Speedcafe Formula 1 Editor Mat Coch offers his analysis on a Monaco Grand Prix that offered more than just the headline result.

The story of how Max Verstappen won the Monaco Grand Prix is not one that will come across in the history books.

While not an outright classic, it was an entertaining race with a healthy mix of action, drama, and intrigue.

On paper, the championship leader won comfortably from Fernando Alonso while Esteban Ocon proved the surprise package of the weekend in third.

But Verstappen didn’t dominate the race, and it could very well have ended differently.

Aston Martin strategy gamble

The key moment of the race was when Aston Martin pitted Alonso on Lap 54 and bolted on a set of medium compound tyres.

From the outside looking in, it is easy to say that was a mistake. However, one can understand their logic in making that bold call.

At the time, the rain had arrived but its full extent wasn’t clear. Part of the circuit was damp but from the tunnel around to Beau Rivage, the sinuous climb out of Sainte Devote, was dry.

The rain was also light and had taken longer to arrive than expected by many.

Reading the weather in Monaco is difficult.

The mountains which line it create a barrier to the weather on the far side – on Sunday, it had been raining in France for hours before it spilled across to the Monaco side of Mont Agel.

From there, the next question is how much of the system will find its way across, and how long will it last for?

They’re not easy questions to answer and are why teams rely on information from their drivers when it comes to what would otherwise be comparatively trivial decisions.

And so Alonso headed out of the pit lane, onto an increasingly wet circuit, on slick tyres when it was clear to all the intermediates were the better bet.

Race defining move

There is an argument that suggests it cost the Spaniard a chance of victory, though that’s difficult to extrapolate conclusively.

On track, Verstappen had enough of a buffer – though probably only just – to pit and react while maintaining track position.

But there’s another possibility too.

Alonso had a free pit stop in his pocket. He was well clear of Ocon behind and was in all reality unlikely to catch Verstappen in a head-to-head battle.

At that point, aside from wiping the AMR23 down the fence, what is the real risk of remaining on slicks, and what are the rewards?

Had he gone onto inters and followed the crowd, there would likely have been a swing of a couple of seconds as the field reset itself on grooved tyres and got to grips with the conditions.

Verstappen would have stopped to cover the Aston Martin move and would likely have remained ahead – perhaps with a reduced lead, but ahead on a circuit where there is no substitute for track position.

Conversely, by rolling the dice and doing something different, he could have gained significant time.

Of course, he still had Verstappen ahead who could have covered, but the Dutchman was on worn medium tyres.

In the wet, once tyre temperature is lost they quickly give up their grip – they become like plastic, it was explained by one team boss.

Had the slick proved the right tyre, and Verstappen was battling with mediums that had become like plastic, Alonso could have stormed around and taken the eight-odd seconds that stood between the two race leaders.

The decision to move on to medium tyres by Aston Martin was a gamble, a roll of the dice, in pursuit of the race win – a point conceded by both Alonso himself and team boss Mike Krack.

Verstappen under pressure

Verstappen wasn’t perfect, but he was under pressure and did what he needed to in the laps that mattered to maintain the lead.

It wasn’t a smooth weekend for the Dutchman, who wasn’t happy with his car to start with before bouncing it off the walls en route to pole position.

His performance wasn’t one of a driver merely measuring his performance to remain ahead of the competition, he was being made to extend himself and, as a result, we saw the odd mistake.

But, like any driver at that level, he hung on and secured the result – one that means even more given his team-mate and nearest title rival was outside the points.

Verstappen now holds a 39-point margin in the drivers’ championship. For Perez to haul that in, he needs to out-score his two-time world championship-winning colleague by more than 2.5 points per race, every race, from now until Abu Dhabi.

Important result for Alpine

Alpine had a strong weekend, and a much-needed podium courtesy of Esteban Ocon.

Laurent Rossi, the team’s CEO, fired a salvo at it over the Miami Grand Prix, making Ocon’s performance especially timely.

And it was no flash in the pan; the Frenchman was competitive through practice and qualifying too.

Sure, he benefitted from Charles Leclerc being demoted after baulking Lando Norris, but he’d have started on the second row of the grid even without that luck.

In Monaco, Qualifying is more than half the fight and as a result, he scored strong points for himself and the team through a performance set up from opening practice.

A podium for a team outside of the top four is gold dust in 2023.

Under ordinary circumstances, Alpine is racing for ninth and 10th, so to finish third and seventh is an extraordinary achievement.

The 21 is added to its constructors’ tally will go a long way to ring-fencing itself in at least fifth in that competition.

Of course, the championship is not over and there may be opportunities for others, but when one was presented to Alpine, it was in a position to capitalise.

For any team in the F1 midfield, that is the best they can reasonably hope for.

More Piastri progress

While Alonso and Ocon were arguably the stars of the race, Oscar Piastri showed once more that he is impressing race by race.

He was critical of himself in practice before finding another gear in Qualifying that saw him all but match Lando Norris.

And if that wasn’t enough, he arguably found another gear with solid racecraft, and his composure in keeping the car out of the walls in what was his first taste of Monaco in an F1 car in the wet.

It was a supreme performance from the youngster, one that was perhaps missed due to the excitement up the road.

Those performances do multiple things; they build confidence within the driver but also trust from the team. They boost morale as, while it’s not a win or a podium, it’s a signal that the driver can and likely will deliver on whatever hard work and progress is made at the factory.

By getting to the flag, and stealing a point in the process, Piastri demonstrated not just to team boss Andrea Stella and CEO Zak Brown that they’d made the right call, but to the mechanics and engineers supporting him that he can deliver.

There are few environments in F1 as pressured as Monaco is, and Piastri didn’t just meet the challenge, he rose to it at the first time of asking.

Mercedes upgrade

There’s much more that could be dissected too; Mercedes’ new car and its impact on the weekend; the potential podium for George Russell if not for a moment a Mirabeau during the worst of the rain.

The reality is, little was learned from Mercedes’ new car, Monaco is too slow and unique.

This weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix set to offer a better insight as F1 returns to its first ‘normal’ circuit since Bahrain at the start of the year.

It’s the final race in what should have been a triple-header but for the cancelled Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Verstappen heads there with the upper hand when it comes to the drivers’ championship and a Red Bull that will likely resume its usual dominant position at the head of the field.