Antonelli kept his cool through two race starts – the initial one and the final one after the red flag – to hold the lead off the line for the first time this season and utterly dominate.
An absolute masterclass from Antonelli for his first Monaco win underlined his credentials as the likely world champion this year, even if there are scheduled to be 16 races remaining.
The talk before the race was whether Antonelli could for the first time this year keep his position off the grid.
In fact, he got away well, and instead it was Max Verstappen’s Red Bull alongside him who suffered an engine problem off the line and was passed by the entire field before retiring after limping around the first lap.
That left Hamilton chasing Antonelli but any sense of competition evaporated almost immediately.
The Mercedes was 2.9 seconds clear at the end of two laps and continued to build a lead of more than five seconds by the end of 10 laps.
He had to back off a little to manage overheating brakes for 10 laps but then was able to pull away again.
Antonelli was more than 20 seconds clear of Hamilton when the first safety car was called with 18 laps to go after Lance Stroll crashed his Aston Martin at the final corner.
But even though Antonelli missed the pit lane entry the first time around – asking his engineer whether to pit and being told too late that he should – he stopped the next time around and retained his lead.
Antonelli said: “It was one of those days where we had incredible pace. It was just coming all so natural. The car was feeling incredible and was just giving me the confidence to push.
“The job isn’t finished. It’s still a long season. We are going to keep pushing and keep raising the bar. The goal is to keep performing like this.”
