The Formula 1 season moves to its most iconic venue this weekend, with the eighth round of the championship taking place around the narrow streets of Monaco.
Oscar Piastri’s run of three consecutive wins came to an end in Imola last week as Max Verstappen took his second victory of the season after winning the Japanese Grand Prix on April 6.
The Dutchman finished ahead of Lando Norris and his McLaren teammate Piastri, with the Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc fourth and fifth after recovering from a disastrous qualifying display.
Piastri remains top of the drivers’ standings with 146 points, 13 ahead of Norris and 22 clear of Verstappen, with Mercedes’ George Russell 25 points further back.
Here’s a number of storylines to keep an eye on ahead of this weekend.
Is the Monaco Grand Prix becoming boring?
For so long the jewel in Formula 1’s crown, Monaco’s lustre has faded ever so slightly of late.
That is largely down to a perceived lack of excitement, which can itself be traced directly to the modern cars, which are far too large to allow overtaking through the Principality’s narrow streets.
Monaco averages 10 overtakes per race, by far the lowest of any track to have featured on the Formula 1 calendar over the past decade.
There were 13 overtakes in a wet race three years ago, 22 the following year again in wet conditions, while last season the top-10 remained unchanged from start to finish.
The processional nature of the race prompted Max Verstappen to remark he “should have brought his pillow”, but Lando Norris insisted Monaco retained its magic.
“It has been like this since Monaco started,” the Briton said.
“It is just people in the world that are more stubborn nowadays and they get frustrated there is not an overtake. Monaco is still special, it still means just as much as it always has for every driver and every team member.”
Earlier this year, Monaco agreed to a six-year extension running until 2031 to remain a staple of Formula 1’s calendar into the next decade, but something must be done to revive the excitement.
And on that note…
How will the new two-stop rule work?
A mandatory two-stop rule will be introduced in Monaco this weekend in a bid to make the race a less soporific affair than it has bene of late.
The principality’s narrow streets are particularly ill-suited to the current Formula 1 cars and make overtaking all but impossible.
In normal races, teams must use two tyre compounds but the introduction of two mandatory pit-stops – which, it should be noted, applies to Monaco only – will force them to get creative.
Last year, a red flag on the opening lap allowed drivers to pit immediately and switch to the hard compound, which most of them ran until the end of the race.
Can Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris end McLaren’s Monaco draught?
ou have to go all the way back to 2008 to find the last time McLaren won in Monaco, with Lewis Hamilton taking the chequered the flag in the principality for the first time.
This year, however, the Papaya heads to Monte Carlo as the clear favorite after winning five of the opening seven races.
Ferrari and Mercedes have both admitted their cars struggle in low-speed corners, of which there are plenty in Monaco.
Red Bull, winners at Imola last week, face a similar predicament with the RB21 far more suited to circuits with fast corners. It leaves McLaren as arguably the quickest car going into Monaco, where Oscar Piastri finished second to Charles Leclerc last season.
Can they make it count?
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc must build on Imola’s comeback
Imola was the proverbial weekend of two halves for Ferrari, which plunged to its worst qualifying result of the season as Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were knocked out in Q2.
But despite starting 11th and 12th respectively, the duo moved steadily through the pack on race day with the Briton finishing fourth ahead of his teammate.
Things could have been better still had Leclerc’s race not been undermined by the timing of the two safety cars.
Hamilton, who equalled his best finish of the season in a Grand Prix, believes there’s more to come from Ferrari, who is already 165 points adrift of McLaren in the constructors’ standings.
“I did think we would make an improvement this weekend with something I’ve fixed. And I think there is more to come,” he said.
“We just got to unlock the potential in qualifying. If we had qualified better, we would have been in the fight for a podium, which is something we didn’t think would be possible.”
Leclerc, however, remained more downbeat.
“I don’t think there’s any silver bullet to the situation we are in,” he said.
“We just need to work and try to understand where this problem that we have in qualifying comes from. Which is what is slowing us down at the moment, the Saturdays.”
Carlos Sainz and Alexander Albon looking to the future
Whisper it, but Williams may have finally turned a corner.
Fifth in the constructors’ standings with 51 points after seven races, the British team is enjoying the best season since it rounded out the top five in the constructors’ championship in 2017.
Bar a 12th place in Bahrain, Alexander Albon has finished in the points in every race this season, claiming consecutive fifth spots in his last two starts in Miami and Imola last week.
Carlos Sainz’s debut season with Williams has been somewhat more complicated, with the Spaniard retired in Australia and Bahrain and 14th in Japan.
But there have been signs of recovery for the former Ferrari driver, who has scored points in the last three races.
So, how far can Williams go this season? Not as far as one may expect, as the team is apparently determined to focus on developing next year’s car instead of upgrading the existing FW47.
“This car is not going to be developed,” Sainz said on Sunday.
“The car that we have is good enough to be on par with Mercedes and Ferrari at some circuits, like we saw in Miami and here.”
“It’s not good enough for other circuits, like Barcelona, you will see we will not be in the fight. Who knows in Monaco? We will see.”