Sebastian Vettel clinched a 45th career victory at the Monaco Grand Prix after executing a superb strategy call to beat team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and has extended his championship lead over Lewis Hamilton, who finished in seventh.
After a clean getaway, the Ferraris stormed off into the distance, leaving their rivals behind, though Valtteri Bottas and the Red Bull drivers did gain ground when the leading duo hit traffic.
Max Verstappen set off a chain of pitstops on lap 32 in an attempt to undercut Bottas, but team-mate Daniel Ricciardo stayed out and nipped ahead of them both after a series of blistering laps.
Ricciardo went on to take third, while Bottas held on under pressure from a frustrated Verstappen to finish fourth.
Mercedes opted to delay Hamilton’s pit-stop and the Briton was able to claw his way back to seventh, aided by Sergio Perez’s early pit-stop and Nico Hulkenberg’s retirement.
The safety car was deployed after Button collided with Wehrlein in the latter stages of the race, leaving the German’s Sauber on its side against the barriers on the exit of Portier. Both drivers thankfully emerged unscathed.
Under the safety car conditions, both Verstappen and Perez took the opportunity to make another pit-stop in order to attack in the final stages of the race.
McLaren again scored no points after Button’s retirement and Stoffel Vandoorne crashed out of the race at the safety car restart as Perez passed the Belgian on the inside of Turn 1 and left him with nowhere to go.
Haas managed to score their first double points finish as Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen brought their cars home in eighth and 10th places respectively.
Force India’s point scoring streak was broken after both drivers ran into issues with a puncture for Esteban Ocon and Perez colliding with Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat.
Carlos Sainz kept his sixth place from qualifying, fending off the challenge of Hamilton to score some valuable points for Toro Rosso.
