The Athletic

The Races

The Races on, and Kimmy Antonelli became the youngest ever winner of the Monaco Grand Prix

as pre-event favourite Ferrari founded and title rival George Russell came away with nothing.

But was there ever any chance of stopping the Italian? And what was going on with a disintegrating

track surface and avalanche of penalties? I'm Ed's draw and joining me for Monaco,

asked Scott Mitchell Mell and John Noble. Well, there's so much to talk about in this race,

especially all of those penalties and the track falling apart.

We'll get on to that in part two, but we want to talk about the battle at the front first. John,

we'll come straight to you. Heading into the weekend, even after Friday practice, in fact, everybody,

including those in the paddock, had Ferrari's favourite.

So how exactly did all of that turn into Kimmy Antonelli taking his fifth consecutive win from

pole position? Mercedes nailed its tyre prep and Kimmy Antoni did an absolutely outstanding job.

Phenomenal, struggled on Friday. It all looked, all those pre-event predictions that Ferrari

would be favourites, the smaller turbo, the low speed advantage of that car, the driveability,

the responsiveness. Lewis, in a happy place of the car, Charles O'Clair was being good at Monaco.

It all seemed to be lining up that way. McLaren were lost.

Red Bull has seemed to be close enough, but not quite in the ballpark.

And Mercedes was struggling with rear tire attempts.

But overnight work back at Brackley, Friday night in the simulator,

managed to sort out the mechanical balance, soften the car a bit, got the tire prep all sorted.

Add on top of that, Antonelli, you know, beautifully sorted in terms of his understanding of the sliding with these tires, how to fire up on the preparation lap, nailed the prep

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