At the front of the grid, McLaren’s Lando Norris converted his pole position into his second win of the season, ahead of hometown hero Charles Leclerc of Ferrari in second.

Norris had won the season-opening race in Australia, but has largely taken a back seat to his teammate ever since, with McLaren in complete control of the constructors championship.

World championship leader Oscar Piastri finished where he started in third, as Max Verstappen settled for fourth after leading for most of the latter half of the race, before having to undertake his second and final pit stop.

Despite Norris’ win, Piastri still leads the drivers championship with 161 points from the first eight races of the year. However, that lead is now just three points from Norris’ 158.

Racing Bulls’ 12 points gained, meanwhile, moves the team up to seventh on the constructors standings.

With only 159m from the start line to turn one, Lawson held his starting place of ninth as the lights went out, as teams contemplated when they would take their first stop over the course of the 78 lap race.

But when Gabriel Bortoleto hit the wall at turn eight on the first lap to trigger a virtual safety car, the first cars headed for the pits.

Lawson, though, stayed out on a set of medium tyres, and held his place behind Haas’ Esteban Ocon as the virtual safety car ended on lap four.

However, despite the racing on track, all eyes remained fixed on the pits, as the 10 teams began a game of cat and mouse to see which of the leaders would stop first.

On lap nine, Pierre Gasly lost his front left wheel when he went into the back of Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda coming out of the tunnel at turn 10, leaving debris on track to trigger a yellow flag. The damage to Gasly’s car saw him limp back to the Alpine garage, and closed pit lane for two laps.

Once racing resumed on lap 11, Lawson was nine seconds back from Ocon, with Williams’ Alex Albon hot on his heels in 10th, less than one second back.

From there, Lawson dropped his pace as a means of holding the rest of the field behind him at bay, and create room for Hadjar to pit without re-entering the race stuck behind slower cars, with no opportunity to pass.

With the gap to Ocon, Hadjar pitted on lap 15, and emerged in eighth place on soft tyres. Pit strategy saw Hadjar lose a place to Lewis Hamilton, only for the Racing Bulls driver to take his second stop four laps later, and give himself 58 laps to complete on his third set of tyres.

Once Hadjar’s strategy was complete, Lawson was able to put his foot down and close the gap to his teammate to less than two seconds, albeit without having pitted yet along with the respective Mercedes and Williams cars.

Lawson climbed a place when Ocon pitted on lap 29, before he took his first stop on lap 32, and emerged in 10th on a set of soft tyres, which became ninth when Albon pitted one lap later, and then another on lap 38 when Alonso retired with a power unit failure.

Running eighth, but lapped by Norris, Lawson pitted again on lap 42 to get his final stop out of the way, and emerged where he entered to put himself on course for his best finish in Formula One.

With 35 laps left to run, all that was needed was for Lawson to get to the end of the race without incident. Lawson ate into Ocon’s lead in front of him, reducing it from more than 16 seconds to less than one, and gave himself a chance at using his Drag Reduction System (DRS) on the main straight.

But even given his tyres were 11 laps fresher than Ocon’s, the narrow streets of Monte Carlo ultimately told, even as Racing Bulls claimed a first double points finish since Austin 2023.

Formula One now heads to Barcelona for the last race of this block of three in three weeks, for next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

Monaco Grand Prix finishing order

DID NOT FINISH: Fernando Alonso – Aston Martin, Pierre Gasly – Alpine

Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.