F1 2019: 5 Talking Points from Monaco Grand Prix

Another GP ticked off and another Mercedes win on the board. Monaco GP promised a lot with the inevitable rain (that never fell) or the medium tire on Lewis' car (that never fell off the cliff) or the Max Verstappen overtake(that just never happened) but it failed to deliver on all accounts.

Lewis Hamilton picked up another victory and extended his lead in the championship over his teammate to 17 points in a race where Bottas did get a bit unlucky with the pitstops.

Sebastian Vettel put together one of his best races of the year as he finished second after Verstappen's penalty.

All in all, it was a race where you'd have to strain yourself to find some good action because the track was just not conducive to much of it. As the circus now moves to the next race in Canada let's look back at the talking points for the race.

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#1 Max Verstappen is a legitimate superstar

Verstappen was awarded the Driver of the Day(and rightly so)

The Monaco GP organizers should thank Max Verstappen. If there was any action throughout the race then it was from the Dutch driver.

He drove the wheels off his Red Bull in pursuit of Lewis Hamilton who, for the second phase of his race was on tire management mode from lap one. There have been many races in the past at the streets of Monaco that suffered from stalemates.

Even last year, Daniel Ricciardo despite the loss of power drove around the track with next to no pressure from Sebastian Vettel throughout the race.

But for Lewis the situation was completely different, he had the Dutch charger on his rear wing throughout the race and pushing like crazy. If we remove Max, Monaco is easily the most boring race of the year so far.

This year, max has been easily the best driver on the grid. He's pushed that Red Bull with a suspect chassis to places where it wasn't supposed to be and he's completely smashed his teammate in the process.

If there is one thing Max showed today was that he has that something extra, something which legends are made of. He just needs to be patient because his time will surely come soon.

#2 Hamilton just keeps on ticking those boxes

It was another pole and another victory for the reigning 5-time world champion

In all probability, Hamilton already has one hand on the driver's championship already. There's just no car in the same league as the Mercedes and they have a substantial gap behind them.

Bottas has proven to be an able adversary for Hamilton this year. But it's starting to become more and more clear that Hamilton is finally getting into his own and when he starts stringing together these weekends, then Bottas won't be able to catch him.

When push comes to shove, the World Champion is the better driver of the two. While there will be races where Bottas will have his day in the sun, but Hamilton with his superior skillset seems well on his way to clinching title No.6 for himself and the team.

With a lead of 17 points over Bottas, Lewis now enjoys a comfortable cushion in the standings.

#3 Leclerc is still rough around the edges

There are still some areas that Charles would need to fix

Ferrari needs to get its house in order because the team is capitulating yet again. A horror call in q1 to not keep Leclerc out on track pretty much destroyed his weekend where the Monegasque driver had finished FP3 with the fastest time.

But then, if for a while we leave that aside and delve deeper then we see that somewhere Leclerc does have himself to blame as well.

It's not the first time his qualifying has been compromised. He smashed the car against the wall in Baku as well when he seemed to be in a league of his own and even in Monaco if he hadn't locked up on his fastest lap in q1 he might not have found himself in that situation.

The race was just a case study of a young driver desperate to make amends for a bad qualifying and just being too daredevil too soon. This just shows that Leclerc still needs some time to be groomed and to grow.

The Monegasque is a rapid driver for sure but he's still working on getting that consistency at the sharp end of the grid.

#4 Monaco Grand Prix raises the same questions yet again

It's two races in a row where the winner of the race drove at the speeds that were multiple seconds off the pace and still won

The only reason why Monaco was a watchable race was because of Max Verstappen and his relentless attack on Lewis Hamilton.

If we take that out what else happened in that race? Not much. There weren't many overtakes. There weren't any battles.

The cars have already gotten much wider than what they used to be which makes the already narrow circuit of Monaco even narrower and just impossible to overtake.

In the past, there have been classic races which had some great action at Monaco. But one of the biggest issues has been the increased size of cars and decreased braking distance which has made overtaking virtually impossible now.

It just raises the question every year. Why does F1 come here for racing when you can't really "race" on this track? With Monaco dishing another processional race the questions will be back again regarding the circuit and whether it has crossed its expiry date now.

#5 Mercedes has a hand on the title already while the midfield battle looks tasty

It's pretty hard to predict the correct pecking order for the midfield

By locking out another front row and dominating another weekend Mercedes has set a benchmark that will be hard to reach right now.

Going to Canada, another tight and twisty circuit with traction being very important Mercedes are expected to have an edge there as well.

By the looks of it, the championships might end up getting decided between the two Mercedes drivers with the Ferrari and Red Bull drivers acting as bridesmaids for the rest of the season.

On the other hand, the midfield battle is anybody's guess right now. Renault has plummeted to P8, while McLaren has been solid this season with consistent points.

It's very hard to pick who will be where in the constructor's championship. The battle is wide open with every team being quick at varied points of the season. There Will be a point in the season when the teams pecking order might get a bit settled.

But for now, it's like a game of Russian Roulette with not much knowledge about the order in which each of the teams would line up.