Hello MiniFans and welcome back in Monaco, the most legendary track on the calendar! Raikkonen will drive his 300th Grand Prix today, while everyone is eager to see the catch-up race of Leclerc. The Monegasque wasn’t able to go for a second flying lap yesterday during Q1, due to troubles with his teammate Sebastian Vettel. This way he couldn’t make it through to Q2. One thing is for sure; it won’t be an easy one on this tight track!

Verstappen tried to go around the inside of Bottas, but couldn’t make it before the first turn. Ricciardo on the other hand, could move up one place to P4. Around half a lap later, we could see Leclerc overtaking Norris cleanly at the famous hairpin. All camera’s were focussed on him from that moment on! Though his catch-up race was called to an early end! Leclerc touched Hulkenberg in his attempt to take over P12 from the German. He was dropped down to the back of the grid, due to a puncture on his rear right tyre. It was a miracle that he could make it to the pits, since he drove almost a whole lap with the flat tyre.

The Safety Car came out because of the debris of Leclerc’s tyre, that was spread all over the track. A lot of drivers used the Safety Car phase to change their tyres and that ended up with a queue in the pits. Verstappen got away from his stop and bumped right into Bottas’ sidepod. It looked like there wasn’t any damage, but the Dutchman could move up to P2 this way. He later got a five second penalty for it.

And there was more chaos to come! We had an anthill for a little while in the last turn with a Williams and Alfa Romeo among others, but it was quickly fixed. Leclerc went for another new set of tyres in lap 17 out of 78, but that did not help. Only two laps later, he had to retire from his home race.

It was calm after the storm for about 13 laps, when Verstappen was quickly closing up to Hamilton. The whole top five was relatively close together with a maximum of 1.5 seconds between the drivers. The Dutchman kept pushing the Brit till the end of the Grand Prix! The two collided even in the chicane after the tunnel out of Verstappen’s despiration. Only this race incident and the infinite battle between the two were exciting  during the second part of the race. The second part was as boring as the first part was exciting! But in the end, it was the most exciting race of the last few years here in Monaco.

Lewis Hamilton is the winner of the 2019 Grand Prix of Monaco with Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas completing the podium. Verstappen is fourth followed by Gasly, Sainz, Kvyat, Albon, Ricciardo and Grosjean!

We are back in two weeks in Canada! Until then, stay MiniCool!