A Grand Prix to fall asleep at, that’s what even the drivers thought of this year’s F1 race in Monaco. Countermeasures are being discussed, but it could be so simple. This year’s Monaco Grand Prix has inevitably led to renewed debate about what Formula One needs to do to increase the excitement in the Principality. With bigger and heavier cars, there are even fewer wheel-to-wheel duels in the narrow streets than there used to be.
Occasionally, there were calls for the track to be changed to create a real overtaking opportunity somewhere. Ideas ranged from possible changes to the Nouvelle Chicane, making it wider and sharper, to the addition of entirely new corners.
A Sleep-Inducing Race
One idea that has been discussed a lot is to have the cars turn left at the Portier corner and run along the beach roads for a bit before coming back into the chicane via a longer straight (and a DRS zone).
Asked if the track could be redesigned, Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner said: “I don’t know. Monaco always has land filled in.
“I think it’s something we should look at together with F1 because it’s such a great place. There’s so much history here, but everything is moving on. The cars are so big now. If you compare them to the cars of ten years ago, they’re almost twice as big.
“So it’s something that we as a sport need to look at, together with the promoter, how we can introduce an overtaking opportunity,” warns Horner.
“It’s not a real race if you’re three or four seconds off the pace because the other car has no chance of overtaking.
“We have to think about whether we can do something to create an overtaking area, or at least the opportunity to overtake, because the top 10 is exactly the same as it was on the grid. There is not one overtaking manoeuvre in the top 10.”
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Tyre strategy killing the Monaco race
But a drastic change such as adding extra corners would not only be hugely expensive, it would not guarantee that the race would improve. Overtaking is difficult in modern F1 and there are many circuits where overtaking opportunities are very limited.
This year’s Monaco race, largely due to the circumstances surrounding the red flag on the first lap, became a procession of driving as slowly as possible to conserve tyres and avoid having to change them.
As Mercedes driver George Russell admitted, there was no point in trying to go any faster, as this would only cause problems later in the race.
Monaco is not the only case where tyre strategy has ruined the potential for an exciting race. There have been other recent instances where an early safety car has forced the first pit stop and the race has then become a matter of tyre management all the way to the finish.
Formula One is well aware that the key to good racing and overtaking is to ensure a power differential between the cars at different stages of a Grand Prix – and the best way to achieve this is through tyre strategy.
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Russell’s Monaco suggestion
Monaco is almost always a one-stop race because the low energy requirements of the track mean that the current tyres can last the whole race and undercutting is fairly ineffective. This means that overall there are very limited opportunities to change strategy.
So it definitely lacks the kind of danger that you have on other circuits where the cars wear out their tyres more. So it’s not surprising that Lewis Hamilton pointed out after the race that the tyres were at the heart of the problem.
“At the end of the day, I think our tyres can last a whole race,” he said.
“The compound here is too hard. You have to find ways to spice up the race, maybe three mandatory stops or something to spice it up a bit.”
However, forcing drivers to make multiple pit stops could be seen as too artificial and turn the race into too much of a lottery, given the amount of work that goes into securing the top spots on the grid.
Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate George Russell suggests a simpler and more logical solution, which is to run only soft tyres in Monaco.
“One soft tyre wouldn’t last the whole race. And you might even have to do two stops. Someone might try one stop. I think running on soft tyres for the whole weekend would solve a lot of problems,” says the British driver, explaining his tyre idea.
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The case for Russell’s Monaco proposal
Indeed, running only on the soft tyres would be challenging and lead to a variety of different strategies in the field. It could even allow overtaking and undercutting would be a strong option.
It would give teams more opportunities to play their cards and be aggressive with their pit stops, and it would ensure that there would be no opportunity for drivers to fit tyres at the start of the race and expect to get away with it without stopping until the end of the race.
Such a change would also not require millions of euros to be spent on building new corners, complex simulations or FIA homologation.
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Instead, a simple vote in the Sporting Advisory Committee and then in the Formula One Commission could be enough to push through a rule change that would only apply for this one race. The fact is that there is already a Monaco clause in the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations.
It allows a race to be run over 260 kilometres instead of the usual 305. So why not have a special rule that says that for this one race Formula One will not use the three prescribed tyre compounds, but only the soft ones?
Few would argue with such an idea, especially as it could hardly be less exciting than what we saw last weekend.
Max Verstappen said of the willingness to try something new: “The whole weekend is really cool, only Sunday is a bit boring. If we can find a way to make the race a bit better, why not? That would be my preferred solution.”
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In a dramatic turn of events at the Monaco Grand Prix, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon will face repercussions following a costly first lap collision with Formula One teammate Pierre Gasly. The incident, which took place at the iconic Portier corner, has not only drawn the ire of team principal Bruno Famin, but has also resulted in a significant penalty for Ocon. This could well be the opening for former F1 driver Mick Schumacher to return to the paddock, this time driving for the Alpine team.
The collision, which sent Ocon’s car into the air and ended his race prematurely, was deemed by the stewards to be the result of an overly ambitious overtaking attempt. As a result, Ocon was handed a 10-second penalty, which translates into a five-place grid drop for the upcoming race in Canada. The stewards’ statement was…READ MORE ON THIS STORY
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The tunnel section couldn’t feature a DRS zone even if the full-throttle run until the chicane was longer because the kink makes DRS usage unnecessarily risky, which is why DRS was always disabled for that section even in 2011 & ’12 practice & qualifying sessions when usage was otherwise unlimited.
I like Russell’s idea, though, & since the 260 km minimum race distance exception already exists, no reason not to make an exception regarding tyre compounds as well.