The European leg of the 2026 Formula 1 season kicked off around the streets of the Monaco Grand Prix and after 78 laps around the principality Kimi Antonelli crossed the line to secure his fifth victory in a row.
It was a race of attrition with only 15 of the 22 drivers reaching the chequered flag and a slew of penalties handed out during and after the race. How did the five British drivers fair around the streets of Monaco.
Lewis Hamilton- Qualified: 3rd Finished: 2nd
Lewis Hamilton came into the weekend as one of the front-running favourites to take victory and fell harrowingly short but secured back to back P2 finishes and pushed himself up into 2nd in the championship standings.
Whilst the challenge to Antonelli didn’t really happen for Hamilton with the young Italian dominating the grand prix, throughout the weekend Lewis looked rapidly quick and comes away in a fine run of form.
Arvid Linblad- Qualified: 15th Finished: 6th
Linblad showed the qualities of an experienced driver in the hardest test of his Formula 1 career. Coming into the race his weekend looked to bring home no points but the VCARB team made the best of others misfortunes and capitalised with a P5 and P6 finish for Liam Lawson and Linblad respectively.
Qualifying was nothing to write home about with a Q2 exit but keeping his nose clean throughout the weekend around the most mentally taxing circuit to date for Linblad a P6 finish is an absolutely incredible result.
George Russell-Qualified: 6th Finished: 12th
In what needed to be a turnaround weekend not only for his form but for his season on the whole Russell found himself having the absolute worst case scenario race following his zero points scored in Canada.
Russell looked off the pace of teammate Antonelli all weekend and struggled to make progress during the grand prix, then a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane followed by a drive-through penalty for not serving the penalty, put the writing on the wall for Russell’s weekend.
Lando Norris- Qualified: 8th Finished: DNF
Another British driver to suffer back to back pointless weekends, more worrying for Norris is the matter of back to back retirements due to power unit related issues.
A poor qualifying and overall lack of pace all weekend forced McLaren and Norris into damage limitation but it was even more misery for the reigning world champion, who looks all but out of the title fight already.
Ollie Bearman- Qualified: 19th Finished: DNF
The most disappointed driver from the weekend has to be Bearman. The weekend started sourly when the two Haas drivers nearly clashed in practice and a Q1 exit was all but over for Bearman scoring any points.
In a weekend when Haas looked competitive and Ocon scored points a retirement due to a brake issue all but compounded the miserable weekend the youngster had.
Main Image credits- Ferrari
