lewis Hamilton one of the first frontrunners to roll the dice on Intermediates, he leapfrogged the two Ferraris to run in fourth, with George Russell similarly profiting to take the flag in P5.

Hamilton pressured Ocon for the final podium position, but was unable to secure silverware on the race debut for the heavily-revised W14 Mercedes car.

Russell was a contender for the podium before an off-track moment in the wet conditions at Mirabeau corner. He was slapped with a post-race time penalty for rejoining into the path of Red Bull's Sergio Perez, but he had built up enough of a margin to maintain his position.

Charles Leclerc took sixth in a difficult day for Ferrari, with teammate Carlos Sainz falling to P8 after a mistake in wet conditions at the tricky Mirabeau corner.

The Ferrari drivers lost out in the wet conditions by running on slick tyres for too long, and were separated by Pierre Gasly, who completed a strong day for Alpine in P7.

Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri completed fine late-race overtakes on AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda to compete the top ten and secure valuable points for McLaren.

Perez's efforts to fight from the back of the grid to any kind of points position were undone by mid-race contact with Aston Martin's Lance Stroll. His two pit stops had sent him towards the back of the pack before the rain came, after which he committed to a fruitless gamble on the Wet tyres and finished P16.