Championship leader Hamilton, who had led for most of the race, moved from first into third place following a "pit stop misjudgement" during a late safety car period, for which his team, Mercedes, later apologised.

Ahead of the race weekend, Mercedes announced they had extended their contract with world champion Lewis Hamilton for three additional years, keeping him at the team until the end of the 2018 season.

[13] After a thunderstorm on Wednesday night, the first of the two free practice sessions held on Thursday morning, started with every driver setting their installation laps on intermediate tyres.

Nico Rosberg had an early shunt when he clipped his front wing exiting the Tabac corner though he did not sustain considerable damage to his car.

The two Mercedes drivers swapped places at the top of the time sheets for most of the session, until late improvements pushed Rosberg down the order to finish ninth, more than a second off his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

It was not until ten minutes from the end of the session that the drivers took to the track again, but under damp conditions they managed times that were slower than the pace set at the beginning.

Toro Rosso confirmed their high pace with Carlos Sainz Jr. and Max Verstappen in sixth and seventh respectively, while McLaren proved they might challenge for points as predicted,[17] with Fernando Alonso in eighth place.

[13] The first part (Q1) saw a "a surprise casualty"[22] when Valtteri Bottas failed to cross the line for his final lap in time, leaving him seventeenth on the grid.

[24] Teammate Jenson Button was more successful, missing out on Q3 when his second fast lap was interrupted by Nico Rosberg going off at Sainte Dévote.

The second Williams of Felipe Massa completed a problematic[25] Saturday for the team, claiming only 14th on the grid, while Nico Hülkenberg and Romain Grosjean also did not make it into Q3.

Lewis Hamilton took an early lead with his first run and teammate Nico Rosberg was denied a chance to challenge him for pole position when he made a mistake in turn one during his second fast lap.

The two Red Bull drivers separated the two Ferrari cars, leaving Kimi Räikkönen with another disappointing[26] qualifying performance down in sixth.

[28] At the start of the race Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel maintained their grid positions into the first corner, while Daniil Kvyat managed to overtake team-mate Daniel Ricciardo for fourth.

[31] With the safety car coming into the pit lane on lap 70 of 78, Rosberg retained the lead unchallenged going on to win the Monaco Grand Prix for a third consecutive time whereas Hamilton finished third, unable to overtake Vettel for second position.

[29][32][30] Daniel Ricciardo had also made a pit stop under the safety car, and on fresh tyres he was able to pass Kimi Räikkönen in controversial circumstances.

However, he as race leader caught up with the safety car quicker and lost a considerably larger amount of time on his way into the pit lane, leading to him coming out behind Rosberg and Vettel.

[41] At the podium interviews, conducted by Martin Brundle, Rosberg admitted his victory "was just a lot of luck" and added that "Lewis drove brilliantly and he would have also deserved the win for sure".

[45] The race results meant that Nico Rosberg moved closer towards his teammate's championship lead, now ten points behind Hamilton.