It was a fairly sensible start to the race with polesitter Ticktum leading the pack away and down to Turn 1. However, the calm was short lived and by Lap 4 we had our first Safety Car of the race with Nick Cassidy and Jake Dennis finding trouble.
Upon the restart on Lap 6, the race nearly witnessed a case of deja vu with Joel Eriksson and Nico Mueller coming close to contact – the tight Monaco streets requiring every ounce of driver of driver concentration.
A few laps later, Mueller found himself in the midst of drama again, this time with Porsche teammate Wehrlein, the Swiss driver colliding with the rear of his German teammate.
Both drivers were forced to pit due to damage from the incident, Wehrlein with a puncture and Mueller missing the front portion of his Porsche machine. On the same lap, Oliver Rowland also suffered a puncture, the inevitable pit stop sending him to the rear of the field and killing his hopes of a points finish.
PIT Boost stops began on Lap 15, with Eriksson and Mueller the first to make the mandatory stop. De Vries followed them into the pits a lap later, and came back out in 7th, the cars ahead still needing to pit.
As the Pit Boost cycle played out it was da Costa who found himself with the race lead on Lap 20, albeit with de Vries and Evans hot on his heels, the pair both using Attack Mode to challenge the Porsche driver.
As de Vries made the overtake and resumed the race lead, polesitter Ticktum returned to the podium positions with a move on da Costa, but reported on team radio that he was struggling for pace in the closing laps.
The close battle between the pair came to a head on Lap 28 with a dramatic crash into Turn 10 which saw da Costa lose a wheel and come to a stop at the side of the track.
Following the incident, the race returned to green flag racing for one final lap, but nobody could catch the Mahindra of de Vries, who had established a comfortable gap at the front of the field.
The full top 10 are- P1: De Vries, P2: Evans, P3: Marti, P4: Drugovich, P5: Buemi, P6: Eriksson, P7: Barnard, P8: Di Grassi, P9: Cassidy and P10: Gunther.