Verstappen drives to FI Monaco Grand Prix title

Monaco — Formula One champion Max Verstappen's lights-to-flag victory at the Monaco Grand Prix gave the Red Bull driver his fourth victory of the season and a record 39th overall for the team as he extended his championship lead to 39 points over teammate Sergio Perez on Sunday.

Verstappen's wins have all been with Red Bull since his first on debut for the team at the Spanish GP in 2016 when he became the youngest F1 winner at 18 years old.

Seven years and two world championships later, the Dutchman set a team record for wins as he passed former Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel's previous tally of 38 victories when he won four straight titles from 2010-13.

"It's great, I never thought I'd be in this position in my career," Verstappen said. "It's better than I could have imagined for sure."

Spanish veteran Fernando Alonso was a season's best second for Aston Martin as he collected a fifth podium in six races, albeit 28 seconds behind Verstappen, while Frenchman Esteban Ocon secured third place and a rare podium for Alpine. Red Bull has won all the races so far.

"It's super nice to win it in the way we did today with the weather and everything to stay calm and bring it home," Verstappen said.

For most of the race, he coasted on a dry and narrow track where overtaking is the hardest in F1.

But an incident-free race in Monaco is rare and heavy rain played havoc with about 20 of the 78 laps left. Some drivers had pitted for the wrong medium tires shortly before the downpour and slid around.

"It was incredibly slippery," Verstappen said.

Ferrari's Carlos Sainz Jr. glided sideways into the barriers and was lucky not to damage his Ferrari. Kevin Magnussen lost control of his Haas and Lance Stroll retired after damaging his Aston Martin.

Red Bull had wisely put Verstappen on the versatile and more suited to the wet conditions intermediates on Lap 56 and they carried him to his second win in Monaco. The first was in 2021.

Lewis Hamilton finished fourth for Mercedes and picked up a point for fastest lap. His teammate George Russell was fifth, having earlier almost slammed into Perez as visibility worsened. A serious crash was somehow avoided in a hectic few minutes before the rain eased off.

"Braking was extremely fragile," Alonso said. "I think everyone did an amazing job today to keep the cars on track."

Alonso is third in the standings and closed the gap on Perez to 12 points. The 41-year-old Alonso's podium was his 103rd in F1, while Ocon grabbed his third.

"I'm speechless at the moment," Ocon said. "A little bit on my cloud at the moment."

Russell was given a five-second penalty for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner but had just enough to keep fifth place ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.