F1 Q&A: Would Monaco have been better without two-stop rule?

Spanish Grand Prix

Dates: May 30 through June 1 Race start time: 14:00 BST on Sunday

Max Verstappen, a four-time world champion for Red Bull, placed fourth.

Last up in this European triple-header is the Spanish Grand Prix, from 30 May-1 June.

Without the two-stop rule, do you believe the Monaco Grand Prix would have been any better? Sukhpal

The new rule introduced for the Monaco Grand Prix this year was a requirement to use three sets of tyres in the race.

The goal was to create more tactical options, make teams do two stops, and create more jeopardy.

That being said, it did work, at least partially.

All weekend, teams were talking about the sheer number of strategic possibilities in the race. Additionally, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella stated after the race that “there was a very large variety of scenarios.” Therefore, I believe it to be interesting in this regard.

Whether this made the race better for spectators is a different question.

The only adjustments to the top 10 were Lewis Hamilton’s grid penalty and Fernando Alonso’s retirement, which increased the risk of confusion and tested the brainpower of the strategy engineers.

The rule, according to some, made the race worse because it made it easier for teams to “game” the outcome by using their drivers more wisely.

Racing Bulls started this, by using Liam Lawson to back up the pack to ensure Isack Hadjar could pit without losing position, before Hadjar returned the favour.

Because they already had, Mercedes followed, and then Williams followed.

Some drivers were unsure of this.

Williams ‘ Alex Albon said: “I know we put on a bad show for everyone, and I know we made a few angry drivers behind us in the process as well.

We simply had to do it twice, not once, thanks to the two-stop. Simply frustrating. Apologies to everyone who watched that. That wasn’t particularly attractive.

Mercedes’ Toto Wolff’s teammate James Vowles even offered an apology during the race. Wolff said:” Yeah, I]was] sent a text in the race. He apologized, “I’m sorry. Given what was in store, we had no other choice.

“I answered: ‘ We know’.

He had two cars in the points, and the RBs backed us up when it first started. Therefore, he had to do that.

And then there was the fact that it also made it easier for F1’s controversial red-flag tyre-change rule to be exploited, more of which in the next answer.

The impossibility of overtaking at Monaco, which has been a problem for about 50 years, is what Lando Norris pointed out, and is not just a result of the current cars’ size, which has only made things worse.

Therefore, the question must be asked: Is it appropriate to use such artificial gimmicks to try to resolve a problem that cannot be resolved without track changes? And is Monaco broken, anyway?

Of course, I get it, but I don’t believe it has worked, Max Verstappen once said. It’s irrelevant what you do because you can’t race here in any way. One stop, 10 stops.

As many drivers were hoping for a red-flag event to provide the opportunity for a ‘ free ‘ stop to change tyres, surely it is time to ban tyre changes (except wet to dry or dry to wet) under red-flag conditions? – Paul

Red Bull has tried to use the rule in the Monaco Grand Prix for years, but it still faces controversy.

Red Bull’s plan was to leave Verstappen out as long as possible, a move which gave him the lead as the McLaren drivers and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc had to pit as part of their own strategic battle not to lose position to each other.

Red Bull could now take a risk by doing so.

Red Bull was aware of Verstappen’s stop if they delayed it. and there was a red flag before the end of the race, he would get a free tyre change and win the race, as long as he didn’t lose the lead off the line at the restart.

After the race, Lando Norris, the race-winner, addressed this in a rather sarcastic manner. What are my options? Nothing”, he said. It is beyond my control, she said. There is no purpose to consider it. If it happened, it happened. Congratulations to him for winning Monaco.

This is not Monaco’s first instance of this.

In 2011, for example, the race was building to an exciting climax, with Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel trying to make a very old set of tyres reach the end, and being chased down by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso on fresher tyres – and McLaren’s Jenson Button on even fresher ones.

Then, a crash and a red flag caused the entire mess to vanish.

The rule was then being urged to be changed. But it’s in place on safety grounds – on the basis that it might be dangerous to leave cars on old tyres after a big crash because the tyres could be damaged and at risk of puncture.

Due to the two-stop rule, or simply because Monaco is so challenging to overtake, did Racing Bulls and Williams use the same team tactics at Monaco to create a gap between their cars so that they could pit against one another and maintain position? Even if the two-stop trial is not continued, might we see this tactic continue in future years? – Chris

This tactic has been employed before, some of which have been at Monaco, and we’ll get into more detail about that later.

The difficulty of overtaking at Monaco makes its use a slam dunk, because there is literally no chance of the driver doing it being passed.

Because each team only had two stops to play with, the two-stop rule simply meant that teams could use it more effectively with two cars.

What has happened to Mercedes’ recent form in terms of pace? They started the season strong but seem to have fallen back – Kathryn

Mercedes had two difficult races in Imola and Monaco following a relatively promising start to the season, with four podium finishes for George Russell and a sprint pole for Kimi Antonelli in the first six.

Russell came in third place at Imola, but after Mercedes’ setup went wrong, he sat in third and fell back with excessive tyre degradation.

Wolff said in Monaco about Imola: “We got our car in a completely wrong place. Finding out what you did wrong in a post-mortem is always agonizing. But I suppose we are aware of how badly that was done and how difficult that car was for the drivers.

” We overheated the tyres, massively, and that’s why we underperformed. “

Monaco was absolutely bad luck. In qualifying, Antonelli crashed. Russell struggled in practice but, after making changes to the car for qualifying, he said it came alive.

Before the electrical issue that caused his engine to shut down after going over a bump in the second half of qualifying, he appeared quick and likely to challenge for the front two rows of the grid.

We’ve seen, as Wolff put it, that you suddenly lose a little bit of your way and become unsure whether an upgrade works or whether the ambient circumstances are what are keeping you there, not just with us but also with Red Bull, Ferrari, etc.

“It was always the hot races which were our Achilles ‘ heel last year. We predominated over the cold ones, too. We will evaluate, then. Let’s see how Barcelona goes and the following races.

Why might Imola be removed from the 2026 calendar? It’s far more interesting than most of the other so-called street circuits that look like computer games – Wilfrid

The simple answer is that Stefano Domenicali, the head of Formula One, feels that there is pressure to add more races to the calendar even though 24 races seem like the maximum it would be foolish to do so.

F1 is interested in having a race in Bangkok, but finding a location there isproving challenging.

In that scenario, it’s hard to justify having two races in one European country, even if it is Italy.

Imola only returned because of the circumstances surrounding the pandemic in 2020 and stayed to pressurize Monza to modernize because it is essentially sacrosanct for the Italian Grand Prix.

Imola needs to be modernized right now. Its facilities and infrastructure are very antiquated in modern F1 terms, and to bring them up to date would take a lot of money the circuit doesn’t have.