The Crown Jewel of Formula 1
But: for want of an overtake, the crown was lost.
Since the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix was cancelled, all attention has turned to Formula 1’s contribution to the largest weekend in autoracing: the Monaco Grand Prix.
The Monaco Grand Prix has been held since 1929. It’s considered one of the most prestigious races in the world, and is certainly one of the most gorgeous races: winding through the streets of Monte Carlo and into the cliffs, with gorgeous views of the ocean. It’s also one of the most dangerous, with tight curves, multiple elevation changes, and even a tunnel. Any race in Monaco is expected to have a minimum of one safety car.
Monaco GP Quick Facts:
Held 79 times
Aryton Senna holds the record for most wins (6)
The race length is 260km/162mi
It’s 78 laps long
In 2022, the race was held in the rain and many, many drivers crashed. Charles Leclerc started on pole and the race was won by Sergio Perez, with Carlos Sainz Jr. in second and Max Verstappen in third.
Monaco is notorious among viewers for being a particularly boring race. The narrow lanes and tight corners are poison for overtaking, meaning that whoever’s on pole often always wins the race. This makes qualifying and strategy more important than ever, but ends up with a relatively straightforward Sunday after the dust settles.
Good for the viewers or not, Monaco is still one of the most demanding tracks in Formula 1 and used to be considered the ultimate test of a driver’s skill. The constraints of the track mean the drivers have to be in complete control of their cars at all times—one wrong move could be disastrous. It was a race on the calendar meant to show the drivers’ fine motor skills and car control, not flashy overtakes.
However, complaints from drivers since 2000 agreeing with the fans and also calling the race boring, have continued to grow, so it’s unclear if drivers simply no longer enjoy that kind of fine margin racing or something happened with the turbo era to change the way Monaco was driven.
The race, with its history and glamour, is highly unlikely to be taken off the calendar, however, and plenty of the drivers enjoy racing where they live. Some have even used it as an opportunity to head home if something goes wrong. In one legendary case, Kimi Räikkönen retired to his yacht parked in the harbor after a mechanical DNF.
I’ll definitely sit and watch the race this weekend, boring or not; the aesthetic more than makes up for it. Let’s see just how many times I can listen to Money, Money, Money by ABBA in three days!
Now, remember those technical upgrades we talked about last week? Well, because Monaco is different from every other track on the calendar, the Emilia Romagna cancellation puts teams in a tough spot. If they do bring the upgrades to Monaco, they won’t learn anything, since any data gathered from Monaco is ultimately an anomally. If they don’t bring the upgrades, however, they won’t have a chance to add them until after the Spanish GP.
This conundrum makes it difficult to predict what teams will do. Mercedes, so desperate for anything to fix their performance, announced they’ll go ahead and bring the upgrades to Monaco, for better or worse. However, Ferrari—the other team that had important upgrades planned for Imola—have said nothing yet. On one hand, if the upgrades temper the car that the drivers have described as “on a knife’s edge” that would be fantastic. But if it makes the car more finicky, Monaco might be the worst track to make that discovery.
In addition to being a legendary track, Monaco is also Charles Leclerc’s home race. A home race is undoubtedly extra pressure on any racer, but especially in this case for Charles, since he hasn’t podiumed once at this race. I won’t dwell on his notorious moments here (2021 qualifying crash my beloathed…) but it’s not good.
If every racer could win their hope race, I’d be much happier. The level of stress is just unimaginable to me. Additionally, the pride that Monegasques have in their city and the racing history held in the streets make Monaco one of the toughest home races to have. I feel for Charles, and hope he does well this weekend!
It’s becoming clearer and clearer that this season will be a watershed moment for Lando Norris. I have mixed feelings about Lando. He’s a great racer and a really funny dude, but it doesn’t always feel like his heart is in it. Also, I need him to shave posthaste. I hate his little beard.
Moving on from that, this season is important for Lando because it’s the first season that he’s been definitively at the back of the grid. He’s still a fanastic driver, but the Mclaren this year is just too slow to really compete. Unlike the drivers around him—George Russell who struggled at the back for years, or Max Verstappen who was running at the front after only a year in F1—Lando Norris has been firmly in the midfield since the moment he joined F1. He podiumed sometimes and ran out of the points at others. Whatever happened, his lows weren’t low for too long, and his highs weren’t overwhelming.
Now, however, he’s having a year that seems to be just low after low. And I’m interested to see how he handles it. He’s doing what I would consider “okay” so far. For example, in Miami he mentioned he spent the last half of the race trying new lines, which seems like something you’d keep to yourself. But he hasn’t gotten frustrated or angry yet (at least in public) which is I consider impressive with how Mclaren is doing right now.
There’s something incredible about a Mclaren driver publicly saying the Haas and Williams were too fast for them, however. Absolutely never could’ve seen that coming.
Some small things to leave you with:
LIAM LAWSON WINS AGAINNNNNN. And he’s first in the Super Formula Championship! It was a hard fought win, with a poor start and then a badly timed safety car putting him at a disadvantage, but he won by 1.2 seconds anyway, of course. He’s only ahead in the championship by four points, but doing so well in Super Formula after his excellent DTM showing in 2021 (he’s a DTM champion TO ME) shows he can conquer so many different series and cars. Get this man into Formula 1!
The FIA actually did something right by cancelling the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Safety, of the F1 staff, spectators, and locals comes first. In addition, the way the F1 community came together to support the embattled region was wonderful to watch, even if it happened because of such a horrible situation. F1 donated $1M; Team Redline, Williams, and others held charity streams; and AlphaTauri directed donations to the Faenza region (you can find the instructions to donate here).
Aston Martin’s technical director, Dan Fallows, is recommending that teams who need to change their car concepts do it as soon as possible. If any team knows about changing car concepts, it’s Aston Martin, whose complete redo of their car concept has led to their success this year. Fallows believes that the longer the teams wait, the harder it will be for them to make the changes necessary.
Everyone needs to go watch Red Bull’s videos of their 2021 DTM season. It’s an incredible series highlighting Alex Albon, Liam Lawson, and various members of Red Bull’s DTM team. In addition to being a great chronicle of the highs and lows of Red Bull’s DTM season (seriously, it was a crazy one), it gives awesome insight into the behind-the-scenes aspects of motorsports. I binged it in like 3 hours. Go watch!
Good links:
Why Mercedes has got F1’s current era so wrong so far - The Race
Curious as to how Mercedes went from dominating the track harder than Red Bull is now for literal years to… this? Me too! This article has some good insights.
From sleepless nights to an F1 epiphany – Tsunoda’s redemption - Scott Mitchell-Malm
Everyone tell Yuki you love him RIGHT NOW. I’m so, so happy he’s finally found a balance and some happiness in F1 and hope to see him for many years to come! He’s performing so well in a less-than-stellar AlphaTauri and he’s certainly proved he deserves to be there.
TECH TUESDAY: How Ferrari tried to tame their SF-23 with new floor upgrades in Miami - Mark Hughes, F1
I love Tech Tuesday, dude. Needless to say the new floor didn’t work, but this does show how Ferrari is approaching upgrades!
F3 champ Martins to make F1 test debut with Alpine - F1
I’ll do a whole thing soon on who’s going to be testing with who, but I can’t wait to see some rookies on the track! I love the required free practice rule and the chance to see all these drivers in a real F1 car.
Chasing the Dream: S05E05 - F1
Kinda old by now, but I just got around to watching it. This series makes it so easy to get invested in F2, if you’re looking for more motorsports content I highly recommend it!
McLaren: Early indications show Piastri is a future F1 world champion - Matt Kew, Motorsports.com
THE TITLE IS A QUOTE FROM ZAK BROWN. That’s important because I thought people were just out here saying things now. Anyways, Zak Brown is sooooooo desperate to prove he made the right decision dropping Daniel Ricciardo (he didn’t).
Hope you had a good read! Let me know what you want to see in Monaco :D!
Monaco is always one of my favourite races of the year. There’s always drama and everything is so delicate. Though, I think it has got more difficult because of how much larger the cars are these days compared to 20 years ago!