Piastri’s grip slips as Norris roars, ‘I won Monaco, baby!’

Pole position always equates to chequered flags on roads so narrow you’d be lucky to overtake on a motorbike, and there ain’t nothing F1 can do about it.

We’re on the grid before the Monaco Grand Prix. Ten minutes before the 3pm kickoff. Cannot move. Cannot hear thyself think. Cannot get close enough to Naomi Campbell to reveal my teenage crush. A Grammy Award-winning DJ called Black Coffee is blasting music from a platform right next to Oscar Piastri’s MCL39.

Turn it down a bit, old mate? Got any Cold Chisel? What’s this rubbish? You call that music? I bite my tongue. Grievances shall fall on deaf ears. Piastri is fortunate. He can whack on his helmet and ear plugs, right here and now, then disappear into his own world. Everyone has a happy place and I suspect Piastri’s is inside the cockpit of a Formula One car.

This just might be the coolest sporting event on the planet. Mountains to our left, the Mediterranean Sea to our right, more than 100,000 people spread over two kilometres of stunning landscape. At La Rascasse bar, where they’re all dressed to the nines, you can sit so close to the track that when you tap your burning cigarette, the ash gently falls on to the track.

Winning driver McLaren's British driver Lando Norris, left, is sprayed with champagne by second-placed Ferrari's Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc on the podium at the Formula One Monaco Grand Prix at the Circuit de Monaco. (Photo by Andrej ISAKOVIC / AFP)

Black Coffee ends his shift. Naomi Campbell vanishes into the masses. What could have been. And they’re off. The hills are alive with the sound of turbocharged F1 engines. Then comes 78 laps of musical chairs on wheels. Experimental new rules for the Monaco street circuit have drivers going round in circles, atop their usual circles, in a dizzying blaze of pit stops and tyre changes and tactical explorations before the top three from qualifying – McLaren’s Lando Norris, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Piastri – finish in the exact order they started. It’s a different Monaco GP but, really, nothing changes.

Pole position always equates to chequered flags on roads so narrow you’d be lucky to overtake on a motorbike, and there ain’t nothing the F1 can do about it. In his heart of hearts, Piastri has expected to finish third, and alas, alack, he’s finished third.

“Obviously a win would have been better but it’s been a tricky weekend,” Piastri said. “Practice was messy and I went into qualifying with not a lot of confidence. I got close today but not close enough. Around here, the way you qualify is pretty much the way you finish.

“I’m pretty happy overall, and it’s another trip to the podium at Monaco, so it’s not all bad. The margins are so fine and if this is a bad weekend, things aren’t going too badly at all.

Some things to work on but we go again in Spain next weekend.”

McLaren’s Lando Norris leads Ferrari'Charles Leclerc into the Fairmont Hairpin during the Formula One Monaco Grand Prix. (Photo by Christophe Simon / AFP)

Piastri has pushed, prodded and poked without being able to pass Norris or Leclerc. He muscled up to stave off Red Bull’s Max Verstappen but his once handsome lead in the drivers’ championship was shaved back to a mere three points from Norris – somewhere between a fingernail and whisker. One of his pit stops really was the pits, taking 3.8sec, slower than a wet week, but the real problem was that his car was too big, and the streets were too slim. He tried everything short of tooting his horn and telling Leclerc to get off the road.

Norris beat Leclerc by 3.131sec. Piastri was another half a second behind. Frustratingly predictable.

“Yeah, the race played out pretty much exactly as I expected,” Piastri said. “From the cockpit, it was a little bit more intense because of the rules. We were pushing flat out but really, it went how I thought it would. We tried a few things to get higher than third but it didn’t work. The rule changes didn’t change a whole lot.”

Spectators watch the Formula One Monaco Grand Prix from balconies at the Circuit de Monaco. (Photo by Andrej ISAKOVIC / AFP)

Norris purred to victory like a 1980s fashion icon called Naomi Campbell used to purr down a catwalk. Just saying. He was so thrilled he might have twirled a cane and thrown a top hat into the air.

Weren’t you meant to be in a slump? “All crap,” he said. “People can write what they like, it doesn’t matter to me. I’ve worked hard the last few months to get back the momentum and confidence I had in Australia.

“This isn’t ‘it’. It’s not like I’ve nailed it now and everything’s back. I know the truth of everything and that’s the way it will stay. This is a good small step in the right direction.”

Black Coffee was back on deck as sunset approached. The bloke’s a workaholic. Piastri and Norris posed for a McLaren team photo in which Norris was front and centre and Piastri looked like someone who wasn’t entirely sure he had much to celebrate.

Norris said, “The best bit is, my kids one day will be able to tell everyone I won Monaco. That’s the thing I’m most proud of. I guess I’m thinking of my future a bit too much there! But this will be up there when my career ends. To have pole position and win the race is perfect.

Australia’s Oscar Piastri steers his McLaren MCL39 Mercedes around the street of the Monaco Grand Prix. (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)

“It’s something I’m going to be very proud of for the rest of my life, because you look at the history and all the people that have won here in the past … just to know when my career is over, there was that one year when I mastered Monaco. It’s just a cool thing to say, ‘I won Monaco, baby!’”

Watching a teammate win in F1 is like being overshadowed by your brother. Not good. How would Piastri spend his evening? On the couch at his Monaco home, watching the demolition derby of the Indianapolis 500 on TV. “Quiet night,” he said.

It was a sorry old sight at the far end of the paddock. Perennial battlers at Alpine and Sauber had torn clothes, and they were scrounging for food and begging for money from passers-by, and trying to hitch a lift home, and I think one of the mechanics was reading Les Miserables. McLaren and Ferrari’s lounges were in the highest of spirits, notwithstanding Piastri’s vibe of being pleased but less than fully stoked, “I’m going to have a good night,” Norris said before walking off into it.