The hopeless dream of catching Max Verstappen in Monaco

F1

Fernando Alonso had hopes of winning the Monaco GP, but they were crushed at every stage by Max Verstappen: Mark Hughes on the F1 World Champion's masterclass

Max Verstappen drives over zebra crossing in 2023 F1 Monaco Grand Prix

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Mark Hughes

A masterclass by Max Verstappen. Pole despite a car unable to switch on its tyres quickly enough was the foundation, but to convert that to victory required a combination of pace and tyre whispering that removed any chance the harder-tyred Fernando Alonso might have had of stealing a win for Aston Martin. Even the interrupting influence of rain 50 laps in couldn’t loosen Verstappen’s total grip of this race.

In recent years Monaco races have seen the leader bunch the field up, protecting themselves against the undercut by denying their pursuer any gaps to drop into. That’s not a luxury Verstappen could afford because with Alonso alongside him on the front row starting on the hard tyre, the medium-tyred Verstappen needed to pull out a gap as the Aston would likely be able to run longer. The variation in starting compounds now that the top 10 are no longer obliged to start the race on their Q2 tyre has made that old Monaco race style obsolete, thankfully.

Max Verstappen edges close to the barriers in 2023 Monaco Grand Prix

Verstappen pulled out a gap to Alonso and conserved his tyres in the early stages

Rudy Carezzevoli /F1 via Getty Images

With the radar suggesting rain in the race’s latter stages, Red Bull was concerned that Alonso would be able to run his hards all the way to any changeover to intermediates or wets, possibly saving a pitstop over Verstappen on his less durable tyres.

So Verstappen had to a) pull out a significant gap over Alonso yet at the same time b) get his softer tyres to last a long time. Two conflicting demands resolved brilliantly. Not only was Verstappen the only driver to get a set of mediums all the way to the inters phase, he’d pulled out a gap of over 12sec in the process – and the mediums that came off his car were in a better state than the hards which had just been discarded by Alonso.

The crucial steps along the way were:

Setting pole

Easier said than done, even in a Red Bull. Because with its lack of pitch and dive – a crucial part of its overall advantage – it takes longer than other cars to get heat into the front tyres. Around a circuit with the lowest energy inputs of the season, that was a problem. It meant the Red Bull needed two prep laps – which meant it couldn’t access the tyre’s peak grip as well as Alonso’s Aston, which required just one prep lap.

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So the Aston was faster in sectors 1 and 2 and by the time Verstappen was approaching the swimming pool he was almost 0.3sec adrift. In the final sector, he clawed back all that time, plus an extra eight-hundredths with an extraordinary display of ragged edge commitment.

It had taken all Verstappen’s genius to put a tricky combination on pole. But once in the race, with everyone’s tyres up to temperature, it could be expected much of the Red Bull’s usual pace advantage would be there, and so it proved.

Getting the gaps

Once he’d won the start, Verstappen’s order of tasks were to get out of undercut range (around 2.5sec) and thence establish a safety car margin (around 10sec), all while keeping his more delicate tyres in good shape. These tasks were achieved after nine laps and 22 respectively. From there, he just maintained the gap – albeit at a pace around 1.5-2sec off what was possible if he’d just driven all-out (as demonstrated by the last-place starting team-mate Sergio Perez, who after making a switch of tyres on the first lap was pushing to catch the tail of the pack).

Max Verstappen ahead of Fernando Alonso at Loews hairpin in 2023 Monaco Grand Prix

Verstappen eventually had a gap of more than 10sec over Alonso before the rain came

Joe Portlock/F1 via Getty Images

Without safety cars, only Alonso was even the vaguest threat to Verstappen – as Esteban Ocon in third had chosen a very gentle pace in his Alpine in order to look after his mediums, bunching the Ferraris, Mercs and team mate Pierre Gasly behind him. So he was 10sec behind Alonso after as many laps.

Managing the change to inters

The rain arrived, Alonso pitted – but had a set of mediums fitted! “It was very clear that the track on that lap we stopped was completely dry, apart from Turn 7 and 8,” he explained. “So, I stopped for dries. The weather forecast, it was small shower, and the small quantity of rain as well, what we had, as a team, and we had a lot of margin behind us, to put the dry tyres and, if necessary, the inter tyres. But that minute and a half that it took to go through Turns 5, 6, 7 and 8 again, it changed completely, and was very wet when I go to those corners, but the lap that we stopped, it was completely dry.”

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He had more than a pitstop gap to Ocon, so no real risk of position. The upside was that if it stopped raining quickly and dried and Verstappen had stopped for inters, Alonso would save a pitstop over the Red Bull and win the race. Aston judged it a gamble worth taking.

Verstappen, who came in next lap, lost around 5sec as his in-lap included scraping the wall approaching Portier. He was fitted with inters. Alonso came in again a few seconds later for his own inters, correcting the choice of the previous lap.

What would have happened had Fernando gone to inters rather than fresh slicks? It would have been close but the numbers suggest Verstappen would still have been somewhere between 2 and 5sec ahead – and from there could have pulled away.  The rain didn’t change the outcome and neither did Aston’s gamble.

And that was how Verstappen and Red Bull did it.

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