F1 drivers share views on how to tackle Monaco GP and improve racing, as they also share their thoughts on the proposal from Alexander Wurz.
After the two-stop change in this year’s F1 Monaco GP, didn’t deliver the desired results in terms of improving racing or spicing things up, GPDA head and also circuit designer Wurz shared some pointers to change parts of the layout, which can help in better racing.
One of the changes is at Nouvelle Chicane after the tunnel. He proposes to extend the circuit and move the chicane a bit further about 80 m to allow for a pass, which usually is disrupted due to the immediate chicane. This will mean extensive work to create the chicane taking part of the sea.
The other change is the reprofiling of the Rascasse corner, where he proposes the apex to be moved two or three metres further out. The track will need widening on either side by some bit to make the entry better and wider for someone to make an attempt to overtake.
Another widening that Wurz proposes is the Fairmont hairpin, whether the entry and or exit, to allow F1 drivers to make an attempt in a better way. There was also talks about changes at Turn 1 which could give chance at race starts for drivers to attack a bit more.
The proposed changes put out by Wurz received positive reactions from most of the F1 drivers on the grid, as they added their bits too to try and improve racing. However, some conceded that the essence of Monaco has been like this for years, which they don’t mind as such to keep Saturday as king.
Here’s what F1 drivers thoughts –
Carlos Sainz: “I think it’s a conversation that we need to have amongst drivers and maybe come up with ideas for FOM and FIA to think about. I think there’s no one better in F1 than us as drivers – we get to be in the car and realise how easy it is to manipulate the race or to defend, and go three or four seconds off the pace and still finish in the same position. So we all need to—for the benefit of the sport—sit down and see what is not the best solution, but the most easy to apply or the common-sense kind of solution. We will all have a think about it and come up with ideas and see what can be done or not. Obviously, FIA and FOM went for the two-stop idea. Clearly, it didn’t work, at least in the midfield. Although I always welcome something new and experimental to see if it can actually work. I feel everyone would benefit in the decision-making process from including us drivers in this conversation.
“I really believe the sport would benefit if instead of trying something top-down, we all sit together at a table and, with the ideas of the drivers, let FOM and FIA know and put together a solution that actually works. I’m a bit more open-minded to see how we could improve the Sunday and what kind of ideas we could come up with to improve the Sunday. I still want to race in Monaco. I still want to try and overtake someone and have the pressure of the start, the lights out, the pit stop—that’s still there to stay. I agree with Lando that maybe quali should be given even more importance given how important it is there. But I’m still open-minded to see if we can come up with solutions to make the Sunday a bit better. Because honestly, that Sunday was painful. It was not a good Sunday for all the midfield guys behind me or in front of me doing the train. I’ve never jumped out of a car so disappointed, almost, with the whole thing because it was really, really, really bad. It was very slow—like the slowest I’ve ever gone in a Formula 1 car. So yeah, something to look into. I’ll tell you what I think [about Alex’s proposal]. He suggested three minor changes to, I think it was Loews… One option was the chicane after the tunnel, to delay the entry and maybe make it a bit tighter, a bit further down the road.
“He made Loews wider, the entry of Lowes wider, and the entry to Rascasse a bit tighter. Those three changes. My opinion – that would help, but only 1 to 5% of the issue we have. I think you could still position the car in the middle of the track, go 30 km/h, and still not get overtaken. You would need to be a bit clever about it and maybe more worried looking in the mirror in case someone sends one on the inside because it’s a bit wider. But the cars are so wide you can go as slow as you want—they’re not going to pass you. That’s why we were driving four or five seconds off the pace. So small change, small benefit. I think we need something even bigger than that.”
Lando Norris: “It depends. Monaco’s never been a race that’s been good on Sunday. Never has. Yet it’s the race everyone wants to win. It’s the one everyone looks forward to the most every single season. It’s always been like that. Even some of the best races you’ve ever seen—zero overtakes. I’m more mixed on my opinions on whether it should change that much. I don’t think you’re ever going to get it to be a great race. The good races have been the ones where it’s rained halfway through and things like that. I’m not saying it can never be, I’m just saying it never has been. Yet everyone still knows it as just the best race of the season. I think there are things that can be done, but it’s more from a car point of view. But it’s also a track. It’s a street circuit. Overtaking on most street circuits is a bit trickier unless it’s got a two-kilometre straight like Baku. Monaco doesn’t even just reach past two kilometres in length. So I’m more mixed just because I don’t think it’s ever been. I think it puts more pressure on Saturdays.
“Maybe you should make a more special event of a Saturday. One-lap shootouts—a more exciting Saturday. Rather than—I just don’t think you can do a lot on Sunday. The two-stop didn’t really make it that much better. In fact, it probably made more things happen from a team and strategy point of view like we saw some teams do. But every team would have thought of that. If they didn’t, then they should have done. So yeah, just my opinion. I don’t think it needs to change that much. I’m pretty happy. And from George’s point, George can do what he wants. No (no two qualifying and sprint like format). I think, again, it’s special just having a race on Sunday. There are still opportunities. Still things can happen—maybe not always for the win, but for second places, third places.
“Things can happen. For points, things can happen. Sometimes you’ve got to take a bit of risk, and sometimes there’s luck involved. But like I said, if you want to make a bigger event out of it, make it a more qualifying-based event. I don’t think you can really change the race—unless you make the cars half the size of what they are now. Just my opinion. I don’t think it needs to change that much. It’s never been anything else than what it has been now. So I think people should just be happy with what it is.”
Oliver Bearman: “I agree. I mean, looking at the stats, it’s not like Monaco used to have a bunch of overtakes and now it doesn’t. It’s never been a track where the race is particularly exciting. People just need to accept that the thrill of Monaco is on Saturday in qualifying. It’s always going to be a boring race with a track of that size. And unfortunately, with the cars of this size, nothing’s going to happen. I think smaller cars would be better, but I don’t think it’s going to fix everything. Because 20, 30 years ago, it was the same scenario—not many overtakes. But quali is where the fun is in Monaco, and that’s even more reason to qualify well—then you don’t get stuck in the train.”
George Russell: “Monaco has always been the same. I’ve seen some of the proposed track changes that definitely will not make it worse, because… The small problem you have in Monaco is the one overtaking opportunity, which is out of the tunnel. The natural racing line is—you’re going from a left, braking through the middle of the track and then you pull over to the right. So, it’s very easy for a driver to position his car. But honestly, right now, I don’t have the answer. Maybe the manual override would be a solution and, you know, you’ve got to do all of this management through the race. And if you’ve got a lot more power just to pass somebody in an unconventional space, it isn’t going to make the show worse. But part of me just thinks we need to accept Monaco for what it is. Formula 1 is better by having Monaco on the calendar. It is the most exhilarating qualifying of the season. And the race is always pretty boring, but it also makes us appreciate the other races as well. So I don’t know, to be honest. Sorry for the long one.
Fernando Alonso: “I never overtook any car! Well, also, yeah, also Lance overtook Nico in the last lap. You know? You see one overtake every ten years. So great, you know? I mean, this has been the Monaco nature. I think Max spoke about this because you asked Max about Monaco, because the last thing that Max has in his head now is just the Monaco race. But there is this constant talk about how bad is something instead of how good is something. And this is Monaco. And I don’t think…maybe there are a couple of ideas that, between all involving the sport, drivers, FIA, teams, we can think about Monaco, but I don’t think that there is any need to think something. It’s only because, as I said, there is a lot of content now to be created, and drivers, we are too nice. So, we answer to every question. Because if 40 years ago, you ask, I’m sure, Senna and Prost, and they are fighting for the championship or whatever—about Monaco after one week, they would be less polite than we are now.”
Charles Leclerc: “I think it is interesting, I mean I don’t know all of Alex’s ideas. I have seen something really quickly on social media but I don’t even know if that is the full extent to what he proposed, I saw like three modifications of turns which I think is very-very interesting. Maybe the one Turn 10 that he proposed to delay [into] the sea is a bit more tricky to achieve, but the two others I think are good ideas. Is it going to significantly change the action on Sunday in Monaco? I honestly don’t think so. Do we need to make absolutely every possible effort to make it better on the Sunday? Definitely. But Monaco has always been like that.
“I think there is more and more talks also because now we have social media and there is a platform to share opinions which is a good thing in many ways but it makes a lot more noise and if you look in the past, Monaco has always been kind of race where the Sundays not too much is happening or less compared to other races. But qualifying in Monaco is unbelievable. And I think as a driver it’s really, really special, and that’s what makes Monaco so special. So, again, I will welcome any changes to make it better on the Sunday – but Monaco has always been like that.”
Esteban Ocon: “I think Alex has great ideas. Every single time we look at things with him, he’s got the racing driver eye, which is a very good thing. I think it would definitely go in the right direction. Would it be enough? Probably not. But I think he stayed on the realistic side, which is a very good thing. I think the best thing would be to have no chicanes and run it until Turn 12. But we need some run-off at Turn 12 to hope for an overtaking, have the DRS just after the tunnel and keep going flat out all the way to the end, that would probably the best thing. Looking at what Alex has done, it is probably the most realistic thing that we can do. It would go in the right direction, probably not enough. We all like Monaco as it is to be honest. I mean we all know it is always the Saturday race and after that it is different because it has its challenges and we know that it is the laps just before the pit stops and after the pit stop are the critical ones always.
“But yeah, it is Monaco and it doesn’t matter if it is boring race on Sunday, look how many people turned up. There was huge attendance, everybody was talking about the strategy change, we were as well because we were quite concerned that it will change quite a lot of things, in the end of the day, it didn’t really. You can’t really make it a race where things are going to happen overtaking wise if you can’t overtake basically, that’s the reality of it. It is Monaco, it is a different challenge and we like it for that, for Saturday battle, that start that you need to get right and those laps between the pit stops. So for us, that’s our race, from then on you just wait.”
Oscar Piastri: “I think the only way you can encourage overtaking at Monaco really is by changing the track in some way, shape or form, or making the cars half the size they are. They are getting smaller next year, but they need to be a lot smaller. Maybe we should just have a go-kart race around there, that might help. But I do think tweaking the track is the only real thing. Having more pitstops is obviously not going to change it as we saw, so I think that’s the most realistic route. But there’s also not that much space to do that either. I think the only way you can encourage overtaking at Monaco really is by changing the track in some way, shape or form, or making the cars half the size they are.
“They are getting smaller next year, but they need to be a lot smaller. Maybe we should just have a go-kart race around there, that might help. But I do think tweaking the track is the only real thing. Having more pitstops is obviously not going to change it as we saw, so I think that’s the most realistic route. But there’s also not that much space to do that either, so I don’t have any great ideas, and when you’re qualifying at the front and you’ve got a quick car, it’s alright the way it is.”
Alexander Albon: “I think they’re very sensible. I don’t know how Turn 1 is in terms of buildings and kerbs and what not. But I think Turn 1 could also… there’s a bit of a kink. I don’t know if you see how we turn into Turn 1, but there’s a closing wall on the outside of the track. It makes Turn 1 much narrower than what it could be if it was parallel the whole way through. So there’s also that, but I think that they’re sensible. I think half of the issue is that it’s braking downhill and it’s bumpy into that chicane. So it’s really hard to be that committed on the brakes to overtake the cars. So that idea of having the 80 metres and following it down the track to a braking area that would be flat would give drivers far more confidence to send it on. I think you’ve seen it, but as soon as you brake late, when it’s going downhill, when you add pitch to a car, which is then downhill, so you add more pitch, you create all this extra rear limitation in the car.
“That’s when you get these big crashes where cars lose the rear. So that would work well. Another thing, maybe, I don’t know if F1 would ever consider this, but we do DRS into Turn 1. In China and Japan, we’ve done that and it’s up to us to manually switch it off. I know they’re not really for these things, but if we had control over the DRS, it’s up to us, we want to take the risk to use DRS through the tunnel, then we can turn it off when we get through the corner and open it back up again as we exit. It could help as well; so I think there are some things we can try, or at least talk about. I wouldn’t know [about two stops], I think a one stop is clear that you always be able to manage the pace to some extent, a two stop, it would need something else to force us to drive quicker. I don’t what that would be, likewise if you make it three stops, we would do it three times, if you do four stops then four times.
“I think a two stop alone is not enough, there needs to be another layer to it. They are all parts to a..they are bandages to a bigger thing which is just that cars are bigger and Monaco is narrow, I don’t think Monaco has ever been a good racing track and it is never been easy to overtake but with these cars if you put the car in the middle of the track, there is no space, so it just shows how easy it is to defend now. Next year, we are going smaller, I just don’t know how it plays out. I haven’t asked the team where it falls out to Monaco as a width which is why Alex’s points are valid as well. At the minute it is too easy to defend in Monaco.”
Max Verstappen: “I’ve spoken to Alex – let’s see if some of these things can be done. A bit early to say anything about that now.”
Pierre Gasly: “I’ve seen it. I think at the moment we need to be quite open-minded in what could be done. I think, first of all, next year is going for 1.80m cars rather than 2m. Side by side you’re looking at 40cm difference, so it is better. It’s just going to bring it back to what it was a couple of years ago. Looking also at Formula 3, you still see it’s extremely difficult, so I think they need to have a look at widening some of the areas of the track. I’m not too sure. I’m not the one that’s going to find a solution. I think we just need to have a group of people looking into it and putting proposals on the table and just having a look at what’s better. But being on a track like that also, when you’re able to have lines where you can brake on the inside and move back to the other line, underbraking, is also helping. There are many things here I’m sure we can have a look at.”
Liam Lawson: “No, I haven’t [seen Alex’s idea]. It just needs something to allow more than one car width, which is what most of Monaco is. Our cars are quite big now as well compared to what they used to be so it just makes it very very tough to overtake. Obviously, in some ways you don’t want to change Monaco so much, there’s history behind it, the layout has always been similar. But at the same time, things are progressing and we probably need to do something, otherwise we will have this every year. I don’t think it [smaller car in 2026] is going to be enough, honestly.”
Gabriel Bortoleto: “I mean it is a track where you know historically there are no overtakes, for sure anything, to change the layout, maybe put a DRS zone or something will help. It is something to be studied, it is not that simple. I need to check exactly what Alex suggested, I have an idea but I don’t feel comfortable in giving an opinion about something…there must be some study behind, it is not that easy to change the layout of a track like Monaco. But there’s definitely need to be a change that happens something in the race because races like this year cannot keep happening. It is quite boring, a lot of people just playing team game and blocking everyone, no one going forwards, we were running 4-5s off pace, so yeah quite a boring race.”
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