Brazilian Felipe Drugovich, starting in pole position, won the Formula 2 Feature Race on Sunday after resisting during 42 laps to Théo Pourchaire who tried everything, but in vain, to overtake him. The gap between the two young drivers, who still lead the way in the general classification of the championship, varied between three tenths and one second, depending on the interventions of the Safety Car, but the French ART Grand Prix driver never had an opportunity to pass the leader of the MP Motorsport team.

Two drivers had stalled on the grid, Liam Lawson and Roy Nissany, and then started from the pits, without any hope of doing well in the race. At the front of the grid, Drugovich jumped into the lead, followed by Pourchaire, Jack Doohan and Juri Vips. Winner of the Sprint Race on Saturday, Dennis Hauger stopped first in the pits, to change tyres, then Doohan, the son of a former motorcycle world champion, was overtaken in the pits during his tire change, by Vips whose team of mechanics was faster.

There was a first appearance of the Safety Car, halfway through the race, after Cordeel touched the wall at the Antony-Noghès corner. The race started again for 20 laps, with Drugovich half a second ahead of Pourchaire, who had pitted at the same lap to change tyres. Then a  second exit of the red Mercedes was caused by another misfortune for Clément Novalak: the French rookie was pushed against the wall by Lawson at the exit of the Fairmont hairpin, 18 laps from the end.
After the restart, Drugovich remained very vigilant with Pourchaire in his mirrors, and Vips further behind. The places of honor were taken by Doohan, ahead of Enzo Fittipaldi, the grandson of Emerson, a double F1 world champion in the 70s, Marcus Armstrong , Dennis Hauger, winner of the Sprint Race on Saturday, and Jehan Daruvala, one of the major title contenders. Finally, there was a last small collision between Calan Williams and Ayumu Iwasa, who were fighting for 10th place, at the Fairmont Hairpin.

In the F2 championship, after ten rounds, Drugovich, the winner four times, is now 32 points ahead of Pourchaire, but the season is far from over.

Race 2 of the Formula Regional Europe by Alpine Championship (FRECA) opened Sunday in style and was won, as expected, by Swede Dino Beganovic. He started from pole position, lead all the way through and is now an even stronger leader at the top of the championship: 3 wins this season, and three second places, in six rounds. An almost perfect score for the talented member of the Ferrari Driver Academy.

Winner of Race 1 on Saturday, Frenchman Hadrien David had a good and steady race, after taking an excellent start, and he never gave Italian Gabriele Mini the slightest hope of overtaking him. Most of the single-seaters arrived safely, around thirty in total, and the first podium of the day concluded a race without surprise, on a dry track, as a few clouds were beginning to settle in the Monegasque sky. Laurens Van Hoepen was the fastest rookie. Dutch Driver, Laurens Van Hoepen, was also invited on the podium as the “fastest rookie of the day”.

French skier Arthur Bauchet, a treble gold medalist at the last Paralympic Games in Beijing, is a special guest this weekend at Monaco Grand Prix. The winner in downhill, slalom and super-combined, this winter in China, 21-year-old Bauchet also claimed a bronze medal in Giant Slalom and took 4th in Super-Giant. He runs in the “standing” category and suffers from spastic paraparesis, a genetic disease that causes tremors. Now based in Gap, in the Hautes-Alpes, to be closer to the ski slopes, Bauchet had already won four silver medals in Korea in 2018. Passionate about sport, he came with all his medals and posed for the photo at the headquarters of the ACM, which he visited upon his arrival. Then he spent Saturday in the race direction HQ, with a breathtaking view over the pits and the Swimming-Pool. An unforgettable day for the young champion, delighted to have discovered F1 in ideal conditions.

The Formula 2 Sprint Race, late Saturday afternoon (30 laps), was won by Norwegian Dennis Hauger (Prema Racing), ahead of Indian teammate Jehan Daruvala who took valuable points for the championship. Hauger took advantage of a major incident at the start, when poleman Jake Hughes stalled on the grid, instantly losing the benefit of his 10th place on Friday in qualifying and his pole position due to the reverse grid concept (for the top ten drivers in qualifying).

Hauger and Daruvala took the opportunity to jump into the lead, followed by Marcus Armstrong, Enzo Fittipaldi, Juri Vips, Frenchman Théo Pourchaire, the winner last year in the Principality, Jack Doohan and Liam Lawson, the sons of two world motorbike champions. While Felipe Drugovich (MP Motorsport), the championship leader, suffered a puncture and had to return to the pits, losing all chances of scoring points.

Another racing incident occurred when French rookie Clément Novalak was pushed into the safety barrier by a competitor, at La Rascasse. His car stalled and the race direction sent the Safety Car on track to slow down the pack. Then the race restarted but nothing changed in the standings.

Drugovich will have another chance on Sunday when he starts from pole position for the Feature Race, with Pourchaire by his side on the front row. This is scheduled at 9:50 am, for 42 laps or one hour maximum.

Charles Leclerc will start from pole position on Sunday at 3:00 pm, in his Ferrari, for the 79th Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix, after emerging victorious from a perfectly managed qualifying session. He started it by posting a phenomenal time (1:11.376), in line with his faultless performance since Friday. And the session ended with a big blunder by Sergio Pérez, Max Verstappen’s lieutenant at Red Bull Racing.

This qualifying session, the most anticipated of the entire F1 season, began with Q1 interrupted two minutes from the end, when Yuki Tsunoda hit a safety barrier with his AlphaTauri: five drivers were then eliminated, namely China’s Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo), both Canadians Nicholas Latifi (Williams) and Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Thailand’s Alex Albon (Williams) and Frenchman Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri), who hoped better from this session but was trapped by the red flag.

There was another notable elimination in Q2, Australian Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren), accompanied in his misfortune by Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri), Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) and both Haas drivers, Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher, five drivers grouped together in two tenths of a second. And four teams were to be doubly represented in Q3: Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes and Alpine, while McLaren could only count on Lando Norris and Aston Martin on Sebastian Vettel.

There were only 12 minutes of suspense left and the big crowd, in the grandstands and the VIP boxes, was not disappointed. Most of the spectators, in particular the Monegasques and Italians, were hoping for a pole position for Charles Leclerc. They were overwhelmed by a slightly unexpected 1-2 from the Scuderia, with the added bonus of an ideal scenario: by hitting the safety barrier just before the tunnel, on his own, in the last minutes of the session, Pérez prevented teammate Verstappen from finishing his ultimate attempt to beat Leclerc’s time.

So Leclerc kept his second pole in a row at Monaco Grand Prix, and the 14th of his career, with the added bonus of his great Dutch rival on the second row. It could hardly have turned out better for the Monegasque. The test of truth is still scheduled for Sunday at 3:00 pm. Leclerc will be the real favourite.

Free Practice 3, Saturday at lunchtime, allowed Sergio Pérez to shine again, by stealing the best time from Charles Leclerc at the very end of the session, in order to come back to 2-1 in the provisional score of the weekend’s meetings between Scuderia Ferrari and Red Bull Racing. The Mexican achieved a super lap in 1:12.476, creating a 41/1000 gap on the Monegasque hero, credited a little earlier with a 1:12.517, following two Friday sessions that Leclerc had dominated from start to finish .

The leading quartet in this last rehearsal was completed by Carlos Sainz in the other Ferrari, ahead of reigning world champion Max Verstappen in the other Red Bull, who probably saved a bit of energy for the qualifying session scheduled for 4 pm. This qualifying session promised to be hotter than ever: behind the two “top teams” of the moment a fair distribution happened between five other teams: Pierre Gasly 5th in his Alpha Tauri, Lando Norris 6th in his McLaren, and Lewis Hamilton in 7th place (7 as in his collection of world titles), in his Mercedes, on which some problems may have been solved since yesterday.

The Top 10 of this very last free practice session was completed by Kevin Magnussen (Haas) 8th, George Russell (Mercedes) 9th and Fernando Alonso (Alpine) 10th. So that Q1 and especially Q2 will probably be very intense, in order to determine the names of drivers allowed to chase pole in Q3. To be continued.

There were two mini-races of 5 minutes each, Saturday morning in Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine (FRECA), interspersed with a red flag and a long pit stop. Each time, the Frenchman Hadrien David, who started from pole position, won, knowing that the second start was given behind the Safety Car, an all-white Alpine A110 road car. Since this is the Monaco Grand Prix, there was also a podium in front of the Prince’s box, on the finish line, with cups and personalities. David was joined there by young Swede Dino Beganovic, still well ahead at the top of the championship, and Dutchman Kas Haverkort, who was very happy to complete the Top 3.

The red flag was caused by a collision at the Fairmont hairpin, which was followed by a traffic jam of single-seaters, but the damage was not serious and almost all competitors were able to restart after 15 minutes in the pits. There will be a second FRECA race on Sunday morning, starting at 8.35am. Beganovic, the quickest on Friday in qualifications, will be in pole position, hoping for a similar result to David’s on Saturday.

Ferrari and Red Bull went blow for blow in Free Practice 2, just to end Friday on a positive note, with a slight psychological advantage. The leading quartet moved for an hour, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, for the Scuderia, Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez, for Red Bull Racing, ensuring a colorful spectacle, without sparing their efforts. At the end of this first street brawl, a perfect teaser for a fierce weekend, the local hero, Monegasque Charles Leclerc, finished at the top of the time sheet, same as in FP1 earlier in the afternoon, with a time of 1:12.656, just ahead of his Spanish teammate and both Red Bull drivers in an unusual order, with the Mexican ahead of the Dutchman.

Behind the four untouchables, the places of honor were also hotly contested, between five different teams: McLaren, with Lando Norris (5th) all alone following Daniel Ricciardo’s big crash at the Swimming Pool, which caused a red flag to be deployed for several minutes, Mercedes with George Russell (6th), AlphaTauri thanks to Pierre Gasly (7th), Alpine represented by Fernando Alonso (8th) and Aston Martin, with Sebastian Vettel (9th) in the Top 10. So that Saturday promises to be thrilling with a qualifying session where no expert can reasonably predict a detailed result. It will happen Saturday from 4 pm in the streets of Monaco. And it will be hot.

Photo : © Philippe Magoni

The reigning Porsche Supercup champion, Larry ten Voorde, is on track to do it again in the streets of Monaco: he set the fastest time in qualifying on Friday and will start from pole position on Sunday at noon, with the surprising Briton Harry King just behind him. A time of 1:34.500 was enough for the Dutchman in his orange and black Porsche to beat King and the best Frenchman in the Supercup, Dorian Boccolacci, 3rd in these qualifications and 3rd in the race last year for his Porsche Supercup debut in the streets of the Principality.

Victory should be decided on Sunday between these three drivers and the next three on the grid will be serious candidates for a podium position: German Laurin Heinrich (4th), who hit the safety barrier and caused a short-lived red flag, at the end of the session, Luxemburg’s Dylan Pereira (5th), who won last month at Imola, and another German, Michael Ammermüller (6th), winner here in Monaco in 2019.

After Heinrich’s soft touch on the wall, the Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM) marshals, as efficient as always, intervened very quickly and enabled this session to end in style, with ten Voorde’s best time and the 3rd one for Boccolacci. Very promising for Sunday, when the most awaited race of this historic season, that of the 30th anniversary of the Porsche Mobil1 Supercup, will start at noon, for 17 laps (or 30 minutes maximum).

He is eagerly awaited this weekend and has every intention of making a faultless run until Sunday. It’s off to a good start, with the best time in Free Practice 1 on Friday afternoon for Charles Leclerc, in his Ferrari, in 1:14.531, with a tiny margin ahead of Sergio Pérez’s Red Bull (1:14.570) and on Carlos Sainz’s other Ferrari (1:14.601). A fourth driver fell below the 1:15 lap mark, world champion Max Verstappen, 4th fastest in this inaugural session where he tried to find the limit and went straight at Sainte-Dévote, without damaging his Red Bull carrying number 1.

The good surprise came from McLaren who set the 5th (Lando Norris) and 7th times (Daniel Ricciardo). Between the two drivers of the English team, the best Frenchman of this FP1, Pierre Gasly, took 6th in his AlphaTauri. Even if we cannot rely on a first session to draw hasty conclusions, it is already clear that the Scuderia has prepared this meeting in Monaco well and that Mercedes, despite obvious progress in recent weeks, is not yet back at the top of the F1 hierarchy: George Russell (8th) edged out Lewis Hamilton (10th) and another world champion, Sebastian Vettel (9th), pointed his Aston Martin’s nose in the Top 10.

The good news is that we won’t have to wait too long, only for Friday’s FP2 session at 5:00 pm, to find out if these trends are confirmed…