Felipe Drugovich took a stunning victory at Monaco soaking up incredible pressure from Theo Pourchaire making no mistakes in a very impressive drive.
The Frenchman pushed extremely hard but had to settle for second place as Drugovich extended his points lead.
Red Bull junior Juri Vips secured a vital third place putting to bed the ghosts of Imola and Barcelona with a much improved Monaco weekend.
Liam Lawson’s horrible run of bad luck in Monaco continued as he stalled on the grid before the formation lap.
The Kiwi started from the pit lane making his Feature Race a lot more difficult after a mediocre Saturday.
DAMS driver Roy Nissany also stalled and started from the pit lane in an agonising moment for both drivers.
Drugovich got a perfect start from pole position and kept the lead into Sainte Devote ahead of Pourchaire.
Dennis Hauger pulled off a great move on Enzo Fittipaldi at Massenet on the first lap making use of his grippier super soft tyres
Drugovich built up a sizeable advantage in the opening stages setting sequential fastest laps.
This gained him critical breathing space over the 18-year-old at the front of the field as Jack Doohan sat in third place.
Hauger got rid of his super soft tyres ten laps into the race and embarked on a very long stint on the soft compound.
Amaury Cordeel retired on Lap 19 for Van Amersfoort which deployed the Safety Car, a flurry of pit stops occurred at the front as the top four all boxed and changed to the purple super soft tyre.
Drugovich held the lead despite a slow stop as Vips crucially passed Doohan to upgrade to third position.
The race leader produced a perfect restart immediately building a gap over Pourchaire as Doohan locked up at Sainte Devote. A costly error as he needed to take his tyres a huge twenty laps to the end of the race.
The Safety Car was called into action a second time as Clement Novalak retired at the Fairmont hairpin after a collision with Lawson on Lap 24.
Drugovich produced a stunning restart to deny his rival any opportunity to attack into Sainte Devote with Estonian driver Vips in P3.
The ART driver relentlessly heaped the pressure on the Brazilian as Vips began to close in on the leading duo.
The race leader showed great resilience in the final ten laps as he struggled to manage the tyres on the infamous two mile circuit.
Pourchaire tried every trick in the book to get past feinting to the inside at the Nouvelle chicane but faded in the last few laps as the front tyres lost grip.
Drugovich performed admirably right under the nose of Formula 1 and now enjoys a commanding championship advantage after his superb win.
Image: formula Motorsport Limited
