Perez wins wet Monaco F1 GP as Leclerc has more agony at home

dpa Monaco Sergio Perez won a turbulent and wet Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday as his Red Bull team outsmarted rivals Ferrari which denied Charles Leclerc a ...

dpaMonaco Sergio Perez won a turbulent and wet Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday as his Red Bull team outsmarted rivals Ferrari which denied Charles Leclerc a first home win yet again.A poor team strategy saw pole sitter and early leader Leclerc first fall behind Perez and then even drop to fourth later on after being called to pit a second time and then told too late to stay out.It was the first finish for the Mongasque in the fourth race on his home town streets but fourth was far less than he had hoped for, as he said via team radio: “I have no words. We can not do that.He later added that every team can make mistakes and that “I love my team” but that “there were too many mistakes” by Ferrari on the day.Mexican Perez got his first season win and third overall from third on the grid ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, and world champion and season leader Max Verstappen in the other Red Bull.“As a driver, you dream of winning here,” said Perez who received the trophy from Prince Albert II and his son, Prince Jacques.“After your home race, there is no other more special weekend to win so to do it and the way we did it. It is a massive day for myself and for my country.” The race started more than an hour behind schedule owing to the conditions and red-flagged later after a big crash Mick Schmuacher who hit the barriers so hard that his Haas broke in two but the German walked away seemingly unharmed.Drivers did not cover the full 77-lap distance as the two-hour limit was reached earlier owing to the slower pace in the wet and the red flag.Verstappen is now nine points ahead of Leclerc in the championship after seven of 22 races.On a drying track, Perez was the first to pit from full wets to intermediate tyres from the top four, with Leclerc and Verstappen following in the next lap, and the undercut working for Red Bull as Perez was now ahead of Leclerc.Sainz then went straight to dry weather slicks, with the other three following as both teams used a double pit stop which worked in Red Bull’s favour.Perez was leading from Sainz and Verstappen who both moved ahead of a furious Leclerc who was first told to pit and then to stay out - but too late.Schumacher crashed shortly afterwards at the high-pace swimming pool section and drivers returned to the pits as the race was interrupted for some 20 minutes for the repair work.“I feel OK physically. It is very annoying. We had the pace to move up but the season is still long,” Schumacher told Sky TV.Perez was untroubled in the rolling restart and while the four stayed close together the order didn’t change on a course where overtaking is extremely difficult even under perfect weather conditions.“As a team we did a really good job with the strategy to get ahead of the Ferraris, as a whole team we can be very pleased with the Sunday.It was a very hectic one,” Verstappen said.George Russell was fifth and his team-mate, the seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, eighth.