The mandatory two-stop strategy and extreme team tactics that format triggered shaped an odd Monaco Grand Prix - but who actually drove well amid the traffic jams?
Here's Edd Straw's ranking of all 20 drivers' performances - and if you want to quiz him about it, you can do so in The Race Members' Club on Patreon and he'll answer your points in his rankings debrief video.
How do the rankings work? The 20 drivers will be ranked in order of performance from best to worst on each grand prix weekend. This will be based on the full range of criteria, ranging from pace and racecraft to consistency and whether they made key mistakes. How close each driver got to delivering on the maximum performance potential of the car will be an essential consideration.
It’s important to note both that this reflects performance across the entire weekend, cognisant of the fact that qualifying is effectively ‘lap 0’ of the race and key to laying the foundations to the race, and that it is not a ranking of the all-round qualities of each driver. It’s simply about how they performed on a given weekend. Therefore, the ranking will fluctuate significantly from weekend to weekend.
And with each of the 10 cars fundamentally having different performance potential and ‘luck’ (ie factors outside of a driver’s control) contributing to the way the weekend plays out, this ranking will also differ significantly from the overall results.
Started: 1st Finished: 1st
This was Norris back on top form, producing a brilliant pole position lap, 0.175 seconds faster than McLaren team-mate and championship rival Oscar Piastri in third, then controlling the race well.
Other than the lock-up at the first corner, he didn't put a foot wrong on his way to a much-needed victory and stood firm in the tricky closing stages under pressure from Charles Leclerc as Max Verstappen backed him up. He was also the stronger McLaren driver all weekend.
Verdict: A superbly put-together weekend.
Started: 2nd Finished: 2nd
After topping all three free practice sessions and Q1, Leclerc was understandably a little disappointed to miss out on pole position by a tenth of a second.
However, he felt that even factoring in his build-up to the final lap being compromised by traffic on his first Q3 run, the McLaren had the edge.
He did what he could to try to threaten Norris in the race, but there was no realistic opportunity to challenge him.
Verdict: Needed his virtuosity to split the McLarens.
Started: 5th Finished: 6th
Hadjar looked sporadically quick, but suffered damage by clipping the wall twice on Friday and inspired slightly less confidence than Racing Bulls team-mate Liam Lawson after practice.
But come qualifying he nailed it, qualifying as the best of the mid-pack teams just one thousandth faster than Fernando Alonso.
He held fifth at the start and Lawson backing the pack up set his strategy, one that effectively ceded a position to Lewis Hamilton but guaranteed him sixth.
Verdict: Couldn't have qualified or finished higher.
Started: 8th Finished: 7th
Ocon's Imola struggles appeared to be continuing throughout Monaco practice, but his weekend came alive in Q2, meaning he unexpectedly made Q3 then produced a superb wall-brushing lap he described as one of the "three good laps around Monaco in my career".
He effectively held position throughout the race, gaining a place when Alonso retired.
Verdict: Outstanding Q2/Q3 led to strong result.
Started: 6th Finished: DNF
Alonso did a virtuoso job in qualifying to lap just one thousandth behind Hadjar and always had a pace advantage over Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll, although this was exaggerated by how Q1 played out.
He was on target for points, but from lap 21 of 78 an ERS problem that would ultimately eliminate him started to manifest itself, costing him performance even before he stopped.
Verdict: Strong performance but let down by machinery.
Started: 4th Finished: 4th
Red Bull's low-speed struggles meant Verstappen was never a factor in Monaco, although he appeared to leave a little time on the table on his final Q3 lap, albeit not enough to make any difference to his starting position - especially given Hamilton, who qualified fourth, had a grid penalty.
He did what he could in the race to try to gain places, including a long middle stint in the hope of a red flag and backing Norris up into Leclerc, but there was no opportunity to improve on fourth.
Verdict: Left a little time on the table on Saturday.
Started: 3rd Finished: 3rd
Piastri never looked as comfortable as Norris on what he described as a "messy" weekend, adding that "I've hit more walls this weekend than I have in my whole career".
The 0.175s deficit to Norris exaggerated the gap as Piastri didn't string together the best lap at the end of Q3, and this set him on course for the third place he effectively held throughout the race.
Verdict: Just that half-step off his team-mate.
Started: 9th Finished: 8th
Lawson looked strong from the start of practice, although he ultimately played second-fiddle to Racing Bulls team-mate Hadjar and lapped a couple of tenths slower in Q3.
He played the team game well by backing up the pack to guarantee Hadjar a strong result, then benefitted from Carlos Sainz doing the same for Alex Albon, ensuring he held position - picking up one place thanks to Alonso's retirement.
Verdict: A good weekend, but second-best Racing Bulls driver.
Started: 10th Finished: 9th
With Williams struggling to get the best out of the C6 soft tyres, Albon starred with a superb lap to set the third-fastest time in Q2 but then couldn't put a lap anything like as quick as that together in Q3.
"Something happened on the Q2 lap that made the tyre switch on, and I never got that feeling again," was his summary.
He got caught behind Lawson early in the race, then benefitted from Williams pulling the same trick with Sainz to hold up the pack behind. Albon then became the roadblock to help Sainz, being let past his team-mate to regain ninth place in the final stint.
Verdict: Quick but tyre troubles meant that speed was erratic.
Started: 14th Finished: 11th
Having struggled throughout the weekend, what Russell called a "back to basics" set-up approach meant he felt in contention from the start of qualifying.
However, his Mercedes' engine cut out over a bump exiting Ste Devote, leading to him grinding to a halt before setting a time in Q2.
A big part of his race was spent in traffic, but his decision to take a penalty for cutting the track uncorked the bottle and, with team-mate Kimi Antonelli's help, he at least finished 11th.
Verdict: Promising progress ruined by Q2 failure.
Started: 7th Finished: 5th
Hamilton never looked like matching Ferrari team-mate Leclerc's pace, although his FP3 shunt at Massenet - which was contributed to by traffic causing turbulence he should have factored in - put him on the back foot.
So, too, did impeding Verstappen - although he was misled by the pitwall, which told him the Red Bull driver had backed off.
Hamilton's race was unremarkable, at one stage losing significant time in traffic, although he did at least overcut Hadjar and Alonso before his first stop.
Verdict: Solid but not one of his better Monaco weekends.
Started: 11th Finished: 10th
Sainz struggled with the feel of the Williams in Monaco, admitting after qualifying that "I feel like the moment I went to a street track I went back seven places".
Team-mate Albon also had troubles, but Sainz was the second-best of the Williams drivers.
That meant he just missed out on Q3, although he at least qualified well enough to be Albon's rear-gunner then benefit from his team-mate returning the favour to salvage a point.
Verdict: A step back after recent progress.
Started: 13th Finished: 16th
Although there were hopes that the Sauber might have a Q3 shot, it was firmly in Q2-on-a-good-day territory in Monaco. And Hulkenberg made good on that with a decent qualifying - albeit only just shading his team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto.
With the various midfield roadblocks, he was on a hiding to nothing in the race, losing a place on the final lap to Stroll's attack - albeit partly because he realised that picking up damage trying to hang on to 15th place was of little value.
Verdict: A decent job in probably the ninth-best car.
Started: 20th Finished: 12th
The 10-place grid penalty for overtaking Sainz under the red flag was harsh but, considering Bearman did have a few seconds to react and the safety-critical nature, fair - although the circumstances mean it doesn't hurt his ranking as much as it normally would.
He was three-and-a-half tenths up on Ocon on his final Q1 lap when he backed off to avoid eliminating his Haas team-mate.
The early stop was the logical move, but ultimately left him spending much of the race in traffic - enlivened by surviving a moment at the Swimming Pool exit when he launched the car over a kerb.
Verdict: Quick but undone by 10-place grid penalty.
Started: 12th Finished: 17th
Once again, Tsunoda showed promise at times but didn't string things together in qualifying, falling in Q2.
While he complained about traffic, on his two flying laps on the final run he passed the sum total of one car, up the hill out of Ste Devote, suggesting there was adequate opportunity to advance despite the earlier red flag interruption disrupting his first run.
A first-lap pitstop and holding out until late for the second condemned him to spending most of the afternoon in a traffic jam.
Verdict: Frustrating pattern of weekends continues.
Started: 19th Finished: 15th
One grid penalty for chopping into Leclerc in FP1 could be considered unlucky, but to get a second for getting in Pierre Gasly's way in qualifying suggests a lack of awareness by Stroll.
And while misfortune played a part in Stroll's Q1 elimination with traffic and then, on his final lap, Antonelli going off at the chicane, even his best pace relative to Aston Martin team-mate Alonso was unremarkable.
This condemned him to an afternoon spent largely in the rolling roadblocks, although he did produce a great last-lap pass on Hulkenberg at the chicane.
Verdict: So-so performance made worse by poor execution.
Started: 18th Finished: 13th
Given Colapinto was only on his second outing for Alpine and in a car that was a nightmare over the bumps, qualifying slowest and six tenths off Gasly was understandable, if unremarkable.
He had no opportunity to do anything other than go for what he called "a Sunday drive" given he spent much of the race after his lap 13 pitstop in traffic jams.
Verdict: Lacked confidence on tricky first Monaco weekend.
Started: 16th Finished: 14th
Although Bortoleto was behind Sauber team-mate Hulkenberg in qualifying, the gap was just 0.031s. That showed how strong he was on his Monaco F1 debut, even though it was enough to put him on the wrong side of the split at the end of Q1.
Unfortunately, his race started badly as he nosed into the Portier barrier thanks to making the mistake of trying to hang on around the outside of Antonelli. A change of front wing and a three-stop race yielded 13th place.
Verdict: Impressed with pace, but should have avoided Portier crash.
Started: 15th Finished: 18th
Just as at Imola, Antonelli struggled to get on top of the C6 Pirellis but had done just enough to advance to Q2 when he clipped the inside barrier at the Nouvelle chicane and then hit the wall in the middle of the chicane as a result of damage.
He was one of the many who spent almost the whole race in a traffic jam, albeit at one point playing the role of roadblock himself, making his two pitstops late on and dropping to last.
Verdict: Qualifying crash ensures lowly ranking.
Started: 17th Finished: DNF
Gasly battled in vain in an Alpine that couldn't cope with the Monaco bumps and that was significantly slower than the car was in 2024 as a result.
In that context, beating anyone other than Colapinto in qualifying was an achievement.
Gasly blamed Tsunoda for moving under braking leading to him rear-ending the Red Bull early on in the race, although it was an incident he could have seen coming given Tsunoda was always taking a middling line towards the corner.
Verdict: A weekend to forget.
