Some Formula 1 teams are leaving the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix elated and highly encouraged about what their next few months might look like.
Others are heading home with wrecked cars and having been emphatically defeated.
Here’s our rundown of the big winners and losers.
Winner: Charles Leclerc (and Ferrari)
On a certain level, it has to be more relief even than pure elation.
Charles Leclerc is an elite sportsman so he'll have a higher ability than most when it comes to drowning out the noise - but a first Monaco GP win looked so emphatically his to lose from Friday afternoon. He had the feel, he had the car, he had the chance. Get it done now or set yourself up for more nervous agony when the race next rolls around.
The Monaco GP pole is, of course, 90% of the win, and it is probably because of that that the race actually feels so lose-able. Usually it's a procession, but sometimes the race win vanishes just because. Ask Lewis Hamilton. Ask Daniel Ricciardo. Ask Richard Verschoor and Isack Hadjar from the Formula 2 race earlier in the day.
None of them did anything wrong, and all of them lost - but Leclerc didn't need to ask any of them, because it's happened to him, too.
Because of how much in control the race leader is, how impossible it is to overtake, it's as if the race is actually tailor-made to break those it snatches away wins from.
And Leclerc's Sunday could've been much scarier. On lap one, as Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz suffered a puncture and fell out of contention, he suddenly had Oscar Piastri all over him and Lando Norris as the other car behind, giving McLaren potential strategic flexibility to try to trick him and Ferrari out of track positions during the pitstops. It's doable. It's been done.
Instead, the red flag not only restored Sainz to a handy position but eliminated the pitstop entirely, making whatever doubts existed over Ferrari's race pace relative to its rivals an irrelevance.
And, just under 80 laps later, there's that sweet, sweet relief. - Valentin Khorounzhiy
Loser: Kevin Magnussen
Fortunate to have escaped without penalty? Probably.
Fortunate that nothing more serious came of the crash? Certainly.
It wasn't clear where he thought the blame lay, but Magnussen's Haas team-mate Nico Hulkenberg summed the whole mess up best: "That was unnecessary." - Jack Cozens
Winner: Yuki Tsunoda
OK, finishing a full lap down on the car ahead isn't going to be the most glorious result of Yuki Tsunoda's season. And sure, eighth was probably only up for grabs because Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso underperformed in qualifying.
But this year's midfield battle is being defined by being in the right place to capitalise on those opportunities. And no driver's done that better than Tsunoda.
That's now five points finishes in the last six grands prix (or six from eight points-scoring opportunities including the sprints), and as a result he's already eclipsed his 2023 points total.
It's little wonder Tsunoda's attracting interest in the 2025 F1 driver market. If this form continues, will any of the bigger teams be tempted to have a look? - JC
Loser: Red Bull
The Red Bull RB20 clearly didn’t get along with the bumps of Monaco given Max Verstappen could only qualify sixth - and Perez was way down in 16th on the grid. This is a problem that might worry the team as it could rear its ugly head at other circuits such as Austin.
Verstappen was stuck behind Russell throughout the race, despite a late pitstop giving the champion renewed pace.
Perez was meanwhile slow to get off the line and fell into the hands of the Haas drivers. What happened next wasn’t his fault as Magnussen tipped him into a spectacular high-speed crash that essentially cemented Ferrari’s victory in Monaco.
But Red Bull scored just eight points in Monaco and Ferrari is now just 24 points behind in the constructors’ standings. - Samarth Kanal
Winner: McLaren
Not the victory McLaren was hoping for but Ferrari’s advantage was created in qualifying and consolidated when the red flags flew for that lap-one crash between the Haas and Red Bull’s Perez.
Yet McLaren left Monaco with 30 points, matching its tally from Imola as the team’s joint-highest haul of this campaign so far and Piastri took his first podium since the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix. Piastri needed this podium and will be hoping it helps builds momentum going into Montreal.
Norris might be disappointed as he missed out on the podium in Monaco but this was a strong fourth-place finish in which he was on Sainz’s tail throughout.
Most significantly, McLaren outscored Red Bull here. - SK
Loser: Esteban Ocon
The reputation for being the master of team-mate feuds will inevitably be a big part of the Esteban Ocon F1 story, whatever shape it takes when all is said and done.
Just because he has been the common denominator in Perez vs Ocon, Alonso vs Ocon and now Gasly vs Ocon doesn't mean that he is automatically the troublemaker, the instigator, the problem, though. It's not like, when it came to the on-track squabbles, team bosses often had reason to point specifically at Ocon over his team-mate at the time and say 'ah, well, that one's on you, buddy'.
Except today. Today... ah, well, that one's on you, buddy.
The move on Pierre Gasly may have been on in theory, as indeed there was a big discussion in The Race's work chat as to how the blame should be apportioned exactly.
But in an intra-team context it was an outrageous lunge that, however Ocon and Gasly played it once Ocon had committed to it, was always going to end with at least one or both cars severely compromised, whether in terms of damage or track position.
It is completely unsurprising Alpine team boss Bruno Famin was furious. He should be furious - but also dejected, because up to now Ocon had been one of the few bright spots of the team's weak season. - VK
Winner: Alex Albon
Albon's Williams didn't have the pace of Tsunoda's RB in Monaco - not once Tsunoda was unleashed in the closing stages, anyway, much to Albon's chagrin: "He absolutely cleared off at the end of the race and I was like, ‘You could have done this, the whole time'."
But that will matter little to both team and driver, having finally got off the mark for 2024 with what remains a very overweight FW46.
Albon and Williams played everything right this weekend, really. Albon nailed qualifying when it mattered, and the call to start on mediums was well-judged - opening up the chance to switch to hards under the red flag and therefore run to the finish.
Two points was just reward for a weekend executed efficiently. - JC
Loser: Haas
Monaco was Haas’s second-straight point-less weekend and it couldn’t have unfolded in more disastrous circumstances.
The crash on lap one that was instigated by Magnussen and collected his team-mate Hulkenberg and Perez’s Red Bull felt like insult to injury after the team was disqualified from qualifying in Monaco (of all places) on Saturday due to a rear wing infringement.
Given the progress Haas has made, this weekend only served to defeat its momentum. - SK
Winner: George Russell
There's an asterisk over George Russell's defeat of team-mate Lewis Hamilton this weekend, as only Russell ran the upgraded Mercedes front wing - although you wouldn't have been able to tell across the three practice sessions, with Hamilton ahead in each.
For a second weekend straight, Russell was 0.001s behind the next-fastest car in Q3, so maybe you also can't say that he maximised the weekend - surely 0.001s was there somewhere.
But of course it's impossible to hold that against him, and overall he came up good - in qualifying where he did, in running the race that he did, in staying well in control of that fifth position on old medium tyres even as the drivers behind him swapped to fresher rubber and caught back up.
That fifth position tied his and Mercedes' best grand prix finish of the season isn't exactly something to celebrate - but the body of evidence only continues to grow that Russell will live up to his end of the deal once Mercedes digs itself out of its current hole. - VK
Loser: Aston Martin
Slowing down the pack to give Lance Stroll a shot at points up ahead was a noble endeavour from Fernando Alonso, and a dissatisfying one given he is one of Formula 1’s most intense competitors. That’s where Aston Martin is now, and it’s jarring given the team was in contention for victory in last year’s Monaco GP.
Not only that, Stroll took the free pitstop and almost immediately clipped the wall and punctured his tyre, undoing his and Alonso’s hard work. This has been a disappointing return to old form for Stroll after a solid performance at Imola.
It must however be said that some of the recent criticism of Stroll has been unacceptable given the ableist language levelled at him. - SK
