The Monaco-Problem

The new Rule

Every driver has been obligated to Pitstop two times during the race. This change was meant to spice up the tactics and possibly the excitement of the race. Did that work tho? For me personally: Not as much as I hoped for. 

As mentioned in the beginning, there were an unbelievable two On-Track Overtakes, so in that regard, the missing excitement is obvious, HOWEVER, interestingly enough there is an argument to be held. Last season, there were only 10 position changes from Start to Finish. That was by far the lowest amount of the entire season. This season, however, there were 40, which is already this early in the season, only the fourth lowest. With Japan (20), Saudi Arabia (34) and Miami (37) the contention for the most boring race of the calendar might be a lot tighter than in recent years. Nevertheless, it's still far from the good tracks so far like Bahrain (54), Australia (63) or China (64). And it needs to be said, that every track so far averages a gain of about 11 position changes in comparison to last year

The problem for me personally isn't that the race doesn't seem interesting, I mean 90% of the time a bunch of drivers are really close together but the problem is, nothing happens off of that. Mercedes argued that they would need about a 5-second performance advantage to overtake on this track. Even then, when the driver then drives very defensively, there is barely a chance.

At the end of the day, this new rule maybe spiced up the strategy thing a bit but since everyone had relatively fresh tyres the entire race, it kinda limited the on-track action at the same time. Additionally for me personally Monaco lap times occur kinda randomly sometimes and with things like teammates creating a +20s gap to their teammate for them to pit lossless, it just seems as if rule changes like this don't really fix the cause of the pain but rather its symptoms.

What's the matter with the track?

... You might wonder. I mean:

• A: Why is it so hard to overtake here and
• B: Why is it still on the calendar then?

A

For A there is the elephant in the room, saying "It is a City Circuit; and therefore very narrow" which is true but not a valid excuse since Baku is also a pretty narrow City-Circuit with a 7,6m-13m circuit width but still averages a stunning 40 On-Track overtakes since 2017. The major difference despite Monaco being even narrower with only 7m to 10m width, is that there is barely any place to overtake. On every other track, you can mainly overtake either on the long straights or the hard braking zones like a hairpin or something. For Monaco that doesn't work.

©racingcircuits.info

We start from the first corner, the "Saint Dévote".

• From there the segment up to the casino does allow for high speeds but due to its "wobbliness" - I would call it, it's extremely dangerous to overtake because on either side your space decreases rapidly as Kevin Magnussen got to feel in the 2024 Monaco GP last year.
• As I mentioned hairpins are the next best way for overtakes in modern F1 since they allow for brave dives as heavy braking zones. For the "Grand Hotel" not so much. Out of the "Mirabeau", there is no straight whatsoever to gain any speed to allow for any heavy braking or any overtaking really.
• Exiting the "Portier" we go on to our next best full speed section. The "Tunnel" with the upcoming Harbour- or "Nouvelle-Chicane" which definitely is a heavy braking point. But just like the "Beau Rivage" the tunnel simply doesn't allow one to obtain a good view and going around the outside, despite including the dirty part of the track, contains a way further path versus driving on the inside. For the upcoming braking zone, one would normally try to sneak up into the inside of the corner and if that is being defended one would try a dive move with wider corner-entry. Since sneaking up the inside would mean you would probably have to go around the outside in the tunnel, makes it really hard. Therefore option two seems appealing but as y'all know we're talking about Monaco, so there's also no space for any corner-entry-variation.
• From our Chicane until the last corner, the "Anthony-Noghés", the problem is really the same as for the start of the track: No good straight or braking zone despite being very narrow all around. 
• Last but not least the finish straight is probably one of the best opportunities because since this straight allows for DRS you now carry a lot of speed coming up to the "Sainte-Dévote". However, it is "only" 0,5km/0,3 mi long. In comparison to that, the Bahrain Straight is about 1km/0,67 mi long.

B

For B the question ain't that easy but there are two reasons. 

1. Tradition. Monaco has been on the Grid since literally ever. It was part of the first Championship in 1950, dropped out but got back in in 1955 and has not missed a year ever since. 
2. M0n€y. It's a tax paradise at the Mediterranean Sea. Everybody lives there up to Jeff Bezos. What can I tell you...

Obviously, the tradition is the main reason that this track is still on the calendar :), which to be clear I don't generally mind but somehow our beloved FIA guys have missed out on their cars becoming wider and wider (and even wider), while also becoming a little longer. 

Can we fix it?

It's a both yes and no for this one. First of all the cars have to get smaller, that would help Monaco a truck load a lot. After that we need some Layout changes most definitely.

So as one knows me, I've tried to come up with a better Layout and I found this: (Don't mind my drawing skills, I quit art class in 10th Grade)

• About 700m longer, from 3,34km/2,07mi to 4,1km/2,6mi. Only on turn more but mainly adding Highspeed Sections.

New are:

• Corners #5 and #6 as an homage to the Baku City Circuit corners #3 and #4 just with even less space,
• The curved straight #7 with a relatively regular hairpin corner #8 allows for some sneak-in action and presumably thousands of overtakes :).
• Exiting #8 will get you to the Speedway-Exit, a highspeed corner #9 and its mid-speed brother, corner number #10. 
• Except for a delay of the harbour chicane back to where it was located in 1972, which is now corner #12 instead of #11 the track didn't change all too much
• including the Paddock etc. for a minimal expense

Do I know the exact conditions of the new streets tho? Not at all (even though I've been to Monaco before, but it looks so incredibly different on a regular day haha)

Is this layout ever gonna be used realistically? Probably not but did I do it anyway? Yes, cuz I like it so don't mind me.

Conclusion