Max Verstappen extended his lead in the championship over Leclerc with third place ahead of the local hero, who had dominated the first stages after a long delay due to a rainstorm that soaked the Principality.
The rain began to fall just before the scheduled start time, which was initially delayed nine minutes before it was extended to 16 with a mandatory safety car training lap, for safety reasons according to the FIA because there had been no previous wet run. weekend, and in this void the flood intensified.
The cars were sent to two laps of training behind the safety car, with the paperwork stopped at the end of the second, as the rain was falling to such an extent large areas of stagnant water were formed, with rivers running to the around the Rascasse as he passed the field. , in the direction of the pits.
The cars remained there for almost 50 minutes before being sent for a second round of safety car training, which meant all cars had to be fitted with very wet tires.
After two laps behind the safety dog, the race started with a continuous start at the end of the third lap.
Leclerc led the charge ahead of Sainz, Perez and Verstappen: his Ferrari twisted as he applied all his power for the first time to the pit line, but kept in the right direction as the Monegasque steered the field to Ste Devotee.
They went unscathed, but they stretched out, many drivers deviated a lot from the Casino Square while Leclerc took a 1.8-second lead at the end of the first lap, while the Ferrari drivers fired their tires. faster than the Red Bull duo he was chasing. behind.
Leclerc soon moved away from Sainz, the two fastest Ferrari drivers at different points on the track, with the leader regularly throwing a clear second for Sector 1 before Sainz stole a few tenths of a second behind in the second and third segments as they advanced through the clue. Lap time of 1m30s (the first lap was 1m43.218s for Leclerc).
On lap 15, Leclerc led for five seconds, with the leaders arguing with their teams over switching to intermediates as Pierre Gasly, Stroll and Latifi had done before the start.
Sainz insisted that staying out and going straight to the slicks was the best option for Ferrari, but his hand was forced when Perez, who had defended the interests, caught them at the end of lap 16.
His pace was so strong in this compound that when Ferrari took Leclerc on lap 18, with Verstappen doing the same and both doing intersections, Perez stepped forward and quickly chased Sainz.
The Spaniard led until lap 21, at which point Perez was just a few seconds behind despite already stopping, and in fact, while Sainz completed a slippery lap, Red Bull led Perez and Verstappen.
When they came out of the pits on lap 23, Verstappen seemed to get very close to the pitlane’s starting line if he didn’t get over it, Pérez had made a jump to Sainz to lead, with Verstappen taking third place just behind and Leclerc fourth.
The former dominant leader had been taken for the second time a few seconds behind Sainz, Ferrari gave him confusing radio messages about whether or not to enter and double-stack him.
Now all the leaders made hard slicks, but this time the Red Bulls seemed to warm up their tires better: Sainz even almost dropped his car as he ran well behind Perez at the end of lap 23.
Just as Perez began to consolidate the lead he had won while Sainz saved his side moment, and then defending Verstappen and the frustrated Leclerc behind, the race was interrupted again.
Mick Schumacher had been the first rider to perform on lap 18 and while battling Zhou Guanyu of Alfa Romeo, he dropped his Haas running between the two pool chicanes.
The impact was not at too high a speed, but the angles and forces involved broke Schumacher’s car in half and, as a result of the need to repair the barrier and clean up a large amount of debris, the flags reds came out again after the incident. covered by a virtual security car and then complete.
After a 20-minute hiatus, Pérez returned to lead the group for another continuous outing after two more laps behind the safety car: the order behind Sainz, Verstappen, Leclerc, George Russell and Lando Norris, which he had lost to his British compatriot by making interest for a few laps and the Mercedes has been kept in full wet for a few more laps before going straight to the slicks.
In the resumption of lap 33, with the Ferraris in the same set of hards that had been running before the stop and Pérez and Verstappen switched to new media, Pérez was not challenged at Ste Devote.
He closed very close to Mirabeau, but still got a nearly second advantage when the group returned to running speed in the 1m23s.
A few laps later they were reduced to 1m18, with Ferrari cars not falling behind with the slow heating of the tires despite being in a harder used compound.
But after the leaders exchanged the fastest laps between the four cars during the next phase of the race, the DRS started and the pace reached 1m16s, Pérez began to be clear and Leclerc, unable to keep up in the 1m16s, he lost contact with Verstappen in fourth.
On lap 45, Pérez’s lead was 2.2 seconds over Sainz and his main concern was to grab the back of the field to turn the markers: a long snake had formed behind Fernando Alonso, who had retired from Norris while leading Lewis Hamilton and Esteban Ocon.
But 10 laps later, Ferrari’s hope that Perez’s tires would wear out finally arrived and the leader fell again in 1m18s, which meant that Sainz quickly erased his leadership and he closed in less than a second, with Verstappen doing the same and Leclerc also able to reverse. their previous losses.
Ferrari urged Sainz to put pressure on Perez, as the leaders caught the traffic: Verstappen behind did not fight so hard to keep his means alive until the end, which at the time was the two-hour limit after repeated delays.
A final 10-minute chase followed, with Sainz initially threatening to move to the chicane, but he got closer and twice almost bumped into Pérez’s back, on the fork.
But a bold move for the lead never came, with Verstappen also not attempting a risky pass over Sainz and Leclerc kept in line in fourth place when a tense impasse occurred.
Perez completed 64 laps and finished with a final margin of 1.1 seconds, Sainz just 0.3 seconds behind Verstappen and the top four covered with just 2.9 seconds.
Russell finished a lone fifth after falling steadily to the leaders on laps after the second outing, with Norris facing off during the flag chase as he had enough of a space behind him thanks to the slow pace of ‘Alonso, but he stayed sixth for McLaren.
Alonso raised his times as the end approached and finished 4.0 seconds behind Hamilton, who had fought Esteban Ocon ahead of the second red flag.
The pair faced turn 1 on one stage, so Ocon received a five-second addition that left him out of the points from ninth place on the road behind Hamilton on arrival.
This put Valtteri Bottas in ninth, Sebastian Vettel in 10th (full points were awarded as more than 75% of the distance was completed) and Gasly in 11th, the AlphaTauri rider who went go up the field in their interludes during the laps before the Sainz and Russell were left out to go straight to the slicks.
Two more cars did not finish: Alex Albon, who stopped in the pits before the final stages, and Kevin Magnussen, who retired due to a loss of water pressure just before the Schumacher accident .