What we learned at the Monaco Grand Prix

We have just about dried off from Sunday’s sudden downpour that delivered a wet and wild Monaco Grand Prix.

With the dramatic weather, the team had been hopeful for opportunities to move through the field, but these ultimately never arose.

However, there were plenty of lessons learned to take us forward not just into the final two-thirds of this season, but into the remainder of this current generation of Formula One cars.

Here's just some of what we took away from the principality.

The potential threat of rain on Sunday had been known since early in the week, but when we threw back the curtains on race day, we were greeted by blue skies similar to those of the two previous days.

Forecasters had suggested the weather would roll in during the early evening, only for the first spots to fall just as we were picking up on the grid. What followed was a delayed start, a few formation laps and a red flag, meaning just as we’d got back into the garage, we were all back out in the pit lane.

Running in full wet conditions like this for the first time since Imola has given the team back at Grove plenty of data to mull over and compare. This current generation of car is in place until 2026, so the more complete understanding of these machines we get now, the better.

After two races where we were over one second away from a spot in Q2, the team found themselves missing out by just seven hundredths in Monaco.

Alex’s best lap of a 1:13.611 was agonisingly shy of putting the Thai driver into the top 15 for the first time since the opening race in Bahrain, but it remains a testament to how much hard work he and the team have put in over the past few weeks.

As we head into a run of six races in nine weeks, we’ll be aiming to build some momentum and carry on the progress shown.

Saturday has so often been key to success in Monte Carlo given the tight and twisty nature of the unforgiving 3.3km circuit – in fact, 2021’s race saw just one on-track overtake.

However, the wet-to-dry conditions gave the drivers a chance to make a move, with 12 completed in this year's running - the most at this Grand Prix since 2016 – two of which were achieved by our duo.

On Lap 21, Alex got past Zhou Guanyu at Rascasse and 21 tours later, the Chinese driver fell victim to our FW44 once again, when Nicky made his move.

The Canadian went wheel-to-wheel with the Alfa Romeo through Tabac, before completing the overtake at the first part of the swimming pool chicane.