Changes to the rules for this year’s Monaco Grand Prix could see Fernando Alonso make a surprise rostrum appearance, suggests Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz.

Alonso will line up seventh for Sunday’s race but, with two mandatory stops (under normal circumstances) it could play to the two-time World Champions’ favour.

Fernando Alonso tipped for Monaco podium return

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

A veteran of more than 20 Monaco Grands Prix, Alonso won the race in 2006 for Renault, en route to his second title.

He claimed honours the following year for McLaren too, but has since graced the podium on just three occasions; second with Ferrari in 2011, and this a year later (again with the Scuderia), and finally second with Aston Martin in 2023 – a race he arguably could have won.

But so far in 2025, there hasn’t been a top 10 finish, much less a podium.

It’s been a difficult start to the F1 2025 campaign for the 43-year-old, with his 11th place finish in Imola last weekend equalling his best result of the season.

If not for the timing of a mid-race Virtual Safety Car it might have been Alonso’s first points-paying result of the season after a stronger showing from Aston Martin.

In Monaco, the Silverstone-based squad was similarly competitive. With the added wildcard of two compulsory stops in Sunday’s race, Sky Sports’ pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz suggested the 408-race veteran might spring a surprise.

“In a sense, whatever happens in the first however many laps it is up to the second stops, won’t matter because all that will matter is what happens after the second stops,” Kravitz reasoned.

“I fancy that Aston might play this new regulation to their advantage and could end up on the podium.

“And considering how much bad luck Fernando Alonso has had up to this point, maybe he’s due a bit of good luck.”

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Earlier in the weekend, Alonso addressed his fortunes following disappointment in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

There, the Spaniard proclaimed himself the unluckiest driver in the world after the timing of a Virtual Safety Car scuppered his chances of points.

“We’ve been unlucky in many moments,” he told the media in Monaco, including PlanetF1.com.

“When you are more competitive, any strategy works, any Safety Car is a small problem but it’s not the end of the day.

“But when you are not competitive, anything that is not in your way, it takes you out of the points.

“In seven races, I think races that we had the possibility to score points, many things happen; we went off in the gravel, in my mistake, in Australia; in China, with three disqualified, we had fire on the brakes already in Lap 2 and we had to retire the car.

“We’ve been uncompetitive for many races and one race that we are competitive and we will be in the points on merit for the first time, there is the first Safety Car.

“In the first six races, when we were P12, nothing happens for 60 laps and we finished P12.

“These kind of things are always frustrating.

“Buit I don’t consider myself unlucky,” he added.

“I mean, two times world champion; two times Le Mans winner; WEC champion; 24 Hours of Daytona champion… If I’m unlucky, I cannot imagine the other 18 or 17 drivers here.”

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