Was Hamilton's Monaco win ever in real jeopardy?

Lewis Hamilton's Monaco Grand Prix record is patchy for a driver of his virtuosity. He's always been fast on the tortuously twisty streets, all the way back to Formula 3 days when he won here, but his under-pressure victory in the 2019 race was only the third of his 77 F1 wins to come in Monte Carlo.

If there was any doubt about how desperately Hamilton wants to build a legacy here that could stand with that of his hero Ayrton Senna, you only had to witness his joyous fence-climbing reaction to bagging what was somehow only his second pole position here in 13 attempts.

This was a highly charged weekend for Hamilton for many reasons. The loss of Niki Lauda, three-time world champion and a driving force of Hamilton's Mercedes team in his role as non-executive chairman, cast a long shadow over the paddock.

Hamilton is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve and there can be no questioning the authenticity of his grief. After taking pole position on Saturday, Hamilton went as far as to suggest he would still have just the 2008 world championship to his name without Lauda, who played a key role in convincing him to sign on the dotted line with Mercedes.

Lauda, a driver with two wins and three poles to his name in Monaco, would have been thrilled by Hamilton's crucial pole position lap. With the Mercedes in a class of their own despite Max Verstappen's best efforts to hassle them - aided by Ferrari carelessly letting Charles Leclerc be eliminated in Q1 after misjudging the cut-off point - Hamilton had to dig deep to beat team-mate Valtteri Bottas.

With Bottas on top after the first Q3 runs but unable to improve thanks to traffic compromising his tyre prep, the stage was Hamilton's at the end of qualifying. His lap was a study in commitment, turn-in confidence and precise mid-corner connections.

"I was just throwing the car around," said Hamilton. "I'm pretty sure I touched a couple of barriers along the way but there's no better way of doing it around Monaco.

"I've not had a huge amount of success here over the years. It's always been a track that I've been quick at but never quite got that perfect lap. Today was about as close as I could get to it, so this one is for Niki."

The race echoed an entirely different three-time world champion: Senna. In 1992, Nigel Mansell dominated the Monaco GP for Williams but a late puncture put him on Senna's tail in the closing stages. Mansell's frenetic, fruitless chase is the stuff of legend, and Hamilton's battle to hold off Verstappen was the hyper-tense, drawn out version.

What lasted three frenzied laps in 1992 was played out as a calmer, 64-lap slow burner in 2019, only Verstappen did what Mansell couldn't and at least was able to attempt a move in what was a do-or-die one that, oddly, would make the difference between winning and fourth place.

That the race came down to this was thanks to Leclerc, who attempted to scythe through the field after being eliminated in Q1. Starting 15th, he passed Kimi Raikkonen at the start, then Lando Norris at the Loews hairpin before ambushing Romain Grosjean at Rascasse.

"I'm sure we touched multiple times and I definitely touched the barrier a lot" Lewis Hamilton

Unfortunately, an attempt to repeat the move on Nico Hulkenberg for 11th led to Leclerc clipping the inside barrier in the final part of the corner and spinning - sustaining a puncture that gave him extensive floor damage that soon led to his retirement. Crucially, it also led to the safety being deployed on lap 11 of 78.

Usually, pole means job done in Monaco. But this safety car meant Hamilton, sporting a Lauda helmet design for the race, had far more than just the traditional 10% of the job to complete in the rest of the race.

The early stages had played out entirely as anticipated for him as he held the lead from Bottas with the latter seeing off the threat of Verstappen on the inside line through Ste Devote.

"There was nothing else I could do really," said Verstappen of his failure to take second place. "I was boxed in. I could run into the side of him but then you have the risk of a puncture or penalty, so I was just doing my line. I tried to brake deep into the corner to get ahead, but in Monaco it's very hard."

With the top 10 on the grid all starting on Pirelli's soft compound, it was a question of when the pitstops would happen, and with the threat of rain in the air the leaders opted to push a little harder than they would have in dead-cert dry conditions. The safety car ultimately dictated the timing and the top four, rounded out by Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, all dived into the pits.

Two decisions at this point shaped the race. The first was Mercedes sending Hamilton back out still in the lead on medium Pirellis compared to the hards taken by Verstappen and Vettel.

With Mercedes having to double-stack, Bottas's second place was always in jeopardy and he drove out of his pitbox moments before Red Bull made the crucial decision to release Verstappen into his path.

Verstappen pulled out slightly ahead, but overlapping with Bottas, who grazed the wall after contact with the Red Bull.

This led to damage to Bottas's front-right wheelrim, forcing him to come in for another stop and drop to fourth place, now on hard Pirellis as he only had a choice of that or used softs.

"We were side-by-side, I kept my line and he kept drifting to the right," said Bottas. "We touched and I also touched the wall because there was no more space. I got a puncture for that.

"Honestly, I thought when I had the puncture and had to stop again that I would go to the back of the grid but luckily I only lost one more place. Unlucky but lucky at the same time. It could have been a lot worse."

Verstappen said that he couldn't see Bottas. But it was no surprise that he was subsequently hit with a five-second penalty for the unsafe release, which he was always likely to have added to his race time given a second stop was not expected.

But he still had a realistic shot of victory as Hamilton was the only leading car on mediums and was having to take it very easy once the race went green at the end of lap 14.

When Verstappen was advised of his penalty, it was suggested over team radio that 'all' he had to do was to overtake Hamilton and pull five seconds on him. It was said partly flippantly, but even in Monaco this was a realistic target.

Hamilton's strategy meant he had to manage the pace to the end of the race with Verstappen breathing down his neck, something his increasingly irritated comments over the radio confirmed put him out of his comfort zone.

At one stage, he suggested it would need "a miracle" for them to hang on. So it was entirely possible Verstappen might find a way past and then benefit from Hamilton holding up Vettel and Bottas.

Hamilton was struggling badly with graining but it was very clear he was tightly controlling his pace. All but two of his final 53 laps of the race were in the 1m17s bracket (Pierre Gasly's fastest lap was 1m14.279s, pole 1m10.166s) and Verstappen was unable to get close enough to make a move either into Ste Devote or the chicane. But with Hamilton increasingly sceptical, the tension continued to grow as the race pushed into its closing stages.

"I was like: 'I'm not coming in, whatever. I'm just going to drive around with no tyres until they blow up'" Lewis Hamilton

With eight laps to go, Hamilton's vulnerability started to show as he defended into the hairpin, with Verstappen gingerly looking around the outside.

At this stage, Verstappen was told he had 'mode seven' available, meaning he could go to all-out attack. Hamilton was warned about this but told he had the overtake button available to defend with, to which he responded witheringly.

"I was able to get out of the last corner and pull a bit of a gap," Hamilton explained.

"I was super slow through Turn 1 [Ste Devote] but at Turn 3 [Massenet] my right-side tyres were OK and once you got downforce on they would work.

"But then once I got to Turn 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 [Casino Square to Portier], I had nothing.

"[I was] moving the brake balance rearwards, engine braking, opening up diffs, trying to get this car turned.

"I kept thinking Turn 6 [Loews] is probably where he's going to try to dive up the inside, because I was just waiting to get the car turned.

"So I was just trying to cover that whole area, tip-toeing and positioning myself so I could get a good exit. It was one of the most strategic drives that I think I have ever had to do in terms of finding that balance around the track to try and keep that gap.

"I'm sure we touched multiple times and I definitely touched the barrier a lot of times throughout the laps but luckily kept the car in one piece."

It was clear that Verstappen's best chance was to get tight in behind Hamilton's rear wing out of the Portier right-hander leading to the tunnel.

Each lap he inched closer, and on lap 76 - realistically the last time he could get past and expect to build the cushion he needed to win post-penalty - he was closer than ever. He jinked to the left late and pointed his Red Bull up the inside of Hamilton into the chicane.

It was a late move but if Hamilton was initially surprised he responded brilliantly. Verstappen went in too deep, but the Mercedes driver had straightened up ready to cut the chicane if required.

This ensured that the angle of impact between the two as Hamilton turned in was more benign than it otherwise would have been. Verstappen's front-right hit Hamilton's rear-left, but both survived.

Verstappen's challenge was broken, Hamilton simply had to stroke the car home for two laps and both Vettel and Bottas knew they would pick up a place apiece when Verstappen slipped to fourth at the flag.

"It was a bit of a late dive," said Hamilton. "Luckily I saw him last minute. I think his front wing was alongside my rear wheel, so he was not fully past. It was a light touch and move on."

Verstappen had to give himself at least one chance of passing, and although he suggested over the radio that Hamilton had turned in on him, his position softened in the cold light of day after the race.

"I couldn't really plan because I was always so close in the hairpin but all the time out of Turn 8 [Portier] we just lost that momentum," he said.

"At one point I just said, 'OK, let's have a go and see what happens'. And then we had this little touch.

"But anyway, under braking you don't normally look in your mirrors, and they're difficult to see through, so I think there was no one to blame. And we didn't have any real damage."

Both deserve huge credit. Hamilton for seeing the move coming, but also Verstappen for making what amounted to a do or die move but without straying into it being a suicide mission.

Whether the driver of 12 months ago would have had the restraint to tread that fine line is a moot point, but Sunday's driver was, as team principal Christian Horner later pointed out, a model of patience.

Verstappen also had to deal with a problem in the race of being in the race-start torque setting, which was supposed to be reset during the pitstop, for the rest of the race, but adapted to the resulting lag in power delivery well.

The stewards rightly took no action on the dramatic denouement of the race. It was just unfortunate that Verstappen's penalty cost him a podium finish, with Vettel moving up to second ahead of Bottas and the Dutchman fourth ahead of team-mate Gasly - who had taken the point for fastest lap thanks to being at the back of the leading drivers and making an extra pitstop.

The tone of the Mercedes radio chatter changed a little on the slow-down lap, with team boss Toto Wolff declaring the drive a victory worthy of Lauda. But having spent much of the race seething about the decision to send him out on mediums, which were never in any real danger of falling off a cliff but were graining, Hamilton wasn't ready to celebrate over the radio.

After the race, Hamilton likened it to the infamous 2007 Chinese GP (pictured above) when the McLaren team left him out on shot wets and he went off entering the pits after being called in too late. The "empty tyres" comparison was a pointed one, given that '07 incident cost Hamilton the world championship, and chief strategist James Vowles admitted after the race that going to mediums was a mistake.

When he returned to the engineers' room after the race, Hamilton doused Vowles, and chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin, in champagne in retribution for the decision. But what mattered was that, once again, collectively they had made the best of it and won.

Wolff suggested Hamilton saved the team with the brilliance of his drive, while Hamilton believed it was among his most challenging victories.

"I think it was the hardest race I've had," he said. "With the tyres, with the strategy, with the circumstances with Max behind - it was the biggest challenge I've had. I'm really grateful that I was able to pull it off.

"There were multiple things coming into my thought process. I've got 38 laps to go and I've got no tyres left and I'm thinking that, 'There is no way that with the feeling that I have and with the pace that I have to do at the moment that I'm going to make it'.

"It's a horrible feeling. I've been there before. A few years ago I was leading this race by 20 seconds, the safety car came out, I pitted, came out third, and your heart just sinks, so I was like: 'I'm not coming in, whatever. I'm just going to drive around with no tyres until they blow up'.

"With sheer will I just kept pushing. I really, really tried my best to stay focused and not crack under pressure, because Max was doing a great job behind on a much better tyre.

"This has been such a hard week, emotionally, for us as a team and me personally, I just really, really wanted to do the job. I really wanted to deliver on the word of Niki, and imagining him taking the hat off in support. When I was driving I was like, 'What would Niki do?' so I just kept going."

Some might suggest Lauda would have complained less over the radio, but given the many tributes to his forthrightness and the stories from his career he, too, was a driver not afraid to take the team to task when appropriate. But, like Hamilton in Monaco, he also delivered.

That's what the great champions do, they produce under the most intense pressure. Hamilton could afford no mistakes, with one of the most incisive wheel-to-wheel racers in the business on his tail. And when the attack finally came, he responded to it perfectly.

Lauda would have been proud.