León's Strategic Monaco Triumph

In the post-race press conference, León said his decisive focus was “to get a good start,” then to “create a gap and build the temperature to the tyres nicely because it was very warm” in the opening laps. He added he avoided extra risk “for a fastest lap” and was ultimately “worried about lapped cars” as he began catching them, but “luckily everybody got out of the way.”

Roman Bilinski’s challenge included an early mistake: after León led into Turn 1, Bilinski suffered a lock-up on the run down to Sainte Dévote, “almost making contact” with the Mexican driver as he did so—yet he still kept second.

Mid-pack, a separate early clash shaped the running order: at the hairpin and Mirabeau, Ritomo Miyata and Oliver Goethe went “wheel-to-wheel,” making “slight contact” that forced Miyata to pit and drop to the back. The later race account also notes Miyata was continuing with a broken front wing from that contact.

Laurens van Hoepen’s 10-second penalty came after a notable recovery: he started P21 and was up to 15th by Lap 8 before the penalty. The report also frames the penalty as coming for leaving the track and gaining an advantage at the start.