MONTE CARLO, Monaco — Formula One must look at ways to evolve and adapt Monaco’s famous F1 race to avoid repeats of Sunday’s processional race.
While Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc provided a compelling storyline with his first win on home soil, the Monaco Grand Prix was a dull affair aside from the collision between Sergio Perez and the Haas drivers on lap one which briefly suspended the race.
That stoppage meant drivers were able to change tyres before the restart, meaning most did not need to pit again during the race.
For the first time in any race stretching back to the formation of the F1 championship in 1950, the top ten finished in the same position they started.
“It was a very static race,” Red Bull boss Christian Horner said on Sunday evening. “The top ten is as it started, the red flag effectively killed the race, because everybody just was going to run to the end of the race.
“It’s something that we should collectively have a look at. It’s not racing as such when you’re just driving around three or four seconds off the pace because the other car hasn’t got any chance of overtaking. Monaco is such a great place to come racing.
“But the cars are so big now that we just need to look at ‘can we do something that introduces an overtaking area’ or at least the potential of an overtake because the top ten is exactly as it started on the grid and not a single overtake in the top 10.”
He added: “It’s such a great place, so much history here, but everything evolves. The cars are so big now, if you compare them to cars of ten years ago they’re almost twice the size.”
Red Bull struggled throughout the week in Monaco, with Max Verstappen sixth, his lowest finish since the 2022 Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Red Bull has failed to win at two of the last three races, with McLaren’s Lando Norris claiming the Miami Grand Prix at the start of May, but Horner downplayed the idea the championship was suddenly wide open.
The Monaco result has moved Leclerc to within 31 points of Verstappen, while Red Bull now leads Ferrari by 24 points — both margins which are much slimmer than F1 fans have been used to in the past year and a half.
“There’s a long way to go, we’ve never taken anything for granted in the championship,” Horner said.
“This race is won on a Saturday and obviously we had a poor day yesterday. To understand what the issues were with the ride and kerbs we’ve got a huge amount of data now to go away and look at and look to address for the upcoming races.”
Source: www.espn.com