MONACO - Lando Norris celebrated a dream Monaco Grand Prix win from pole position on Sunday and slashed McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri's Formula One lead to three points in a race without overtaking and more strategy than speed.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc finished runner-up in the home race he won last year, with Piastri third and Red Bull's Max Verstappen fourth - all four finishing in the order they started.

"This is what I dreamed of when I was a kid, so I achieved one of my dreams," said Norris of his first win in the principality.

The afternoon featured two mandatory pitstops for the first time but the experiment, while creating some tension as drivers hoped for a safety car or red flag that never came, failed to break the usual procession around the harbourside circuit.

Drivers played a waiting game, with Verstappen holding off his final stop until giving up the lead on the penultimate lap and those behind biding their time while keeping out of trouble.

"Very exciting. I was on the edge of my seat every lap. It was fantastic," said Verstappen, his words dripping with heavy sarcasm.

"Maybe next year four stops. I could have done four stops today and still finished P4."

Norris held his nerve, knowing victory would come to him without any overtaking required if he just stayed in line, and lapped all but four cars.

The win was the Briton's second in eight races - the other coming in the Australian season-opener in March - as well as McLaren's first in the sport's blue-riband race since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.

"Monaco baby!," Norris shouted over the radio as the chequered flag finally fell.

"The last quarter was stressful with Leclerc behind and Max ahead but we won in Monaco," said the McLaren driver, who provided a frisson of excitement at the start when he locked up slightly at the first corner in a puff of tyre smoke.

Dismal afternoon for Mercedes

Ferrari's Hamilton was fifth, the seven-times world champion claiming back two of the three places he lost in a post-qualifying demotion, with Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar sixth and Haas's Esteban Ocon seventh.

Liam Lawson scored his first points of the season for Racing Bulls in eighth place and Williams completed the top 10 with Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz.

McLaren extended their advantage over Mercedes in the constructors' standings to 172 points with Red Bull a further four behind.

Mercedes had a dismal afternoon in the Mediterranean sunshine, after a nightmare in qualifying, with George Russell taking a drive-through penalty and finishing 11th while Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli was 18th and the last car still running.

"Ultimately, qualifying 14th and 15th, there was nothing you could do. You pit on lap one, we'd have finished nowhere. You go long, we finish nowhere," said Russell.

The virtual safety car was deployed on the opening lap when Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto went into the tyre wall at Portier, the turn before the tunnel, as Antonelli went past on the inside. Bortoleto made it back to the pits and continued.

If Antonelli's pass counted as an overtake, then it was the only one of the race - unless Russell cutting the chicane to get ahead of Albon, a move that triggered the penalty, was also considered.

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Alpine's Pierre Gasly was the first retirement, the Frenchman crashing into the back of Yuki Tsunoda's Red Bull at the tunnel exit on lap nine and limping back to the pits with the front left wheel hanging off.

"Is he an idiot, what is he doing?" exclaimed Tsunoda.

Gasly, who said he had no brakes, almost took out Argentine rookie team mate Franco Colapinto as he careered through the Nouvelle Chicane.

Aston Martin's double world champion Fernando Alonso was the second retirement, pulling off on lap 38 with a smoking car to continue his scoreless run for the season.

The European triple-header continues in Barcelona next weekend.