{"id":855365,"date":"2025-06-13T19:12:44","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T00:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/13\/whats-next-for-monaco-after-two-stop-flop\/"},"modified":"2025-06-13T19:12:44","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T00:12:44","slug":"whats-next-for-monaco-after-two-stop-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/13\/whats-next-for-monaco-after-two-stop-flop\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s next for Monaco after two-stop flop?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Formula 1 figures are once again scratching their heads about what to do about the dubious spectacle of the Monaco GP.<\/p>\n

After the particularly processional and slow 2024 edition, this year\u2019s grand prix on the tight, twisty streets of the Principality was a mandatory two-stopper.<\/p>\n

“It was worse,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted.<\/p>\n

World champion Max Verstappen laughed to Viaplay: “Very exciting. I really enjoyed it. Really great.<\/p>\n

“Maybe we should make it three pitstops next year. Or four or five. At least the team would get some pitstop practice,” he added.<\/p>\n

“I mean, I could have done four pitstops and still finished fourth,” said the Red Bull driver. “For us it didn\u2019t matter at the front of the field.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, while the top runners had an actual race, the rest of the field was either deliberately slowing big trains of trailing cars, or stuck in those trains.<\/p>\n

George Russell even skipped over the harbour chicane to get past Alex Albon\u2019s mobile chicane, copping a 30 second penalty.<\/p>\n

“I was outside the points anyway and I just wanted to enjoy pushing hard in Monaco,” he said. “The irony is that I did 25 qualifying laps in the race and finished higher than if I hadn\u2019t taken the penalty.<\/p>\n

“So the system is flawed,” said Russell.<\/p>\n

Nico Hulkenberg agreed: “I appreciate that something was tried this year with the two-stopper, but it clearly didn\u2019t work. Not at all.<\/p>\n

“There were a lot of strategic things going on, but it didn\u2019t have much to do with racing.”<\/p>\n

Carlos Sainz told DAZN: “I\u2019m very upset with the race and with the sport in general.<\/p>\n

“15 years ago, there were penalties for manipulating the races. But now the whole race is being manipulated,” he said. “I hated going so slowly, but (Liam) Lawson put us last and second to last and it had to be done.”<\/p>\n

So with the unanimous agreement that the mandatory two-stop approach failed, what next? “Maybe we can throw out bananas like in Mario Kart,” Verstappen joked.<\/p>\n

“You can\u2019t race here anyway, so it doesn\u2019t matter what you do. One stop, 10 stops. I think with the cars we have now, you can only overtake a Formula 2 car around here.”<\/p>\n

Pole sitter and race winner Lando Norris is among those who think Formula 1 should simply stop trying to make the on-track action more exciting on Monaco Sundays.<\/p>\n

“I think it should be the person who drives the best race and deserves to win,” he said. “I don\u2019t even know why people have such a high expectation. I mean, it\u2019s not just a show to entertain people.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a sport.”<\/p>\n

Verstappen was actually the race leader until very late on, delaying his second pitstop in the hope of a red flag and a \u2019free\u2019 pitstop. “I\u2019m sure if we keep this going in the future, eventually a result like that will happen,” said Oscar Piastri.<\/p>\n

“But is that what we want to see?”<\/p>\n

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner thinks the only solution would be to actually change the Monaco layout. “We should try to create a braking zone at the exit of the tunnel or in the first corner,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The cars are so big these days that there\u2019s no chance of getting past an opponent,” added Horner.<\/p>\n

Wolff suggested: “Perhaps we need to introduce something like a maximum laptime so that certain opponents don\u2019t get so tactically tricky?”<\/p>\n

Albon – one of the deliberate laggards on Sunday – apologised to spectators afterwards, and agreed with Horner that F1 and Monaco should think about tweaking the layout.<\/p>\n

McLaren boss Andrea Stella commented: “What we need are smaller and lighter cars.”<\/p>\n

Racing Bulls CEO Peter Bayer was among the tricky tactical masterminds on Sunday, but he insists the F1 Commission thought long and hard about the new two-stop rule.<\/p>\n

“I can\u2019t really think of anything,” he told Sky Deutschland when asked what F1\u2019s next move should be. “If the track doesn\u2019t allow for any changes, then the only approach to intervene here was through the regulations.<\/p>\n

“There are other ideas like using only soft tyres or the C6, but at the end of the day, the reality is that you can\u2019t overtake here. No matter how fast you are, you can\u2019t get past these big cars.<\/p>\n

“The Monaco weekend is obviously incredibly important for the teams and for Formula 1. The fans, our partners, love it, and we have to try to improve the sporting aspect.”<\/p>\n

Former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher warned: “If things continue like this, it will eventually mean the end of the grand prix because the spectators won\u2019t accept it.”<\/p>\n

Another former grand prix star, Nick Heidfeld, also chimed in: “Perhaps they can look at something like a joker lap where you take a shortcut once or twice during the race.”<\/p>\n

Wolff, meanwhile, concluded by suggesting Monaco should simply remain unique, and that the most overtaking-obsessed critics “should take their racing glasses off” once per season.<\/p>\n

Hulkenberg concluded: “99 percent of the people in Monaco are here to drink champagne on a yacht. They don\u2019t really care.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

GMM
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Formula 1 figures are once again scratching their heads about what to do about the dubious spectacle of the Monaco GP. After the particularly processional and slow 2024 edition, this year\u2019s grand prix on the tight, twisty streets of the Principality was a mandatory two-stopper. “It was worse,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted. World champion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":855366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108745,947],"tags":[18993,8724],"class_list":{"0":"post-855365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-monaco","8":"category-whats","9":"tag-monaco","10":"tag-whats"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}