Monaco GP 2025: Norris wins from pole in a forced two-stop race

Lando Norris won the Monaco Grand Prix from pole position, crossing the line 3.131 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc, with Oscar Piastri third in the other McLaren. It was Norris's first win around the streets of Monte Carlo, his second of the season and McLaren's first in Monaco since Lewis Hamilton in 2008. Max Verstappen led late on an offset strategy but finished fourth.

How the two-stop rule played out

For this race only, every driver had to use three sets of tyres, which meant at least two pit stops. The idea was to bring some strategy to a track where overtaking is close to impossible. What it mostly produced was teams using one car to slow the field for the other.

Norris locked up heavily into Sainte Devote but kept the lead. A virtual safety car followed when Gabriel Bortoleto hit the wall at Portier, and a few drivers took an early stop under it. Pierre Gasly's race ended soon after, when his Alpine ran into the back of Yuki Tsunoda's Red Bull at the Nouvelle Chicane.

At the front, the order barely changed. Piastri tried to undercut Leclerc in the first round of stops and Leclerc covered it. Verstappen started on hards and kept stretching his stints, waiting for a safety car or a red flag that would hand him a cheap stop. Neither came. He led the closing laps at a pace that kept Norris within reach of Leclerc and Piastri, then pitted on the penultimate lap and dropped to fourth.

Leclerc was closest in the final stint, but on these streets that was never going to be enough. Hamilton came home fifth, 51 seconds back. Fernando Alonso had been running sixth when a power unit problem stopped his Aston Martin at Rascasse.

The teammate duels in Monaco

McLaren. Norris beat Piastri on both days. He took pole with his final lap in Q3, Piastri lined up third, and the order never changed. In their head-to-head, Norris now leads 5–3 in qualifying and the race count is level at 4–4 on F1 Duels.

Ferrari. Hamilton qualified fourth but took a three-place grid penalty for impeding Verstappen in Q1, which left him seventh and out of podium reach. Leclerc started second and finished second. He leads Hamilton vs Leclerc 6–1 in races this season, in our count.

Racing Bulls. The clearest use of the new rule came from Faenza. Liam Lawson backed up the cars behind him to open a gap for Isack Hadjar, who could then make his stops without losing much ground. Hadjar finished sixth and Lawson eighth. Hadjar vs Lawson now reads 5–0 in races, and this one was partly the team's doing.

Williams and Mercedes. Williams ran the same play with Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz, who took ninth and tenth. George Russell lost patience behind Albon, cut the Nouvelle Chicane to get by and kept the place, accepting a drive-through penalty instead. He finished 11th, still well ahead of Kimi Antonelli in 18th. Albon leads his duel with Sainz 5–1 in races.

What it means for the title

Norris cut Piastri's championship lead from 13 points to three. Verstappen is third, 25 points off the top. After eight rounds the two McLaren drivers are level on race wins against each other on F1 Duels, and three points apart in the real table. Every verdict from the weekend is on the Monaco GP duels page.