F1 plans to improve Monaco Grand Prix emerge - but problems identified

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Exciting F1 plans to improve Monaco GP emerge - but problems identified

Have F1 found a solution to Monaco's problems?

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Saturday 1 June 2024 16:55

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Key F1 figures have discussed plans to improve the Monaco Grand Prix whilst also identifying the risks involved with these changes.

Viewers complained about the spectacle of last Sunday's historic race, despite a moving home victory for Charles Leclerc.

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Bar a few lap one incidents, the race was a procession around Monte-Carlo with no overtakes in the top 10.

The top 10 finished in their starting grid order for the first time in F1 history, calling the current Monaco Grand Prix format into question.

Charles Leclerc was victorious in Monaco

The top 10 finished in their grid starting order on Sunday

Has F1 outgrown Monaco?

Overtaking is notoriously difficult around Monaco, with modern F1 cars too wide to race, exemplified by the likes of Kevin Magnussen, Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon this year.

F1 stars including Lewis Hamilton have called for ‘special tyres’ to create more pitstops, with George Russell suggesting they use soft-tyres only in future.

According to Motorsport.com Pirelli’s head of car racing and F1 Mario Isola said he would be open to a soft-tyre-only Monaco Grand Prix, whilst also pointing out limitations of the idea.

“What is important, in my opinion, is that we have to consider not just the tyres, but why a team decides to stop or not," Isola said.

“I remember that many years ago, when there was this proposal [to force two stops], we had the discussion and the teams asked their strategy engineers to make a simulation.

Mario Isola discusses future Monaco tyre plans

“The result was that everyone came back with more or less the same strategy. So by adding constraints, we are not pushing them to have different strategies or different approaches to the race, but just to converge to the same one. And this is not what we want.

“What we want is to have a mix of one stop and two stops, with different compounds used.

“To fix the issue we need to work together to sit down, consider all the proposals, make a simulation, and understand which is the best approach."

When asked what he thought would be the best solution for Monaco, Isola responded ‘a wider circuit’.

F1 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari Mercedes McLaren Charles Leclerc