Another gridwalk disaster and the fruity straight - Things you might've missed at the Monaco GP

Max Verstappen, Isack Hadjar, Fernando Alonso, generic, Monaco GP, 2025 — Photo: © IMAGO

Monaco Grand Prix

Another gridwalk disaster and the fruity straight - Things you might've missed at the Monaco GP

This weekend's Monaco Grand Prix certainly happened

Chris Deeley

Monday 26 May 2025 10:57

Well, the Monaco Grand Prix certainly happened on Sunday.

Sorry, what's that? You want to hear more in this intro about how there was some great on-track racing, the tension of not knowing the winner until the final lap, the drama to play off the glitz and glamour of the principality?

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Sorry to disappoint. There was one on-track overtake in the 78 laps, and that was from Lance Stroll. Only five cars finished on the lead lap. The race was, in almost every conceivable way, dreadful.

But as you dozed off on the sofa, you might've missed...

Another gridwalk nightmare

It's not unusual for Martin Brundle's gridwalk to go entertainingly wrong - that's half the fun of the whole thing. But this time, he stumbled on the type of person he should've been able to play off perfectly, a theoretically quick-witted stand-up comic.

Unfortunately for him and us, that stand-up was Michael McIntyre. Since there wasn't enough room on the packed start-finish for him to run around in circles shouting about nothing before shaking his head around a lot, he seemed a bit lost.

An absolute car crash of a segment ended with him shouting at Brundle about wheels and circles not being the same thing (?) before the Sky Sports stalwart moved on. Seriously, even the notorious wildcard Chris Gayle was a more normal grid interview on Sunday.

The Pit Banana

'It's not a pit straight, it's more of a...pit banana'.

If ever there was a sentence destined for this column the moment it was uttered, that was it. And David Croft was right in his own way, the grid at this particular race isn't the arrow-straight shot that almost every other track has.

But you can't be saying things like 'pit banana' on a broadcast. It cannot be borne.

Prime position

This entry is being brought up almost reluctantly in the interests of not tempting fate, but: Amazon mogul Jess Bezos was at the race this weekend.

What does that mean? Probably nothing, 'rich man goes to fancy event in place where rich people go' isn't exactly headline news in this world.

Unless...you take it in the context of Bezos' Amazon showing their first exclusive NASCAR race this weekend, and the rest of their aggressive push into the live sports arena. In that context, it's very interesting indeed.

No spraying royalty

Only in Monaco would the three drivers on the podium have to be very seriously briefed that they mustn't spray the prince with champagne when they're celebrating.

Zak Brown got the brunt of the spray instead, taking to the podium to celebrate with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on the weekend that he'd chosen Monaco over his team running at the Indy 500.

Don't spray Prince Albert with champagne. Good advice.

Uhhh...nothing

There really isn't a fifth thing. Honestly, look at how deep we've had to dig to get up to four. It might have been the worst Formula 1 race of the decade, if not the 21st century.

It stunk. Nothing happened. There was no fun, there were no talking points. People just made slightly more pit stops than normal. It was Bad. Bring on Barcelona.

F1 RESULTS: Norris takes win on final lap after Monaco Grand Prix flop

F1 Mercedes Monaco Grand Prix Lance Stroll Martin Brundle