Welcome to Sunday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
Is Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s recent form making it less likely Mercedes would consider signing Max Verstappen?
Before this season, you can see why Toto and Mercedes might have wanted Max. But at the moment they have an emergent Formula 1 star in Antonelli — a potential race winner and possible future champion. Bringing in Verstappen, however talented, could be a major disruption.
If Antonelli keeps performing like this for the rest of the season, George Russell could become an excellent number two: capable of winning grands prix and staying close to Antonelli. That’s likely what he expected for himself, and from Mercedes’ perspective it’s an attractive scenario.
Even so, who would pass up the chance to sign Verstappen if he was available?
@David-BR
Social media and links
2026 Monaco Grand Prix qualifying report (McLaren)
Lando Norris: “We’ve been on the back foot all weekend and qualifying showed that. My laps were strong until the last one, where I pushed a bit too much trying to find three tenths and locked up. We did make some gains from practice and the earlier sessions looked better, but that was partly because the faster cars were more conservative while we were already flat out.”
Pole position for Kimi in Monaco (Mercedes)
Andrew Shovlin: “For George it was an uphill struggle with the tyres never feeling like they were really biting. We’re trying to understand why such similar set-ups yielded such different feelings for the two drivers and will work through that in the days to come.”
Second row start for Lewis and Charles (Ferrari)
Lewis Hamilton: “At the start of the session, I didn’t quite have the same confidence in the car that I felt in free practice, so we will need to look closely at what changed, especially as we didn’t make any significant adjustments.”
Monaco Grand Prix: Qualifying Recap (Haas)
Esteban Ocon: “The car was going to be good to progress further up into Q2, maybe Q3. The track was going to come to us as well, and I feel like I say this every time, but we were unlucky – we never catch a break. In my fast lap, I got traffic by two tenths already, then the red flag came, and we didn’t have enough time to warm up the tyres, so we couldn’t improve.”
Hiyu Yamakoshi disqualified from Monte Carlo Sprint Race (Formula 3)
Following Yamakoshi’s disqualification, DAMS’ Gerrard Xie inherits the Monte Carlo Sprint race victory.
Brad Benavides (Instagram)
“Three broken vertebrae in such a small accident… fate deemed it.”
Sprint race: Leon dominates in lights-to-flag victory in Monte Carlo (Formula 2)
Gabriele Mini remains the drivers’ championship leader with 63 points, while Noel Leon has moved up to second, 20 points behind.
Thanks to everyone for all the messages today. Unfortunately I was not able to commentate on F2 as I suffered an epileptic seizure before the race. Glad to say I’m all okay & heading back from the hospital to rest up for the weekend. Thanks to Alice and Alex for taking over 🙏💜
— Chris McCarthy (@ChrisMcCarthy32) June 6, 2026
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Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Owen, timtoo, Dot_com and Dawnj86!
On this day in motorsport
- 45 years ago today Mike Mosley won the second round of the CART IndyCar season at Milwaukee.
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