Lewis Hamilton has joined several fellow Formula 1 drivers in calling for changes to be made to the Monaco Grand Prix, saying “I’m pretty sure people were falling asleep” on Sunday.
It’s true that the Monaco GP was a bit of a snore fest, overtaking was all but impossible and Max Verstappen even told his engineer Gianpiero Lambiasse that he should’ve brought a pillow with him in the car.
However, this isn’t anything new in modern F1 with the size of the cars poorly suited to Monaco’s tight circuit layout.
Moreover, the Lap 1 red flag locked the majority of the field into a no-stop tyre management race, which removed any sort of strategic excitement as well.
“I think it was non-eventful,” Hamilton said.
“I don’t know how it felt watching, but I’m sure people will fall asleep.”
Whereas the likes of Max Verstappen and Christian Horner have suggested altering Monaco’s track layout to liven the event, Hamilton had a different proposition surrounding the tyres.
After the majority of Sunday’s field went lights to flag after the restart without making a stop, Hamilton believes forcing cars down pit-lane could improve the spectacle.
“Ultimately, I think our tyres can do a whole race, so two harder tyre compounds here,” he said.
“We’ve got to find ways to spice it up, maybe mandatory three stops or something to spice it up a bit, maybe more.”
Hamilton’s solution is worth considering as for the first time in F1 history, the top-10 finished just how they started.
Whilst multiple mandatory stops may not affect the on-track spectacle, the strategy conundrum would at the very least give fans something to get excited about as drivers and teams work to push on in-laps, out-laps and executing pit-stop passes.
Still, if a unique pit-stop rule had been enforced on Sunday, Hamilton and Mercedes could very well have been caught out.
Hamilton forged a gap behind to pit and not lose a place during Sunday’s race and Mercedes called the seven-time champion into the pits on Lap 51, swapping medium for hard pirelli rubber.
The plan was to undercut Max Verstappen in sixth place, but Hamilton was not given the ‘out-lap critical’ message and would emerge behind the Red Bull when the Dutchman pitted on Lap 52.
Toto Wolff conceded that was a team-error, saying: “That was a miscommunication first between us on the pit wall that we got that wrong.”
Wanna spice it up? Have everybody race in cars from the 1950ies in Monaco. No radio, manual gears and thin tires. I’m sure that excitement will be guaranteed!
He’s right. I dozed off for a few minutes. Bring back refuelling and require every driver to use all 3 compounds during the race and no tire changes during red flags except for a single damaged tire.
My partner did nod off. And we were watching at a bar