LANDO NORRIS roared “it’s a dream”;; as he won the creme de la creme of F1 races to give his title charge a major boost.
The British McLaren driver, 25, was with his second win of the season after pulling off a perfect double pit stop in the race’s new format.
overcame his qualifying demons on Saturday to bag pole position buoyed by his model and actress in the McLaren garage.
Charles Leclerc settled for second on his home turf and Oscar Piastri came in third in the other McLaren ahead of fourth-place Max Verstappen while Lewis Hamilton bagged a solid fifth.
Dutchman Verstappen was technically leading the race until the second to last lap and was hoping for a red flag having not made his mandatory second pitstop until then.
At the start, Norris survived despite a big lock up with his front tyres and there was no change from the how the rest of the top ten lined up.
Drama erupted when Gabriel Bortoleto crashed nose first into the barriers at Portier, sparking a virtual safety car and a flurry of pit stops from Ollie Bearman, Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda at the back.
Gasly’s wheel was left hanging on by a thread though and without brakes after going into the back of Red Bull’s Tsunoda leaving it game over for the Frenchman.
Hamilton was the first of the big guns to stop on lap 19 and reemerged in sixth and Lando Norris followed suit one lap later, coming out fourth.
Piastri pitted but it was sluggish as there was an issue with the rear-left tyre on the Aussie’s car, costing him just over a second.
He was ticked off, saying on his team radio: “So now what’s the plan? Because that didn’t work very well.”;;
Verstappen finally pitted on lap 29 and Norris shuffled back into the lead, a comfortable 5.8 seconds ahead of Leclerc, while Piastri was over four seconds behind him.
McLaren driver Norris even LAPPED George Russell who was dawdling back in 12th in the middle of a traffic jam as Carlos Sainz was keeping everyone held up.
Fernando Alonso’s afternoon was over as he retired with what seemed like a technical problem as his point-less run this season continues.
Russell was grumbling over Alex Albon’s “erratic”;; driving and went way off track to overtake the Thai Williams driver, leaving him with a penalty.
The British driver did his best Jose Mourinho impression when he was informed of the penalty, saying “I prefer not to speak.”;;
At the front of the packVerstappen was still leading the race but only made one of his visits to the pits.
It made things spicier asNorris was closing up on Verstappen who was waiting for something to happen.
Verstappen put Norris under the cosh until the end, backing him up to leave Leclerc snapping at his heels but the Brit held on.
